One of the things I was most looking forward to with the newsletter was sharing some of the exciting or interesting thing’s I’ve been discovering. I had been planning to write a newsletter post about writing tropes in order to discuses some of my favorites, but I’ve decided to push that post back.

Seven Series Book 2 (Name to be announced soon) has made some quick progress, and so the next post will likely enclose a better timeframe for release along with potential cover art! Until then, I thought it might be fun to share and suggest some of best media and entertainment I’ve discovered over the month of February. Not all of these (Actually, none of these), were released this month. However, it was only until recently I had discovered and put time toward experiencing them. I try to approach every song, book, or movie as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about storytelling, so my thoughts will also include something I noticed or learned. Ready? Let’s begin!

HOPE, the Album

I’m INCREDIBLY late to the party with this one. NF’s latest album, HOPE released back in April of 2023! Almost a full year! While I listened to the namesake song of the album in February 2023, I didn’t follow up on the rest of it when the full work dropped later that year. In truth, up until than point, NF was an artist that never quite felt exciting enough for me to come back to. While I believed he was an excellent storyteller through his music and his team’s production was beautiful, quite a bit of his songs felt incredibly similar to me.

However, I felt like the songs on HOPE as an experience was much more dynamic in terms of the emotions it offered and the subtilties within that emotion. While the songs HAPPY and GONE both explore a variant of sadness they aren’t bound from exploring that sadness from very different context’s and perspectives. While those two songs were my two favorite on the album, I would say that GONE just barely edges out HAPPY for me.

The song as a story and experience communicates both sides of what is suggested to be a mutual parting between romantic partners. The lyrics and the music production itself suggests both the ideas of deep turmoil or regret directly alongside a sense of peace and happiness for the other person’s well-being. This emotional and musical dissonance creates this atmosphere of intensity and layered passions. It is a song where concern for the other person is barely prioritized over one’s own desires. I believe this variant of sorrow is incredibly potent and relatable, because it is not completely devoid of hope. Only that the hope it provides does not further an end that either party had grown attached to.

It’s an incredibly mature look on events like these. This form of sorrow doesn’t house bitterness, but rather, optimism for another person’s future. I feel as though the story being told is powerful because of the sense of time, and how it continues beyond the current circumstance. The world will move forward, maybe not always in the way that we had intended, but it will move forward nonetheless. I believe this concept as a story is why this song became my favorite in the album, as the story it was told with capture these ideas brilliantly.

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End (Minor Spoilers)

Another bit of media I loved this month was Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End. Once again, I was late to the party. Frieren started airing in September 2023. Not nearly as bad as I was for the HOPE album drop, but still very late. Fortunately, the series is still airing, and so I’m now completely caught up!

I decided to give it a shot and was immediately intrigued with the world and story of Frieren. There are these incredible themes of both time and love that are directly presented to us at the beginning of the story. The stories namesake, Frieren, is an elf who’s lived for over a thousand years. For her, long spans of time for humanity are mere blips in existence for her. The first episode really highlights this, with an immediate fifty-year time skip. It lets you live for a moment in Frieren’s world, where time has such little value to her because of her abundance.

However, the story is slowly teaching her, and the audience, about the incredible value of time. For Frieren, time does not get its value from her own abundance, but rather, how scarcely it is granted to her human companions. Through this realization, she desires to learn more about humans, and the connections that build relationships. The whole series is layered in this sense of melancholy that the past has already gone by. The sun has already set and risen once again, but those who were once with Frieren no longer remain. However, the sun still rises on a new day—one where ambitions can be chased and the wonder of the world is still beautiful.

The story also does a brilliant job with characterization. For the majority of the cast, it leverages the classic fantasy stereotypes to slip in a few unexpected character traits, creating very charming and layered characters. Its an incredible demonstration on how to do a lot with very little time. How fitting for the story at hand!

Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

I’m not even going to mention how long ago this was released, as in was certainty NOT released in February 2024. However, recently, I noticed that over the last few months that I had somewhat fallen out of love with reading! The person who could easily devour pages in a single sitting suddenly found himself ever so slightly dreading the thought of picking up a book and flipping through the pages. If you can imagine, typing all of that out feels incredibly hypocritical! Partly due to the undertaking of my own writing projects, constant revisions, and the hustle to get everything for Seven Series Book 2 lined up, reading was something I elected not to spend time on.

However, every once and a while you’ll find yourself giving something a try that can reignite that love for reading! I started Name of the Wind only recently because of a suggestion (Thanks, Tyler!) and was instantly intrigued by it. The prose is wonderfully written in a way that feels almost akin to poetry. The romantic choice of words that Rothfuss uses to communicate an idea or scene is incredibly potent to driving home the important details that he wants us to remember. It’s such a deviation of my own personal writing style, and much of what I had been reading up until now. Reading Rothfuss’s work has really motivated me to try and dabble in a bit of a more romantic, flowery writing style, maybe in the form of a novella!

His magic system in the form of Sympathy is also brilliant in concept. The idea of linking items together via energy that fluctuates depending on how two similar the items are is genius. I haven’t gotten to see much of how it works, but I’ve already been inspired by the magic. I believe the magic feels so wonderous and incredible in large part due to the writing style, once again. It’s as though the effects of the Sympathy is all the more incredible because the writing makes it so. The story so far feels very intentional, and connected in the way that immersive stories are supposed to be. It really does feel like everything from the dialogue, the characters, the magic, and the romantic prose were crafted specifically to make this tale the most impressive and exciting it could be.

I’m hoping that next week I can fully announce both the name of Seven Series Book 2 along with the cover art!

Until then, keep dreaming!

Sincerely,

Joshua Robello