A Week in Writing #219

The afterglow of the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference hasn't quite faded and I'm still very much into the rewrite of Broken People (fka A Killer Blog). I'm trying to work as quickly as I can through the rewrite as I would like to get it in order before the holidays take over completely.

This is actually the part I enjoy though I don't want to be rewriting forever. I know there are things that need to be cleaned up after I combined two versions into one. While I tried to make sure actions matched up, they don't always as neatly as I'd like them to.

As I believe I've written before I'm updating one novel while I'm waiting (impatiently) for my editor to get back to me with new pages on Familiar Stranger. If he's reading this, and I doubt he is, come on already.

While I had been waiting I had taken on some other rewrites. A Killer Blog caught my attention since it sort of dealt with something similar to the recent arrest of a doctor and his girlfriend who would drug women and record the sex that followed. In the first version of A Killer Blog, which had also been called Personal and Professional at one time, the premise was that J.D., the private investigator,  and the protagonist of the story gets involved in investigating a murder of a political blogger when a former newscaster he meets asks him to help her with the story that she hopes will get her back on the air. She is off the air because while on vacation with her husband she had a menage-a-trois with another couple that she didn't know was being videotaped and uploaded on the internet.

This did get some interest, though I didn't find an agent for it. I then tried another version of the story, where the newscaster is a waitress he meets and while she helps him with the investigation, she is not his client. Instead, the client is the murder victim's fiancee who, like the newscaster before, doesn't believe the police have arrested the right murderer. I wrote this version after an agent accused J.D., and through guilt by association, me, of being a misogynist, which I felt was misguided but caused me to write a "cleaner" version of the story.

Now, I'm bringing back the waitress as a disgraced newscaster, who rather than being a willing participant in the menage-a-trios was drugged and a victim. Since this happened before the #metoo movement she is still fired over it. In addition, the blogger's fiancee also hires J.D. to look into the murder, sharing with him some of his research. Blending them together is a little more than just drag and drop or find and replace. It's also giving me a chance to do some other edits, trying to bring in some of what I learned last weekend into the rewrite.

I also did some work this week on the final film noir review for November, or Noirvember as it's known in some circles on the internet. As part of the month-long celebration of the dark side of cinema, Conflict was published on as the Saturday Morning on Trophy Unlocked. The other three are ready to go so we can now turn our attention to the next holiday celebration, Christmas. Since we got a late start on Friday, we watched a short film, The Tailor of Gloucester, which Trevor will review. We have two other films in mind but are still missing what the fourth one will be. (If you have any ideas please leave a comment.)

I'm thinking of trying to set up an Instagram for Trophy Unlocked. I think it might be another way to attract readers to the blog, which is coming up on two milestones, 900 reviews and 8 years.

Powers Squared was not forgotten this week. Our artist, Rachel, sent Paul and me the final tiffs for the first eight pages of Issue #8 as well as thumbnails for the next eight pages. As discussed previously, we go through two versions and pick A or B by page and sometimes panel by panel. This time it was mostly B with a couple of A-versions in the mix as well. She also pointed out an issue with the script that Paul and I had missed. Nothing too major but it was still good of her to point it out.

Nina, our colorist, started working on the first eight pages of #9. She asked us to ask Rachel to make a couple of updates, which she made the same day, which is really cool.

Trevor is getting close to finishing Issue #8 but I still need to supply him with an image for the credits page. But things are moving along on all cylinders.

Paul and I sat down for our sixth A Week in Powers Squared YouTube vlog. This time, we actually talked a little bit about the concept and premise of the story, hoping that it might interest our viewers, to actually want to read the book.

So that was the week that was. I'm planning on calling my editor tomorrow to try and shake some pages loose. In the meantime, I'll continue to work on Broken People.