Email. My fingers can't handle a lot of handwriting anymore (osteoarthritis) and my handwriting is well nigh impenetrable anyhow (there is no truth to the rumour that Canadian spies use a font derived from my handwriting to obscure secret messages, though 🙄😉😀).
Pick up the phone (mobile or landline) or call using an app like Teams/Facetime?
As usual, Authors Publish kicked off the month with a round up of open calls and contests. Have a look at see if there's anything that suits your work. A lot of anthologies in this one, I note. Topics include a couple Romantasy anthologies from Flame Tree Press as well as mythology themed anthologies on The Valkyries and the Greek hero Odysseus (aka Ulysses); Poetry about the dead and related topics; aromantic relationship spec fic (friends, family, etc.); and an anthology on "hidden bargains, mysterious contracts, and eerie agreements". And much more, of course.
Quote by gillianleeza
Scott, my husband, makes date squares fairly often. Maybe it's a Canadian thing? I modify the recipe when our fig tree is producing pounds of figs to make fig squares. I like both kinds of squares.
Not sure. Don't recall if I have had them in other countries. There's two types that I have had. There's the ones I think you are talking about where the dates are in a jammy layer in the middle with a crumble on top. And the ones my mother made where they were in pieces in a firm, dense cake-like dough. I have a recipe around for the latter and my wife have made it occasionally.
How is it going out there, folks? Bit cloudy and muggy in my world. Air quality is better but still a bit off due to smoky.
Fresh coffee is brewed and teapots are filled. Cold bevvies are looking good.
How about cookies and pie today?
Good day, all! Long weekend here in the Great White North but we are kind of shut in here due to poor air quality (smoke from the wildfires out West). However, I am doing some writing and listening and stuff to relax.
Putting on some Haliburton Costa Rica Azalea coffee. For teas, we have an Organic Orange Pekoe from David's and also their David's Breakfast. Pitchers are washed up and refilled with fresh lemonade and unsweet iced tea. Sodas are stocked up. For the tummy and tastebuds, we've got date squares and brownies.
While I may seem to be the site's resident headbanger, I do actually listen to more than just metal. One of my new favourite artists is singer-songwriter-guitarist Mary Spender. Nice, smooth pop sound with influences ranging from rock to folk to blues. Besides putting out top quality music, Mary also has courses out on things like music production and songwriting, and does videos in various venues on musical topics. She recently did a documentary on the legendary UK rock band Dire Straits and landed an interview with the band's bass player for it.
Quote by verbal
I haven't read the story yet, but HEAVILY agree about writing about what you love (he said, having never written about baseball) (I do have a small but about my love of playing catch in the novel).
Hmm. So for me, that might be a symphonic metal band with a cellist and a fantastic Dutch lead singer on a fantasy quest. Though a D&D party comprised entirely of bards is likely a bit of a losing proposition. 🤣
Here's an example of a band with a cellist as a member. EGRES is a Finnish indie band that I discovered through a member on another site who is friends with the band's founder and whose sister was their original lead singer and lyricist. She had to move on to other things (including having a baby) so this live video features her successor Hanna Lahtinen on vocals.
One of the biggest surprises as I got deeper into the world of metal a few years ago, is just how popular cellos are in the metal scene.
There's Apocalyptica, a Finnish cello trio backed by a rhythm section who play both covers of classic metal (they are touring a Metallica tribute right now) and original songs.
There's Chinese-American cellist Tina Guo, who apparently got into metal in university and now guests with metal bands fairly regularly as well as doing her own shows at metal festivals. She was quite present and active at Wacken Open Air in Germany this past week.
And there's some bands out there that actually have cellists as session players or members.
So, for my latest story, I tell the tale of a cellist who is presented with a chance to do metal. She's a student, so fairly new, and the band is a local up and coming group. And the band's singer is a bit of a hottie, suggesting more than music might be involved in this tie-up.
https://www.storiesspace.com/stories/realistic-fiction/heavy-cello-love
Some music that kind of suggests where I am coming from with this cello and metal thing.
First up, a recent video from German band Lord of the Lost with Tina Guo joining on cello (and she actually uses her acoustic on this one).
From Wacken Open Air 2019, Tina joins Swedish history-themed power metal band Sabaton for one of their biggest songs. She's electrified on this one.
Apocalyptica live featuring the wonderful Dutch metal mezzo Simone Simons for their original song "Rise Again".
And finally, from this year's Wacken Open Air, Tina and Apocalyptica team up for a Metallica cover.
Quote by WriterGirl
Read it… and… although I liked your comp piece a lot, I LOVED this one, but happy you didn’t cut it down to size. You love metal so much, you should write more stories around it.
Well, this is my second in under a year (Scream Away The Silence from the Sound of Silence comp is the other). There might be more to come. We shall see. And some of my other stories have metal on the mental soundtrack I have for them (e.g. a couple of the Tana stories have Nightwish songs as "soundtrack" and the character of Tana was envisioned at one point as being played by their current lead singer).
Quote by rolandlytle
Tina Guo celloist
Here she is in full metal mode, joining the Finnish metal cello group Apocalyptica for a Metallica cover (something Apocalyptica kind of specializes in, though they have some good original material, too). This was one of the first official videos released from Wacken Open Air this year, one of the world's largest metal/rock festivals and regarded as a "Mecca" for metalheads. Nice to see Tina at Wacken again. She actually opened the festival not too many years ago.
Quote by Meagananne1986
Congrats. We had ours lengthened and widened a few years back.
We kept basically the same layout, just switched from brick to concrete. Easier to maintain and do snow clearing.
I am ... looking forward to visiting a rock festival in Germany (by livestream, not live) tomorrow morning.
Quote by Meagananne1986
Egad! My 'Contestant' badge shows 6 instead of the correct 3 competitions that I have entered and to make it even worse, the 'Competition' badge section shows FIVE, count them, FIVE (!) 'Summer Love' badges. Hopefully, one day, the techs will get everything tuned-up correctly so that the correct numbers and badges show for people.
Eek! I checked my badges and if I add up Contestant, Competition Runner-Up, Competition Top 10, and Competition Winner, it does match my competition badges so I think I am good. I notice the image for "New Year's Do Over" is MIA but I think that's been that way for a while and I've already reported it.
I assume the weird number on your Contestant badge is related to the proliferation of "Summer Love" badges so hopefully fixing that will fix both.
I've done both. For my current office, the answer is neither. Would need at least 3 buses to get here on our f-d up transit system and too far for bicycle commutes. However, I have done both in the past and certainly bike has its advantages and is more enjoyable. But in Southern Ontario, there's also winter and only certain very hardy cyclists brave that.
Cat or dog?
