Sunday, March 26, 2023

A Week in Writing #449 - Report from the Front: WonderCon 2023

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing.

Well, it's that time of year again, the start of comic book conventions. I know that while every city or town of any size, it seems, has a convention of some sort, we tend to stick to the big two, WonderCon and Comic-Con, mostly because they're local. I wish I could attend more but there is only so much time and money to go around.

This past weekend was WonderCon 2023 in Anaheim. My sons and co-collaborators on Powers Squared attended on Saturday. The drive down took about an hour and then it took another hour to park the car. So, there was at least one panel I missed. However, I did attend one panel that I believe speaks to my situation and might speak to yours as well, should you be a part-time creator like myself.

The panel was called Balancing Your Day Job and Your Passion Project: A Survial Guide, hosted by Mallory Shoemaker and Jordon Dene Ellis. If you were really interested in Mallory and Jordon, then this was probably the panel for you. A lot of the time was spent talking about their own experiences, which while not universal ones are similar to most part-time creators. Too many ideas, too many projects and not enough time. Neither, I take, are making a living off their projects as both are happily fully employed at Adobe.

The take away from the panel were five tips:

1) Done is Better than Perfect

2) Don't monetize everything

3) Take Breaks. You need them.

4) Pick and Choose your projects

5) A Day Job Doesn't = Failure

These are all good things to keep in mind, though I wouldn't mind monetizing something I'm working on.

The fun part of cons, at least for me, is learning new things and meeting friends who are also there. We did manage to walk pretty much the entire floor and ran into several people that we've known from past cons, including Don Nguyen, Stephen Silver, Steven E. Gordon, and Patrick Ballesteros. We didn't talk to Patrick, he's always very busy, but he did, later in the day, email us and agree to be on our podcast in April, so there's something to look forward to.

Now, it's back to the real world and remembering #5 from above, not feeling like a failure.

Because of WonderCon, no new reviews from me this week. My film day is Saturday and after walking around, accumulating nearly 10 miles worth of steps, no one was in the state that could take watching a movie. We'll get them next week.

That doesn't mean Trophy Unlocked closed up shop. The Saturday Morning Review was Trevor's review of The Aristocats (1970).

I know the official name of this blog is 1000 Words a Day (Easily to complete the url), it is rare that I hit that feat. It is more of a goal. When I'm writing a review that seems to be fairly easy to hit, but with fiction it can be a bit harder. However, earlier this week, working on the oft-overlooked Skylar, I hit the mark and went a little beyond as well one night. It was a matter of having time and starting early, something that didn't happen for most of the rest of the week. I did however, tackle some of the things I've been alluding to in this blog about the story, so there is more work to do.

I started having some second thoughts about Past Present, not so much the story but some of the situations in the story that might need to be updated to keep up with technology, which has changed since I first wrote it. The same about Broken People, but for that one, I'm waiting to see if I get a bite before going ahead and making any updates. That said, or written in this case, I didn't send out a query for Past Present, though I did for Broken People. I also DNRd a couple of queries from January that would seem to have expired without feedback from an agent.

Our podcast this past week, was our March 2023 Team Meeting. Artist Julia Canon and letterer (and co-creator) Trevor Hankins joined Paul and me to discuss the state of things and where we want things to go. We're talking Kickstarter but that will be much later in the year. If you're curious about the state of the book, you can listen here or watch it on Wednesday here.

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

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