Sunday, July 5, 2020

A Week in Writing #306 - Treading Water


Some weeks are more productive than they seem on the surface. I'd like to think this past week was one of those.

There was a lot of work on Powers Squared this past week. Our artist sent us thumbnails like she does at the beginning of the month for the next 8 pages of the story. Paul and I went through those and did our usual this from column A and this from column B and sent it back to her. She then sent us 5 revised pages to look at, which we did. I know that doesn't sound like much but it's all part of the process.

We also did a Google Hangout on Friday morning with our artist, Rachel Wells, and colorist, Julia Canon, the first we've had like that in over two years. It was in 2018 that we started doing A Week in Powers Squared videos, which have become more varied over time. As an example, for the next few weeks, we'll be showcasing Google Hangouts starting today with the one we did with Andrew Copeland, the co-founder of Artithmeric last Sunday. After that, it's some individual Hangouts with our artist and our colorist, then we have a couple of more Character Profiles and then the Google Hangout we shot on Friday.

Paul and I sat down on Friday and brainstormed some ideas for our weekly Podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. We came up with about 20 topics to discuss. One that we had explored with our creative team was doing another Ask Me Anything, which we had done two years ago with Trevor and Rachel participating. However, when I went to research that website, I found that site was gone. We had a link to it on our website, too. I was able to recreate the questions and answers from that session and made a downloadable file out of them. But that doesn't really help with producing new content.

In addition to that, there is the newsletter, The Hound Dog's Howl. We have been trying to feature creative twins once a month. We're open for candidates but few have taken us up on our offer. When that happens, we've had to look for creative twins to write about. Last month it was the Winner Twins, sisters that write science fiction together. This month, it was a write up about Masashi and Seishi Kishimoto, mangakas from Japan. Naruto and 666 Satan respectively. This required a little bit of research on my part.

Speaking of research, I didn't make much headway with the agent search this week. I wasn't avoiding it but I was trying to help out Paul by reading a pilot script he had to write for a writer's program he was applying for. We even did a table read as a family so we could all hear it as well. I think it was time better spent, as the query disappointment will always be there but he had a July 1 deadline to meet.

I did manage to keep working on my rewrite of The Runaway, even going so far as to actually finish the draft last night. I did make it slightly longer though it's still shy of 90,000 words. There is still more for me to do as I think I need to add some pieces here and there, including introducing a character much earlier than they currently appear.

No new reviews this week. Our draining the DVR amounted to episode 1 of the new Perry Mason series on HBO. This won't be a real review, especially based on one episode, but this is a real example of IP fatigue. If you're too young to know, Perry Mason was the subject of a series of books by Erle Stanley Gardner begun in the 1930s and was the subject of a primetime series starring Raymond Burr which ran from 1957 to 1966. In all of those, Mason is a very successful defense attorney. However, in the new series, he is apparently a private detective. The series is set in the 1930s which is interesting but Mason comes off as a weak man and a failure waiting to happen. I'm not the one making the decisions at HBO, but I'm not sure the reason to bring him back and not have him be a lawyer.

Trophy Unlocked, though, wasn't devoid of reviews, with Trevor providing two for video games, Transformers: Devastation on Wednesday and SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom - Rehydrated (PS4) on Saturday.

Well, I guess that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you here next week.

No comments:

Post a Comment