Sunday, May 13, 2018

A Week in Writing #194


Another week working on the next scripts for Powers Squared and writing reviews for Trophy Unlocked. I've put the mystery writing on hold until I get through the comic book scripts. At that point, we should be good for a year or more and I can get back to more in the series I've been writing. If my editor sends back revisions, I'll address those, but in the meantime, that series is on hold for new material.

Spent Saturday night at the Soraya at CSUN listening to one of the more successful writers, David Sedaris, perform. I think that's the right word for it. He read pretty much new things, ones written after he submitted his manuscript for his new book Calypso as well as a commencement speech he's giving at Oberlin College and Conservatory. He also read some excerpts from his current book, Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) and the follow-up diary book due out in 2020, I believe.

One of the nice things about his "concerts" is that he signs books before and after. I've heard that the after sessions can go on until 1 am, which is frankly later than I would want to stay unless there were refreshments. We were earlier enough to meet him before, which allowed time to autograph the six books I had brought. My favorite of his is "Thanks for making me rich." Am I the only one he wrote that to?

He sort of drove the conversation, asking me if I had any doctors in my family. I happen to have two brothers who are surgeons, which prompted him to ask me if I thought I could operate on someone. "No," was my answer which prompted his question, "What if it was someone you hated?" "If I wanted to kill them."

He did get around to asking about the people I was with, and I introduced my sons and my wife. He asked them what they did and when Paul told him he was working at UCLA Extension's Writing Program, he offered the advice, through the question, "Do you write every day?" to which the answer should be "Yes", which is my roundabout way of sharing this advice with you. During a Q & A session at the end, mostly with the house lights down, someone asked him about writer's block. His advice here was that he had never found a writer who had writer's block and that there was always something to work on, even if it didn't pan out in the end. He said he never thought that it would ever be easy and mentioned that he rewrites some of his essays many times, so don't think you're alone in that process.

As far as my writing goes, I've spent a good deal of time working on the first twenty pages of the next Powers Squared story arc, What's In a Name? Originally this was mapped out at 4 issues so there will be some slogging ahead. After that, is another story arc, The Imposter, so I'll be at this for the foreseeable future.

Our artist delivered pencils for the second set of 8 pages for Issue #7, but we haven't heard anything from her for a few days.

In related news, we finished editing the third of the interview videos I did for Powers Squared, though I'd like to have a release from the interviewer before we put them out, as well as get on with interviewing the boys. Scheduling is always hard with him so hopefully, we can get to it next week. Again, I think I've threatened to let you know when these finally start popping up on YouTube.

Finished the review of Sky High and am about 2800 words into a review of Seven Chances (1925), a Buster Keaton silent comedy, for Trophy Unlocked. On Mother's Day, we went to see Sunset Boulevard (1950) and used that as an excuse to watch Seven Chances, as Keaton does have a small bit in the film, on Friday night. Both reviews should be up in the next few weeks, but this weekend the Saturday Morning Review went to a review of the latest God of War video game. Check it out!


So, the following week is pretty well set, more on What's in a Name? and finishing my review for Seven Chances. Maybe more videos as well. At least that's the plan.

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