Not into nu metal? How about some progressive folk rock from Norway? Kalandra is a band that just came to my attention this year but they have been around since 2011 when the core trio came together while attending college in Liverpool, UK. This song was written by Helen Morrison, a university friend of theirs and former member who lives on the Isle of Man.

Two years now since Linkin Park returned with vocalist Emily Armstrong. This was their second single off the album From Zero and packs the same punch it did then. Emily's epic scream has gotten better, if anything. From an upcoming live album and film shot in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Opposites can sometimes be attractive.

Quote by verbal
Pitching my novel at the beginning of October, at a writing conference. I've never pitched anything before! I don't expect to get signed or anything, but you gotta start somewhere. It's good practice.

Good on you. That's a start, anyhow.

Hi, all. Been messing around with ideas but not getting much out this year. Right now, I am trying to re-engage with my forever writing project, the female "Robinson Crusoe" that I have mentioned before. Still wrestling with the lead's backstory but I have the island kind of sorted with some help from Claude, the LLM AI. Basically described the island and some spots that I've already used in drafts and Claude made me a map. Makes it easier to visualize where she's going and that sort of thing. I think I got the size right, too, at 300 sq km (115 sq mi). Enough that she can get around but big enough to make it a challenge and to provide a hiding place when she needs one. Tobago, in Trinidad and Tobago, for instance. And Malta is just a bit bigger.

Quote by rolandlytle

I hope everyone is doing well. Do any of you find that, as you write a story, the characters quickly take over and start writing the story themselves?

Sometimes. I've had characters who kind of "helped" me shape their story before. Those are sometimes the easiest ones to write. They flow more easily at any rate.

Good evening. Wet one here, today. Seems like it will be fine now through the weekend, though.

I kind of got out of the habit of doing these but I am still on the Author's Publish mailing. This month opens with their usual mixed bag of themed call and contests.

What is there?

Well, Flame Tree Press is looks for stories for anthologies, two romantasy and two mythological fantasy.

And if you're a woman or gender-fluid and over 50, The Green Sheaf is doing an issue on The Crone.

Flash Fiction Online is doing a "Human Shaped" theme, about being like robots and monsters that look human, but maybe are not

Heartlines is looking for stories about longterm relationships, not the blaze of new love, but the love that endures. Platonic, romantic, and familial relationships are all welcome.

And that's just a tiny sample. Here's the full list:

https://authorspublish.com/50-themed-submissions-calls-and-contests-for-september-2026/

Good

Zombie - The Cranberries

Center yourself around your values.

Quote by verbal
Happy three day weekend to all of you, except the Canadians, whom I'll wish a happy two day weekend.

We get Labour Day, too, actually. Had a nice weekend here. Mowed the lawn (with all the rain we've been getting, it's growing like crazy). Took my laptop on the deck to write. A couple nice long walks.

Mostly focusing on a new project for the other site (you know the one) but also have something happening that might be a novel? Or novella? It's kind of insane because I am kind of building it in a haphazard fashion. Like I just thought of a scene that could go in one spot that would eliminate a short flashback in another so I am going to slip it in ahead of that scene.

Basic plot is a young woman (19) and her father dealing with the loss of their mother/wife in a car crash that also left the daughter with serious injuries. A lot of it deals with the daughter and how she puts her life back together with the support of friends and faith. There's a strong romance element, too, as she struggles between two possible relationships, both old friends. Might get a bit sexy as that part heats up. Still haven't decided how much "spice" (as the romance writers call it) this should have. Maybe too little for (censored) but at the upper limit of here.

Weird thing is, this began as a project just to get myself writing. Now it seems to have taken on a life of its own and I'm finding it hard to pull away to work on other projects. There must be some kind of emotional resonance between me and these characters (besides the father, there's their church's minister and a bunch of the daughter's friends).

Okay one more. I see I posted "Run" from the upcoming second solo album Hytress (a combination of "Hybrid" and "Huntress") by Dutch powerhouse vocalist Floor Jansen. The second single from the album is "Bring Me Silence" which, ironically, ain't very silent. The chorus is actually quite a banger. But she got to ride a horse in the video (her hobby, she owns a couple horses herself) so I guess that brought her some inner peace.

In terms of less ambitious, but also very musically interesting, two of my favourites from the past week are:

"Crocodile", the latest single from Blue Medusa, the current project of Canadian death metal singer Alissa White-Gluz. The band is her on vocals plus a pair of female guitarists. The rhythm section (drum, bass) are session players, not officially band members, and also both women.

And from American powerhouse band Evanescence, another video from their recent album Sanctuary.

Yeah, so after saying I was listening to less metal, my posts so far are all from some style or other of metal. Oops. 😳 It's true though. Today I mostly had prog on while I was writing. Really.

My listening is kind of all over the map right now. I pulled back from my engagement with metal, refocusing on genres like prog and some artists from other genres that I enjoy. That said, one of the most fascinating and amazing musical journeys I have been following comes from progressive metal. The Norwegian band Green Carnation has released a work called A Dark Poem which consists of three albums released over about a year. Part III came out last week and concludes with a 16 minute orchestral suite to wrap up the whole thing. This track is from A Dark Poem, Part III - The Messiah Complex.

Atmosphere has too much carbon.

Quote by verbal
I hope someone wants to play wiffle ball besides me.

Well, that's a new one on me (thanks be to Google). I hope you find some more players, too.

Yeah, this place is getting very quiet. I've been busy elsewhere myself. Even the pace of story posting has slowed.

I keep trying for something but they all seem to stretch out and I don't really want to get into some epic multi-parter right now. A lot of what I had on the go has lost my interest. I just zipped up a bunch of them and stashed them on my backup drive, then deleted them from my working drive. Want to be able to go back to them but they are basically just clutter right now.

PBS Eons, a YouTube channel about Deep Time and evolution that I follow, is now doing a series with PBS proper about "Life and Death in Pangaea". It about life during the Permian Period up to and including the mass extinction, the largest in the world's history to date, that ended it (sometimes called "The Great Dying"). First two episodes are good. The first covers some key developments in evolution in the late Carboniferous Period that shaped the life of the Permian. The second looks at the pelycosaurs, the dominant land vertebrates of the first part of the Permian, including the famed Dimetrodon (no, it's not a dinosaur in spite of an old misconception). An interesting thing is that these beasts were synapsids, the group that includes modern mammals like us. The sauropsids, which includes modern birds and reptiles as well as the dinosaurs, did not really come to prominence until after The Great Dying.

This is the first episode, available on the PBS Eons YouTube channel:

And the full series will be on this page on the PBS website. 1 & 2 are up, remainder will be released weekly through August. Americans can get it on the PBS app, too, I believe.

https://www.pbs.org/show/eons/

Day off here in the Great White North. We generically call it the Civic Holiday and it falls on the first Monday in August. It's basically an excuse for a long weekend between Canada Day (which isn't always even a long weekend) and Labour Day. Different places call it different names and celebrate different things. I'm just crashing and enjoying the free day off.

Coffee is refilled with dark roast Costa Rican beans. Teas are Irish Breakfast and Earl Grey Cream, with hot water ready if you're craving something else. Cold beverages are stocked up, so there's pitchers of lemonade and unsweet iced tea along with an assortment of sodas.

Quote by verbal
We went to Rockygrass for my birthday this weekend. Insanely fun. Talia took me out to a nice steak dinner last night for my actual birthday.

Happy belated birthday!! I'd say that I hope you had good one, but it sounds like you did. 😊

Nice day here. Bit warmer than I like but not terrible. I smell smoke but it's probably local, someone with an outdoor fireplace or something. Air quality is 2.

Writing away on various things as time allows. Might talk more as I decide which ones will actually get written and which might go here.

Week is over. So is my vacation (well, except for the weekend). Getting some fairly normal July weather for here, so high 20s Celsius. Nothing too excessive, at least, though getting a bit warm for me.

Quote by verbal
I haven't watched much of Project Monarch, but it has some interesting lore too.

Yeah, I'm hearing more good things about the Monarch TV series than about the recent movies in the series. Of course, we went through that with Marvel and Star Wars at points, too (franchises where the TV shows got better than the movies). Cool that they had Kurt Russell and his son playing the same character at different ages.

BTW, Andy is the guitarist (and a helluva good one, right up there with other great prog guitarists like Steve Howe and David Gilmour) and Jess is the singer with long black hair to our right of him.

Been listening to UK neo-prog band Solstice for a rather sad reason. Their lead vocalist of the past six years, Jess Holland, is calling it a day, deciding she wants to focus on teaching going forward. She will finish this year's remaining concert dates but it has now turned into a farewell tour of sorts. Founder and band leader Andy Glass is quite clear the band is still happening and he is looking for a new lead vocalist. The band normally has c. 4 vocalists, a lead, a couple backup, and a violinist who also sings. This is because their speciality is very rich, beautiful harmonies.

One of my favourite Solstice tracks from the album Light Up, Jess' second of three with the band. This performance is from a set they recorded at Grand Chapel Studios.

From the same set, the album's title track.

The backup singer on our left is Ebony Buckle who is someone I think could take over the lead role. However, she has a career of her own and hasn't been in some of their recent shows, so may not be an option.

Good evening. We can never have enough space missions to the sun given the possible outcomes if a major solar event heads our way (fried satellites and hydro grids for starters).

Had a gorgeous day here. 20C, low (for July anyhow) humidity, breezy, sunny, no smoke. Felt like we had rewound back to late May or early June. Took advantage to get the lawn mowed since it looks like more of a mixed bag going forward.

Bardem is playing Max Cady, I assume? That alone is great casting. I love Bardem. I am also a fan of both movies so am curious about them doing it as a series. Don't have Apple TV, though.

At home. I suppose theater for something like The Odyssey that's in IMAX.

Cut flowers or a flowering plant?

Quote by gillianleeza

Hazy, hot, and humid here, so nothing new. The air quality alert is new, at the purple level. I was unaware that there was a level above red. It's mostly due to the Canadian wildfires. You can smell the smoke when you step outside. I immediately started coughing, so I will be indoors for the foreseeable future. I don't need an asthma attack.

I hope everyone has a good weekend. Cheers.

Yeah, take it easy out there. Been like that here since Wednesday afternoon but improved this morning (dropped from 10+ to currently 3) so hope it improves down your way, too. There is still a yellow alert up for our region so a chance it could return, I guess.

Fresh coffee and tea are on. Goodies are stocked. What besides the world smelling like a smoky bar is up in your world?

He's baaa-aaack. Actually, we've got both a sequel to Godzilla Minus One titled Godzilla Minus Zero and another Legendary Monsterverse Godzilla x King : Supernova coming. The Legendary movies seem to be leaning into the old Godzilla vs. approach of the Showa and Heisei era Japanese movies, except with Godzilla and Kong as a team. Meanwhile, Godzilla Minus One went back to basics with Godzilla stomping the hell out of postwar Japan and looks to be continuing that with Minus Zero. Of course, the thing that made Minus One standout was its handling of the human characters, with a dramatic story of a pilot with PTSD from World War II and a woman he befriends to help raise an orphaned child amidst the rubble after the American bombings in the late stages of the war. Godzilla is almost a plot point rather than the focus.

The teaser for Minus Zero:

Weekend coffee is brewing and there's Assam and Scottish Breakfast in the teapots. Fresh lemonade and iced tea are in the fridge, as is a selection of craft sodas. Freezer has ice cream and ice cubes for your drinks. And there's goodies.

Spider. Quite fond of my eight-legged neighbours. Though I'm pretty mellow on bees now. Wasps on the other hand ...

Spooky ghost story or funny, silly ghost story?

Depends what I am doing. For writing and similar, laptop. For reading or catching up on news, a tab.

Preferred mobile system: Apple (iPhone, iPad) or Android (Samsung, Google, etc.)?