Sunday, July 29, 2018

A Week in Writing #205


Well, as sort of predicted, this was a low energy low creativity week for me. I really don't know why but the week post SDCC is always hard. I've read other writers, who attended, complain about the same thing so I guess I'm in good company.

Sadly, did very little writing this week, finally towards the end picking up the script to a future Powers Squared issue. It occurred to me, sort of out of the blue, that no one is ever held accountable for some people dying in the story arc and that just didn't seem right for a superhero story. When I went back in to fix that, I started rereading and rewriting from the start. I'm sure what I do isn't unique but when I read something I've written I try to read it not so much as it is on the page, but as how it should sound. That leads to other changes and I'm still going through that process.

One of the things I was looking at, was trying to improve my panel descriptions, because of the panel I took last week. I'm trying to do some work on them but when we talked this week to our artist Rachel Wells, she indicated that she likes the descriptions to be somewhat vague because it gives her more leeway. So I guess I'm trying to find a balance since I find I'm using "Continuation of Action" too much.

While we want to continue to have an active YouTube presence, we still want to do a similar video with our colorist, Nina Gaillard, Paul wants to do something different from them all being interviews. It's a good idea, it's just how to do that we're discussing. Perhaps some sort of trailer for the comic book. Stay tuned.

On the creative-side, Nina delivered the last four pages of Issue #7 as well as the cover. Those were forwarded to Trevor for lettering. Rachel delivered inks for the first eight pages of Issue #8, gulp, so that's moving forward as well. Really appreciate all of their hard work on the book.

No new reviews from me this week. Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review went to Trevor's re-review of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. It's a good thing to have multiple reviewers sharing the responsibilities.

Still, no word from my editor on Familiar Stranger and I've been derelict lately on re-reading the ending of Paperback Detective. I have been playing with an idea for a new J.D. Barrister story, though I think there are older ones that still need work. I don't know yet where I'm going but I will, of course, update you here.

On the subject of writing, I had lunch on Friday with a couple of women who used to work for me at Sony Pictures. It was something that was long overdue and I'm glad we were able to reconnect. One of them, like me, is a writer, though she writes in a different genre, YA. We briefly touched on the unpleasant side of writing, the query process. Like me, she doesn't want to self-publish so we have to go the traditional route and get an agent who will represent us to a publisher. It is a very tricky and, more times than not, unfulfilling activity. Everyone has their own war stories, so to speak, and it was nice to commiserate a little bit about that with another writer.

Whenever Familiar Stranger gets worked out, I'll be going through that process myself. I view it as a necessary evil thing you have to go through if you want to make it. And we all want to make it.

Well, I'm hoping to get back on track this next week. Until then, keep writing.

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