Sunday, March 21, 2021

A Week in Writing #343 - Too Soon?

 

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

The too soon this week could mean a lot of things. Too soon to see results? Too soon to go back out in public? Too soon for the grass to grow? That last one is more personal and again, this isn't a gardening blog.

Maybe it's too soon to see results. I was good this week, I did send out a new query (pat on the back), this one including not only a synopsis but a bio and marketing points as well. I'm not really comfortable with the latter stuff. But it seems that anyone creative nowadays is supposed to be some sort of expert as to marketing their work.

I always thought they had departments, groups, and companies that were the ones who would handle that and know how to reach the right people. But with writers and creatives on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, we're all supposed to know how to reach a crowd or else have one ready-made for our next project. I came across a writer I follow who noted he had 29K followers. He must know something I don't, I guess. It also seems to help that you've succeeded at something. Nothing spells success like success and people tend to follow those who are successful. I know this sounds like a lot of gobbledygook that you've probably heard a million times but there is some truth in it. The higher your profile the more people you'll attract. The secret sauce is raising your profile.

Enough of my ranting for one blog.

The week started out pretty good, as on Monday, I managed to hit all three projects. I worked on the synopsis I needed, looked at new color pages of Powers Squared, and finished a review for Trophy Unlocked, in this case, Judas and the Black Messiah. Since that went up today on the blog, let's start with that.

While it seems like what I'm writing doesn't always appear right away on Trophy Unlocked, this week it seems like it was all me. On Wednesday, it was my review of King Kong (1976), on Saturday it was my review of King Kong (2005) and today, it was my review of Judas and the Black Messiah.

I also worked on and finished two more this weekend, Kong: Skull Island and Trouble in Paradise (1932). Kong: Skull Island will appear on Wednesday, as part of our MonsterVerse leading up to Godzilla vs. Kong coming later in the month. And no, we're not going to see it in a theater but rather stream it on HBO Max. It is too early to go back out in public. There are no films worth dying for or taking the risk of getting really sick for.

Also spent some time this week getting ready for our interview with Gamal Hennessy, the author of the recent book The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing and a VP at GlobalComix. I think the interview went well. If you want to hear it, you can at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

Next week, we're revisiting a creator down in Australia, Lucas Scheffel, the man behind Angry Fred. He has a new Kickstarter coming and he wants to talk about it. Should be fun.

I also set in motion the process of getting Issue #11 and #12 published. We've been sitting on them too long and need to get them out. But before we do, it's a good idea to get a proof made to see what they really look like, so I sent off the files to both Ka-Blam and Artitheric. Do I see an unboxing video in the near future?

With my other writing, let's start with querying since I've already ranted about it.

I had to take one from open to close and not because I heard back but because I hadn't. We all know my displeasure with the new standard of "no response means no" approach that many agents take with new writers. The no feedback means you don't know if what you sent sucked or it wasn't right for them or they didn't even read it. Most feedback isn't great, let's face it but you want to make it better the next time or else you'll keep making the same mistake over and over again not knowing or changing something that would have worked because you never got any feedback on it at all.

My goal is to do one query a week until I have five "active" ones out there. As of right now, I have three. I want to leave myself room to punch it up if the spirit moves me and not have shot my whole wad at one time by sending out fifteen or twenty at once, since you can't get those back.

With Skylar, I've started to go back through it. If too much time passes between writing on a book, I sometimes have to get a running start and basically go back through it from the start and change things that didn't work or don't seem to be working for me now. This is the case with Skylar; I'm starting back at the beginning. I've even changed the way the woman in the story looks, having gotten some inspiration on that front. Every night I think about the book, it's just that not every night do I get to write on it. My goal this week is to work on it more days than not.

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

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