A Week in Writing #372 - Provocative Title Here

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

Took a couple of vacation days this week. My sons were having their birthday on Tuesday. As it turns out, I had one of those really good days of writing on Tuesday. To begin with, I finished my review of The Case of the Lucky Legs, wrote over 1500 words on Skylar, wrote up a 577-word feature for the Hound Dogs' Howl newsletter, and made some minor updates to Mission Istanistan, the next script for Powers Squared. These kinds of days don't happen all the time, so I really appreciate them when they do.

It felt good to get back to work on Skylar, so I kept working on it all week, I don't have a word count but I think I made some good progress, a combination of rewrites and new passages. I'm toying with the idea of changing the name of the book at some point, and I might even change the character's name, too. I'll keep you posted.

The work I did on the newsletter was good to get out of the way. Even though the newsletter is only once a month and fairly standardized, it's still a couple of hours of work, not including the feature on twins that we would do. If you want to see what we put into it, you can read it here. If you do, and like what you see or just want to be encouraging to a struggling writer, you could always sign up here.

So, the high I was feeling from Tuesday came crashing down to Earth on Wednesday, which was query rejection day as it turned out. Received a negative response from one of the agencies I had queried back in the middle of August. "Thank you for sharing your work with us, and for your patience as we reviewed. While we enjoyed the idea behind Broken People, it doesn't seem like quite the right fit for our list, so we've decided to step aside."

Not sure what to make of that. Most likely a form letter. I  really doubt any agency sends out a "you suck" email, so I'm guessing this is a form and they drop the name of the submission into it. Sounds encouraging but non-committal, the best of both worlds, from a rejection email for the agency to send, not to receive. Always disappointing no matter how much they sugarcoat it, a rejection is a rejection.

While I was updating my query list, I decided to call another one, sent the week earlier than this agent. It's been more than the 6 weeks they claim to need so another DNR for me. So that makes three "active" queries and only time will tell if I hear back from them.

I usually try to query on Thursday, but this time it got pushed. I believe I was working on Skylar and maybe on some other project but not a query insight.

No new review this week. We ended up watching a couple of documentaries on early animation on TCM then something I feel like I could review. It's not that I haven't reviewed documentaries before but somehow the review would have been more about the animation shorts and I didn't want to get into reviewing all of them.

That doesn't mean that I won't be represented on Trophy Unlocked this week. This is going to be James Bond Week on the blog. The idea was to do some reviews leading up to the new film. Even though we're not going to be going to the cinema to see it this week, it will still be a tribute to the character. Even though we went to a restaurant recently for the first time since before the pandemic, I don't think we're ready to be theater-goers just yet.

We did kick off our month-long salute to Halloween with Trevor's review of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. This past GameDay Wednesday was Paul's review of Antichamber.

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

A Week in Writing #358 - I Know, I Know

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing. For those of you in the U.S., I hope you had a Happy and Safe Fourth of July.

The subtitle isn't about my knowing the answer to an unasked question but rather my own realization that I mislabelled the post. I had it as #157 instead of #357. I don't know what I was thinking and just happened across the error sometime mid-week. If you ever see something like that again, please leave me a comment or something. So embarrassing!

So, confession time and we should get this out of the way right off the bat, I did not send out any queries this week and the ones I have out have probably expired on the vine. My goal is to do those on Thursday night but that turned into a couple of hours of reviewing thumbnails and character designs for Issue #19 of  Powers Squared.

I know I talk about that every week and it is days like this past Thursday where it takes over my schedule. We're starting to work on a new issue with our artist and I don't want her to think we're ignoring her efforts by not looking at what she sends us. The exception to that is anything sent on a Friday doesn't get looked at right away, 'cause hey, it's Friday.

And I know last week I was bemoaning the lack of pages that had been colored and that, at least for now, has been rectified as we're finally up to 8 pages. When we started doing the book, I envisioned it the artist drawing eight pages each month with the colorist about a month behind and the letterer a month behind that. Of course, it's never worked out that way and right now, the colorist is a couple of months behind the artist.

I don't begrudge her or anything. She did just start working full-time and needed to get back into a rhythm with the coloring. Hopefully, we're back on schedule, though, as I wrote about a month or more behind. It's not like we have a tight schedule since we're about seven issues ahead of the releases.

Even though it's the fourth, we still had a newsletter to write and we did get it out this morning. As always, I hope one of you reading this might sign up for it. It's FREE and it only comes once a month. You can sign up for it by enrolling at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc.

We had a good OAPS show on Friday, with Julia joining Paul, Trevor, and I as we did a table read of Issue #19. I thought it might be fun to really go into more depth on how we put together an issue. While a table read isn't really part of the process, it is a chance to introduce the script. You can listen to it at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

We're about five away from doing our 100th podcast. I think it's like the first Friday in August. We're not sure what we'll do yet but it is a sort of a momentous occasion. Don't worry, I'll be reminding you of this several times before we actually get there.

If you read Trophy Unlocked during the week, you'd notice that I sort of took over the blog, at least for five days as we gave a salute, of sorts, to pre-code films. Monday's film was Her Man (1930), followed by Chances (1931), followed by The Last Flight (1931), followed by Trouble in Paradise (1932) on Thursday. We finished the week with The Sign of the Cross (1932), Cecile B. DeMille's ode to debauchery and Christianity.

And now for something completely different, on Saturday it was Paul's review of Holes to round out the week.

I started work on another review, Crime School (1938) but I'm not as far along as I'd like. Really got tired last night before I could get very far.

During the week, I did manage some more work on Skylar.  With this version, I'm up to 16,598 words and I think it's going better than previous rewrites. I try not to set too many goals, as I never seem to make them, but I'm hopeful I'll get further along. I feel like I'm on a roll this time (and I know I've said that before, but this time for sure).

Well, I think I've covered the main topics.

Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #342 - Going Global

Hope this finds everyone staying safe and writing.

Okay, I should probably start off with that I mean by the title; I don't want to bury the headline. This weekend, actually today, which is cheating a bit, we put up the 10 issues of Powers Squared on a new service to us, GlobalComix. We were introduced to the service through Gamal Hennessy, the general counsel and vice president of content for a new comics distribution and marketing. We met him through his recent Kickstarter and a week or so ago, had a one-on-one (two-on-one, as Paul also attended) to discuss marketing for Powers Squared.

The site allows readers to simply open the book online rather than download an app to read it. We've made the first five pages (which includes the cover) free and we're hoping to get some exposure and readers on the site. If you want to look at our collection there, https://globalcomix.com/c/powers-squared. That makes five platforms where issues can be purchased, so I think we're set.

One of the bits of advice Gamal gave us was to try to sell to libraries. That sounded like a good idea and we tried, with Paul contacting someone at CSUN, his and Trevor's alma mater, about buying the graphic novel. Well, we were turned down flat but it the nicest way possible. Apparently, they only purchase from a single middleman, the name of which she gave him. However, I don't think we would make much headway on our own, so I turned to Artithmeric, the publisher of the graphic novel version, to see if they can make any headway in that regard. I figured they would have better luck than we would. They seemed interested, so hopefully, something will come of it.

In other news, our artist is starting on Issue #18 and sent us two sets of thumbnails, which Paul and I went through on Thursday. It's not her fault but I had other goals for that night, like sending out another query but ran out of time.

This was a busy week on Trophy Unlocked, even though none of the reviews were from me. This week was a salute to walking simulators with Paul's review of Gone Home on Monday, his review of Tacoma on Tuesday, his Second Look at The Stanley Parable on Wednesday, Trevor's review of Dr. Langeskov, The Tiger, and The Terribly Cursed Emerald: A Whirlwind Heist on Thursday and Paul's review of The Beginner's Guide on Friday.

These all lead to a crossing of the streams between Powers Squared and Trophy Unlocked. On our Friday Podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, Paul reviewed the book House of Leaves, and the next day published his review of the same book on Trophy Unlocked, the first such book to be reviewed.

This week, I finished the two reviews I was working on, Peter Jackson's King Kong and Smart Woman (1931). The Jackson Kong review is going up next Saturday, so look for it. I also started a review on Saturday night that I finished on Sunday for The Secret Six (1931); again, no publication day set.

So now we're down to the nitty-gritty, actual writing of books and that's where, once again, I fall short.  I did work a little on Skylar but really only enough to make me realize that I need to redo some of what I've done so far. The investigation part of the book, it is about a private detective, is rather dull so I need to punch it up with something like a murder. Trust me, I can make it work with the story but it definitely needs something.

I need to punch up a synopsis for Broken People this week. A lot of the online queries want one. I don't think it will be all that hard, since I've written them for various versions of the book but I do need to make one that I can send. I'm never sure when in an email query an agent wants a synopsis but when they ask for one to be attached to a query online, there's no way around that.

I guess a bit of good news is that the two I have out haven't been rejected yet, so hope is alive.

Well, that about wraps it up for me. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week.

A Week in Writing #314 - Still Working It

Hope everyone is staying safe!

Well, another Sunday night and another chance to look back on what I have and haven't done this past week.

Let's start at the beginning, no queries yet. I'm still researching agents, trying to do this round the right way. I'm using QueryTracker to do some of the initial research, having decided that my genre is actually crime (sometimes lumped in with "genre" fiction), which helps narrow the search. But it is still time-consuming to go to every website and read each agent's bio. What I'm looking for is if they mention Crime as something they actually handle.

I'm trying to collect a list and color code the agents from Green as ones I want to query, Yellow as ones I would query and red as ones that I won't at all. The colors are based on a couple of factors: Do they handle Crime or genre fiction? Are they located in the U.S.? What is their position within the agency (if there is more than one agent)? And, of course, are they open to queries?

Red is pretty much reserved for people who don't handle crime or genre fiction at all. An example of a red agent is one that QueryTracker pegged as handing Crime but their agency bio says they are, in fact, "interested in narratives in the areas of business, history, memoir, popular culture and science, books that help us live our best lives, literary, book club, and historical fiction." This agent, who will remain nameless, is marked as red.

Green is pretty easy. The agent handles Crime, they are located in the U.S., they are the only agent at the agency who I would query and they are currently open to new queries.

Yellow is a bit trickier. In this category are agents not located in the U.S., but rather the UK. The reason for this is one that a UK agency listed on their webpage "we require an excellent reason as to why you’re querying a UK agent rather than one in your home country (and ask you to include this reason in your email)." It seems like a hill I don't want to have to climb if I don't have to.

The agent is closed to queries - sort of a no-brainer. Most, though not all, eventually get caught up and are back in the hunt for new writers, so those are yellow for the time being. I say most because there are always those agents who only accept queries from people they've met at writing conferences or are recommended to them by someone they already work with. There is no getting to these agents, so they would be red in my book, rather, my query spreadsheet.

And there is the quandary whenever there are two or more agents at an agency that I could possibly query. It depends on the agency, but I usually shy away from the head/owner of the agency in cases like this. Maybe I'm wrong but I figure they're probably harder to attract seeing as they've got employees and business to attend to, in addition to looking for new talent. Someone on staff is probably more accessible.

It differs by the agency but some want you to only query one agent only. The idea is that if internally they think another agent at the firm would be a better fit, they'll send your query to them. My gut feeling, based on no insights, is that if one agent passes, even if another agent might be a better fit,  the query probably ends up in the round file rather than in the other agent's inbox. I would make one agent green and the others yellow. You never know, there will be other books and I might be trying the same agency but a different agent next time.

There are a few that welcome you to send it to another agent if one declines, so in that case, both agents would be coded as green.

Am I making it sound too complicated?

As they say, it only takes one to believe in you, they just never guarantee there is one out there who does.

So much for queries. The research has taken up a good portion of my "writing time" this week and probably the week or two ahead as well, as there are only so many bios and websites I can get through at once. And believe it or not, while doing my day job I'm not dreaming of researching agents. That's not what I live for.

I did work sporadically on the next J.D. Barrister book, currently titled Skylar. I'm about 9000 words into the first draft but I think I only did about 500 words this week. (I know, the blog is called 1000 Words a Day but that's a goal, not a hard and fast rule.) I'm still feeling my way through this one.

This past week, I did complete a new review for Trophy Unlocked, The Great O'Malley (1937), part of our drain the DVR Saturdays. As always, not sure when this one will appear on the blog. This past week had been Phineas and Ferb Week, with six reviews about various IPs related to the series: Phineas and Ferb (Game), Phineas and Ferb Ride Again, Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, Phineas and Ferb: Across the 2nd Dimension (PS3), Phineas and Ferb: Quest for Cool Stuff (360), and culminating on Saturday Morning with Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe. (And, yes, we signed up for Disney+ to see this on Friday, twice as a matter-of-fact.

The next two weeks will be devoted to Tony Hawk games, so get out your skateboards and game controllers and join the fun.

That takes us to Powers Squared. The end of the month means everyone turns in their pages and, of course, their invoices if they hadn't already. Our artist has wrapped up Issue 15, our colorist is about 12 pages behind her and our letterer is on the final pages for Issue #14. Everything needs to be reviewed and approved. The next storyline is a three-part arc, Mocha and Raven. The story idea is from about 2014 but rewrites were done this year to knock it into form.

As I wrote earlier I was working on it, my second episode script was "finished" enough that I felt free to show it to Paul. I seem to have a blindspot for formatting. I'm not going about these the right way, I'll be the first to admit. Since these are based on already written stories, I'm not doing the springboards, premises and outlines the way you're supposed to. I just wanted to get some more experience writing one and finishing up the storyline from the pilot seemed the right way to go.

If and when I attempt another script, I will try to write something that is not based on a published story and go through the proper process, letting Paul be the showrunner in that case. But I really think we need to work on our Pitch Packet now before any other scripts for the proposed series.

Well, I think that's a good place to stop for this post. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

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.

A Week in Writing #246 | Things Don't Always Go as Planned

I had high hopes about this week. With Powers Squared's first signing out of the way, I thought I would be free to pursue other writing, like The Runaway, query letters and reviews for Trophy Unlocked. Some of that went off the rails by a private disagreement. I won't go into details, but a professional relationship that had lasted about ten years came to an end. I don't name names in this blog and won't do so this time, but it involved Trevor and his work being valued.

It wasn't the disagreement per se that caused the problem, it was all the falderal that went with it. The time spent writing and rewriting how to respond and the sleepless night that ensued. If I get into a disagreement late at night that really ruins my sleep and one sleepless night can ruin a week as the next evening I'm too tired to get much done. I know I sound like the Princess and the Pea, but so much of the time there is a very thin line for me between sleeping and being totally awake.

I did start to work on The Runaway again but didn't get much done. I had an idea that I wanted to introduce early in the story and reference later. Inserting it was more awkward than I had anticipated. I made the edit but I can't say I was all that happy with it. I still need to spend some time on it, so finger's crossed for next week.

No new pages from either artist on Powers Squared, which is not unusual for the work. They both have work to do and I trust they will do it. Trevor, meanwhile, has caught up with the lettering. Two of the last four pages didn't require his work but that, too, is not unusual. Powers Squared is generally pretty talky, but sometimes there are whole pages without any dialogue.

We did decide this week to try our hand at a local convention. We looked briefly at Long Beach Comic Con, which takes place in August. The costs start at $300 and just seem to go up from there. Not only would we have to get resale licenses from the state, but we would also have to pay for things like electricity, and wifi on top of the fee. I don't think at this point it would be worth the cost. We might get more names on the mailing list, but I don't think we would make back the money or come close. At least not yet.

While the LBCC might be a bridge too far, we did decide to try The San Fernando Valley Comic Book Convention, which takes place next month, June 2nd. It's a one-day convention and lasts only six hours, but we thought it would be a good starting point for us. A way to get our feet wet at a reasonable price.

We ordered enough copies of Issue #1 to replace what we sold on Free Comic Book Day, so we're pretty set. We drove by the site this weekend to see where it was. It's a dining hall in a shopping center, but from small things, big things one day come. The goal is not to sell comic books, which we wouldn't mind at all, but to add names to the mailing list.

I did manage to work on reviews for Trophy Unlocked, including one for Blondie Johnson, a Joan Blondell film from 1933 and one for Heat Lightning (1934), which I'm still working on. Both are very short films, 69 and 64 minutes respectively, and will appear sometime in the future. Currently, we're running a month-long salute to Batman. My review of the 1989 feature ran this past Saturday on the blog. Check it out and let me know what you think.

I have high hopes for next week, I mean you have to stay positive, right? I'll be back to report on everything next time. So until then, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #244

For the first time, in quite a while it seems, this was a more balanced week. Still heavily weighed towards Powers Squared, there was still some time left for other "literary" pursuits. But let's dispense with the big dog on the block first.

To begin with, there is the signing coming up next week. If you're in the San Fernando Valley on May 4th, the co-creators and I are having our first ever signing at the Galaxy of Comics store at the corner of Louise and Saticoy. If you're on the mailing list, or follow us on Instagram or visit the website, you may have seen our banner. If not, here's a peek:

Everything seems to be either in place or in delivery mode. Our final order is still coming in but should be here early next week. Otherwise, we should be ready to go.

We're trying to look at this as a sort of con-lite. While I would like to sell out all the issues we'll have, I'm not sure how realistic that will be. Everyone tells you to have low expectations. The goal is to get names and emails for our mailing list.

To that end, I started the coursework at ListLaunch, part of the service that we started at the beginning of the month. I sat through my first two sessions on Wednesday night and there is still many more to come. We need to have a more robust mailing list before we attempt a Kickstarter, which we need to do.

If you're interested in joining the mailing list and won't be at the May 4th signing, you can get on the action here: https://mailchi.mp/dc302d04a252/powerssquared. We'll include you on our weekly newsletter featuring all things Powers Squared.

Speaking of which, it's been a busy week as far as the comic book goes. Rachel has sent us four new pages, penciled. Paul and I asked her to make a few changes, which she did. Part of the process is to discuss the look of the panels she sends us versus what we had in mind when we wrote the script. Sometimes, I will admit, that we're looking for changes when we see her artwork. When we can, we try to send her a photographic reference to use. Usually finding an image we're looking for is only a Google search away. This week, I came to find that that is not always the case. There are some images that are out there, or else, I don't know how to describe it properly.

If you're like me, and you lived in a time before mandatory seat belts, you most assuredly had this happen to you: the car is in traffic, your mother is driving and you're sitting in the front seat, which is where you sat back in the day. All of a sudden, your mother applies the brakes hard. There is nothing that stops you from hitting the dashboard, except your mother reaches over and with only her hand, holds you back. I mean, who needed seatbelts? Well, I was looking for that image to send to her but could not find one on the internet.

The best we could do was that Paul and Trevor, who had no reference to that either, remembered a similar gesture in the manga and anime for My Hero Academia. Paul managed to take a photo off his computer from the TV show and after reversing the image, we came up with this:

All Might is doing the gesture we tried to describe to her.

Our colorist is preparing more pages, which we should have before the month is over.

In addition to work on Powers Squared, I managed to complete a review of Batman (1989) which will appear next month. Trevor had the idea of making May Batman Month on Trophy Unlocked. We have all the reviews written so look forward to that next month on Trophy Unlocked.

This past Saturday, we published a review Trevor wrote of Whiplash, a videogame for the PS2, so we're going back aways in time with that one.

I also managed to write a little more on The Runaway, but not enough to write home about, though I will mention it here. I also sent off a couple of query letters for Broken People. My goal is to send off a couple every week. Got to keep that dream alive as well.

I'm sorry I don't have more to report, but that's all for this week. Until next week, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #243

Writing time this week, like I predicted, was spent working on a five-day Kickstarter Challenge run by ComixLaunch. The assignments weren't really all that hard, just time-consuming. It required me to listen to a one-hour live Facebook lesson every day at work from 11 to 12 and then at night write up what I needed to provide.

A good exercise, not only did it get me to write a new bio, but also write up a story about my creative origins (as they relate to Powers Squared), think about where I want to get to in five years, think about the next milestone and then map out what I know and, more importantly, don't know about a Kickstarter project. I also had to play tag team with another creator, Josue F. Kure, who has his own comic book which he is producing called Bloody Reaper Comics. Kind of cool to connect with him and others in the challenge. Good to get out of my comfort zone.

For Powers Squared, we made some progress towards the signing we have scheduled for May 4th (Free Comic Book Day) at Galaxy of Comics (ours won't be free). We received the banner we ordered last week on Friday and put up an unboxing video on our YouTube channel. It's pretty cool. If you want to see the banner, it's the Peek-of-the-Week on our website. While you're there, answer the poll question and sign up for our mailing list. The second newsletter has gone out, you don't want to keep missing out, do you?

Trevor delivered the next four pages of Powers Squared, so he's caught up with what our colorist has delivered. By the end of the month, we should have more pages from both Rachel and Nina and the show goes on.

Paul, Trevor and I shot our weekly vlog this afternoon. Since there weren't a lot of pages to discuss, we spent a good deal of time in a discussion of the 21 MCU films so far. It was an idea that we had after a spontaneous discussion earlier in the week about the same topic. Paul captured the essence of the discussion in a post on Trophy Unlocked, Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe (So Far).

Speaking of Trophy Unlocked, I published my review of Life of Pi as the Saturday Morning Review. Mine was the last review of the three films we watched on our recent plane trip to Dallas at the beginning of the week. I also started, barely, a new review for Batman (1989), which will be a part of Batman Month on Trophy Unlocked, starting on May 4th.

Managed to do a little writing on The Runaway and sent out two more query letters for Broken People. Had that "Oh s---!" moment when I realized I had a misspelled word, one of those where it should be "that" rather than "than". Damn. Of course, no word back from any agent I've queried since my rejection letter. So now there are four out there, though I suspect the first two are "lazy passes", meaning the agent will not write back to tell you they're passing, you're just supposed to realize it on your own. One of them was the agent from the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference that I really wanted, but I guess the feeling wasn't mutual.

Next week, I'll be sending out press releases for our May signing; wish me luck. Hopefully, time for other writing as well. In the meantime, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #214

Like most weeks, this one came with its own set of issues, not all of which were bad. To begin with, this past week was sort of birthday week at our house. I had mine on Tuesday and both Paul and Trevor had theirs on Friday. (My wife's is in a few weeks away in October; get your cards ready now.) And, yes, we're all Libras in this house. I say all this to note that there were some other things that took time in order to get any writing done.

That's not to say that I didn't do any this week. Most of the time has been spent on the rewrite I mentioned the last couple of weeks, taking an old manuscript (fka A Killer Blog) and updating it to take into account some recent news items that could be assimilated into the story. My method is to print out the pages and then read them with a pencil in hand and editing as I go. I try to be less enamored with my writing and more critical.

I've gone through about 350 pages so far and it is a little less than 500 pages. Since this has gone through several (and I mean dozens) of previous rewrites, as I'm going through I'm remembering chapters from other versions that I want to incorporate. When I get to sit down at a computer with my notes I'll be sure to go back and find those chapters. I'm looking forward to the process. Since this has been edited several times prior, I don't think I'm going to send it, again, to my editor and may try to shop it around.

Speaking of my editor, I did actually call him this week and tell him I'm ready for more pages. He even said he had more to send but as I'm sitting here recounting my week, I'm still waiting. It's hard to strike the right balance between understanding people are busy with other things than yourself and having to wait for days, weeks and months for them to deliver. If I didn't like working with him and appreciate his insights, I would have walked away months ago.

No new reviews were written by me this week, not enough time to really sit down and do one. I have several in progress and with no new movie from Friday, I'm hoping to have some time this week to finish one. Since we're heading into October and our annual salute to horror, I need to finish Get Out, though I do already have one ready to go.

For the latest Trophy Unlocked Saturday Morning Review, I published one for Aladdin (1992), the film most notably voiced by the late great Robin Williams and the source material for Disney's latest Broadway triumph.

So this brings us to Powers Squared, the oft-written about and apparently seldom read comic book that we've been working on for years now. We published the Promo created for us by Your Motion Comic on the website and then republished a slightly different version on our YouTube Channel. Someone we had shown the video to before had a comment after it was published, which made sense so we had the change made and uploaded the new version on Saturday. We lost all of the views, so if you have seen it, please view the new version here. While you're there, please Subscribe and ring the bell. Also, comments and likes are always welcomed.

Part of the reason to subscribe is so that you'll be aware of any new videos we publish. Paul thinks we should put up one every week, so we'll see. It will sort of be a Week in Powers Squared type of Vlog and sometimes will just be me and sometimes, we hope, will include others on the team. See our first one, me and Paul here.

Speaking of the YouTube channel, I really hate having to work with Google on these things. The first time we tried to upload it not only logged us into the wrong channel but on its own changed the name of the Powers Squared channel. Every time I have to log into the channel, all of my other logins get hosed and I have re-login to Google under a different ID so I can get to things like this blog site. I am having to re-edit what I wrote, since somehow, even though I saved it, the blog post was not all saved. (I'm blaming Google just because.)

This week, with a little help from GoDaddy, and I mean little help, I was able to get the Poll question to work on the website. I hope to do a weekly poll question with them being related to the comic book so some of them will help if you've read it. GoDaddy had first directed me to a free poll website, but it turns out it doesn't work with their software. When I chatted with someone on Friday about it, they at first said they weren't hosting my website, so that was not a good start. They finally came around but said they couldn't help. I did manage to find one, PollDaddy, which is an unrelated service and was able to get the poll to work.

On other Powers Squared news, our artist, Rachel, sent us the last four pages and the cover to Issue #8 as jpegs on Wednesday. She does this in case we have any other last minute changes. There was one panel on one page that we wanted to be redone and I sent her an email that night with the change we wanted to be made. After a couple of days, I started to wonder why we hadn't heard from her. Turns out the email got stuck in my Drafts and didn't send. When I found it on Saturday afternoon, I sent it to her and by Saturday night she had made the change and sent us Tiffs. Those have been put in the Dropbox for Nina so the cycle continues.

Our letterer, Trevor, made a few minor changes to a couple of pages so I made a new .pdf for Issue #6 and #7, the latter I sent to everyone on the creative team.

I'm not going to send the new issue to our contact at comiXology until after New York Comic Con because he hasn't responded to my emails about Issue #6 from other a month ago. No reason to put me through the aggravation of waiting for an answer that will not be forthcoming.

There seems to be a lot of waiting when it comes to writing. A lot of waiting, so get used to it.

A Week in Writing #213

Another week with less than glamorous results as far as pages and reviews go. Didn't have the same excuse as I did last week but for reasons, I never did get around to everything I thought I would. And like last week, that isn't to say that things didn't get done, just not as much as I would have hoped for.

I've been negligent in my review writing. To begin with, I still haven't finished The Secret of N.I.M.H. and I've even started another one, Get Out, for Trophy Unlocked's annual salute to horror films in October. I'll probably still have to complete N.I.M.H. sooner than later but I'm not sure we'll actually need it as I have some other animated film reviews on file. On Saturday, the 20th anniversary of its release, we published Paul's review of Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island.

Work continued this week on Powers Squared. We discovered a couple of glitches between the script and the story if that makes sense. We had the boys doing some things they couldn't based on the circumstances of the storyline and previous artwork. Our artist, Rachel, had found one and we had discovered the other. Luckily, it was only two panels and Paul came up with a really good solution that everyone was amenable to make. So we're getting close to the end of the artwork for Issue #8.

Nina, our colorist, is not too far behind. She normally works one month behind Rachel and is on target, having already delivered half of the pages. I'm hoping to give her Indiegogo project a bit of a boost by mentioning it here. She has her own project, a Children's book, Talia and the Droplets and you can support her here: www.indiegogo.com/projects/talia-and-the-droplets#/.

Related to the colorist, I had a rather aggravating issue with PayPal when I tried to pay her. At the beginning of the month, our main credit card was compromised with over $600 worth of charges, including about a dozen Uber trips no one has taken and two train trips, not to mention some Groupon and Jamba Juice charges as well. Well, one of the charges I questioned, which I made through PayPal, proved to be a legitimate charge. I didn't recognize the company receiving payment as the one I thought I was paying (Apparently, I'm not the only one to make this sort of mistake.) Even though I had called the credit card company, several days before to right the wrong, PayPal was still blocking me.

I was unable to clear the problem on their site, since the solution was either circular, taking me back to the same page or they wanted information I had no plans to send them, like the credit card statement (none of their business). When I tried to call them, it was an automated voice that could not understand me or seemed unwilling to transfer me to a real human being. It took more than one call and a lot of yelling on my part, that I was put in line to speak with a person. And then, since it would take about 40 minutes, they would call me back. (I had a similar experience with Go Daddy some weeks back for an issue I haven't been able to clear.) Well, I was able to get this taken care of over the phone, but it took about an hour. Not really sure what the point of the story is but to share my pain.

Meanwhile, Trevor has started to letter Issue #8. Paul and I are reviewing the lettering for Issues #6 and #7, not so much for misspellings but some omissions and some possible changes. It is always a different experience to see everything in print to get ideas to float up. Nothing really big.

Still working on the motion comic video. We've been having some issues with the files we've sent to be used. Not sure, but he hasn't been able to see anything once they've been downloaded. I had gone through and made about 20 reduced .pdfs but those didn't work for some reason either. Now, I'm sending him TIF files through WeTransfer, a rather time-consuming process, given their size. As I'm writing this, the upload process has been going for over an hour and has about 50 minutes still to go, though it should all be done by the time anyone actually reads this.

On my other writing, no new pages from my editor on Familiar Stranger, which is disappointing. I hate it when I feel like I have to harass people to get a response. When we talked briefly a couple of weeks ago, I thought he was anxious to get this over with, but the proof is in the pudding, as they say.

I've been working on rewrites for The Runaway and I've come to see why I might have abandoned it at the time. It gets to be a little confusing, which I think I need to streamline, though a little convolution is a good thing with stories like this just not so much that it weighs the story down. And, if it confuses me, how would a reader fare?

I usually don't try to write about what is going on in the news but a recent story caught my eye as I had written about something similar from a fictional point-of-view. In one of my earlier J.D. Barrister stories, A Killer Blog (a name I'm not really crazy about), I had a character, a former newscaster, who had lost her job and her credibility by being caught on video having sex with another couple. In my earlier version, she was a somewhat willing participant, though she wasn't aware it was being videotaped. As a result, she was not viewed very well by readers and potential agents.

This past week, the news story broke about a couple in Newport Beach, California, who was arrested for drugging and raping women they both had sex with and videotaping the encounters. The situation really reminded me of what I had thought up six years before. Now, making my character more of a victim, given this reality, might make her more sympathetic to everyone. I may have been the only one who liked the character, so I'm interested in seeing if I can ressurect her reputation with some rewrites. At the moment, that seems more interesting than trying to start an out and out rewrite of The Runaway.

A Week in Writing #212

Well, I can't say this was a banner week for writing for me. As anyone who works a full-time job and has a family knows, writing sometimes takes a backseat to other things, including in my case fatigue. I was pretty tired all week and with family coming first, I don't feel like I got a lot done.

As an example, I didn't really make much progress on my review of The Secret of N.I.M.H., even though I said I would work on it. Luckily, I'm not the only one who writes reviews for Trophy Unlocked. On Saturday, we published Trevor's review of The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad so we were able to keep with the animated-theme for our Saturday Morning Reviews. Trevor had recently finished reading The Wind and the Willows, on which the Mr. Toad section of the film is based.

As far as Familiar Stranger goes, I did get pages back from my editor, 50 pages as a matter of fact, and made the updates he suggested, which were mostly grammar. I'm ready for more whenever they come.

Did a little rewrite work on The Runaway. It's been good to read this manuscript again and see all the places it needs to be fixed. I'm still not sure where it's going yet. I can see some of the things I was trying to set up but I don't remember why I stopped working on it. That may get to be clearer as I get further into it.

So, on to Powers Squared. This week, Trevor finished the lettering for Issue #7 so we have our second issue completed with our new creative team and Kirby Good and Evil is pretty much put to bed. Paul and I haven't really looked through it about any possible changes but it's good to get another one down.

On Issue #8, or the beginning of the Mathemagical story arc, our colorist has completed up through page 12. We'll have to get Trevor started on the lettering now.

During the week, I stumbled across something that we're going to try. I'm a member of a Facebook group Comic Book Creators Interested in Promoting One Another and following someone's Kickstarter, I saw that their video was made by Your Motion Comic, so we're going to have one made for the first five issues. I spent part of the weekend with Paul picking pages and making pdfs to send. When it's completed, I will be sure to provide a link here as well as on powerssquaredcomicbook.com.

So, I've still got work to do this week on rewrites and reviews and if all works out, I'll be reporting better things next time.

A Week in Writing #161

Sometimes I don't know where to start writing these posts. One week seems a lot like another and having some sort of witty opening has as much to do with inspiration as anything else. As with most weeks, the writing can be divided into three areas: Powers Squared, Trophy Unlocked, and Familiar Stranger. Unlike last week, some progress was made on all three.

The work on Powers Squared seems to come in waves. Our artist sent layouts and pencils for four pages this week, which is sort of an unofficial record. Every time we receive pages, it means that Paul and I have to find the time to sit down together and look at them. Typically, the process starts with layouts, which means we compare the pages against the script to see if the action matches what we expected. We then send our comments back to the artist, asking if he has any questions or comments.

When we get pencils, we look at the actual drawings to see if they match what we're looking for in more detail. Again another round of comments back to the artist. This week, we got two bites at the apple, with a second set of pencils based on our comments. The hope is that by the time we get inks, everything is ready to go to the colorist. It may sound easy, but it is time-consuming and time is at a premium.

Over last weekend and early in the week, I completed the review of Logan (2017), for Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. That one was our 798th review. Also over the weekend, we published a Review Hub for Sly Cooper to celebrate the anniversary of that video game franchise launch. All six video games in the series are reviewed and not by me. I don't have the time to play video games. Again, time is at a premium for me.

Over the weekend, I started a review for X-Men (2000), a film we watched on Friday night. On Sunday, today, we went to see Kingman: The Golden Circle, so I reviewed it for the blog. That marks our 799th review, one away from our 800th, which will be published next Saturday morning. Again, even though I didn't write that review, I would hope everyone will be sure to check it out. I think it marks quite an accomplishment.

So, finally, on to Familiar Stranger, my oft-mentioned Private Detective mystery novel. I've been working on it for what seems like forever and of all the writing, it seems to get the shortest shrift. I was able to spend most of an evening getting back to it. I even found a long sequence that I had previously written for the end of the story, so I was able to add that knowing that it will need to be included in this extra long rewrite. At its current length, about 85,000 words, it’s still a little short, but I’m still over 100 pages from the ending, so we’ll see.

Hopefully, next week will be like this one and I'll be able to report back on further progress on all three fronts.

A Week in Writing #159

Well Familiar Stranger got harder this week, as I finally caught up to where I was with previous rewrites. Now comes the tricky part, actually writing from scratch as opposed to editing what has previously been written. So production dropped on that front. As of this writing, I'm up to 61,250 words and 333 pages, so only a little more than 2000 words. I'm also considering rewriting the beginning, but that will have to wait until I'm through with this draft.

In my last post, I mentioned I wanted to squeeze in an additional review during the Labor Day holiday, which I managed to do. The original Casino Royale from 1954, an episode of a CBS television series Climax!, will appear sometime in the future, but at least now I have four Bond film reviews I can publish as a block.

This past Saturday I published a review of Blonde Crazy (1931), a romantic comedy crime film starring James Cagney and Joan Blondell. On the same day, we also published a review of the video game Night Trap - 25th Anniversary Edition.

Trophy Unlocked is coming up on our 800th review just when the page views have dramatically dipped. We had been averaging about 1500 to 2000 a day, but with the holiday they dropped to 100 to 200. Sort of a disappointed feeling to see the numbers drop so significantly so quickly. I'd like to think it cyclical and the number will come back up as it's really the older reviews that drive the page views.

As far as reviews for the future, I wrote about 2500 words on the remake of Ghost in the Shell, but that will wait for now. I would like to get to another one this week, sort of brought on by what's happening with Hurricane Irma, Key Largo (1948). We'll see if I can pull that off.

Powers Squared keeps moving forward. Our artist sent us layouts and pencils for four pages of Issue #5, pages 9 -12. I can't remember him working faster since we started with him back at the beginning of January 2016. Our colorist followed that up with pages 5 - 8 on Saturday night. Our letterer is still working on Issue #4, which is fine. And we're still working on a cover for Issue #3, which we hope to have finalized in the next week or so.

Sad news today about the death of Len Wein. We were in our local comic book store when we heard. While I wouldn't say I knew Mr. Wein, I had met him a couple of times at the store and had made a point of saying hi to him at this past Comic-Con. My children had run into him at the same store on several occasions and he seemed to know them on sight. His death is another reminder that there is no time to lose and that success takes a lot of hard work.

A Week in Writing #157

Every week provides its own opportunities and challenges. This past week was no different. I must say that I wasn't always up to it, feeling a little under the weather for the first few days. Not really sick, but just enough that I was tired.

But that said, I was able to write a new review during those days and post it on Trophy Unlocked. A Night at the Movies (1937) would be published as our Saturday Morning Review. Had a harder time than usual with getting screenshots. There are very few images related to this short on the internet and my computer, for some reason, refused to play it again, so I had to watch a pirated copy on YouTube and snip images from that. Very frustrating and time-consuming, when time is always of the essence.

Over the weekend, I would write another one, The Mad Miss Manton (1938), which ended up being about 3500 words. Luckily, many more images available. That one should come out next Saturday, so stay tuned.

Did some work on Familiar Stranger, but it never seems to be enough. I'm up to almost 44,000 words on the rewrite, so I did make some progress, about 6000 words, but there is so much more that could be done. Something has to give and this week it was this rewrite. Hopefully, this week Familiar Stranger will be closer to the top rather than almost an afterthought.

What work I did accomplish was mostly on Powers Squared (still available for purchase if you're so inclined) and even that doesn't feel like that much happened.

We did hear back from the artist we had been wanting to do the cover for Issue #3, but his asking price, though not unrealistic for his talent, was far more than I could afford to pay at this point; about half as much I had spent on the entire issue. We're having to go with plan B, which we're figuring out at present.

As for our third email, we did hear back on that as well. Very positive response from a writer/editor at a major label. He thought the book was fun, which was a compliment. We were very pleased but had secretly hoped he might be so taken he'd offer to help us get it physically published, though probably not where he works. We might be able to ask for that help, but right now we're basking in the praise.

Our artist did send us layouts for four pages, 5 through 8, though we did have comments about all four, which is pretty normal for how we've been working with him. We did discover that for one page we had two panel fives, which as we all know is one five too many. We did a little rewrite to compensate. This just shows no matter how hard you think you've combed through something, there is always a surprise waiting for you.

The colorist also sent four pages, though for perhaps the first time, they need revisions. No worries, but it makes me happy we looked at them more closely than normal.

Made a discovery, almost too late, as it relates to the next story arc. I had, sometime back, marked up the script for Kirby Big and Small, the working title for the next few issues. I was in the midst of shredding old papers when I realized I wasn't sure if I had actually ever updated the script on the computer. Turns out I hadn't, so I had to re-edit the first six pages.

So this coming week there will hopefully be time for updating that script and working on Familiar Stranger. Rewrites and more rewrites are the action verbs for next week.

A Week in Writing #80

Sometimes I think I get a lot accomplished, but then again, it doesn't seem like I'm moving the chains to use a football slang.

I think I'm done with editing Public and Private and have started to work on both a long and short synopsis, with the hopes of actually querying the book for representation. Found I had already started, though not finished, a long synopsis some months back. Not too much has changed in the rewrites, but I still need to finish that. Having some trouble with summarizing the book in a paragraph, but I've only begun that process.

Surprisingly, I'm a little apprehensive about the whole query process, having been 0 for 2 so far with books attempting to find representation. So much is put on the line with each email and I like nothing less than the uncertainty each query brings. I hate being discounted out of hand, but it's the ones who never write back that really get to me. I know it's the reality of the situation, but it still sucks.

I also finished some rewrites for future scripts for the comic book, PowerSquared, that I was working on last week. Haven't sent out for feedback yet.

One of the things I'm finding is that the scripts were written with an eye towards a more give and take with the artist. I had anticipated we would have hired someone local and would be seeing and speaking on a regular basis. Instead, our artist is in Indonesia and some weaknesses in the script show in his interpretation. Paul and I have been going back and forth over pages 5 through 8 this weekend and sent comments to our artist. I think it's really important to be as detailed oriented as possible without coming across as a jerk.

Still, I feel that things are moving forward, We're much further along than we have been and I'm still looking forward to seeing it completed. Don't have enough done, though, to test the waters. There is more that needs to be done before it's ready for that.

Finish my review of Ferris Bueller's Day Off early in the week, Thinking about waiting for Spring Break to publish that one. Did publish a couple of reviews this weekend on Trophy Unlocked: The Lion in Winter (1968) and one for the new movie Zootopia, which we, as a family, went to see on Saturday night. Both are keeping with what has been a running string of animal-themed reviews on the blog.

The week ahead promises more of the same. Work on the synopsis for Public and Private and hopefully a phone call with my editor. I'm also hoping there are more pages for PowerSquared. Got to keep at it to make headway.

A Week in Writing #78

Some weeks it seems like writing is really a business.

Again, spent most of the time either working with artists on the comic book or doing rewrites on the mystery novel.

It is proving to be quite interesting to watch the comic book coming together. We're sort of at the point where we have about 20% inked and colored, though some of that is still being revised.

It's hard to know if you're setting the right tone with the artwork. The choice of colors seems so extra important when it's your comic book that's being done. You worry about colors, apparel choices, making sure the characters are different enough, etc. Every step needs to be reviewed and thought about. Paul and his brother have been very helpful with that. Some nights, it seems that's all I get accomplished.

Still, I managed to finish the rewrites and now I'm going back through and spell-checking and looking at word choice. Does a word like lobby need to be used as many times as I did? It may seem like minutiae, but it really is important. I think it reads well, but up to a point, it could always read better. These will be the sort of things I try to finish this week.

Picked up 2 more twitter followers and am in double digits again. (Insert Kanye-West-style-how-important-I-am-rant here.) I'm always grateful that anyone follows me.

Did post a new review on the blog: Duck Soup (1933), continuing in Trophy Unlocked's salute to titles with animal-themes. Did begin, but haven't quite finished a review of, Satan Met a Lady (1936). We watched that film on Friday and saw it's remake, The Maltese Falcon (1941) on Sunday as part of TCM's Fanthom Event showing. Sometimes these reviews seem like the only real writing I do in a week.

A Week in Writing #72

Managed to finally get back to rewrites on Familiar Stranger. Decided to start from the beginning again, since there were some changes I've been thinking about.

After a couple of months, heard from my editor on Public and Private. May actually get to meet him for the first time next weekend. He hopes to have the entire manuscript ready, so I have to admit I'm sort of excited at the prospect. I've been wanting to complete this for what seems like a year now. I'm hoping that it might change my luck with the query process. Looking forward to what he might have come up with. I really think he makes me a better writer.

About a week or so ago, Paul and I decided on an artist for our comic book, PowerSquared. There is some paperwork and process to be figured out and agreed to, but I think we're really close to getting started. Now, of course there are still a lot of other steps to be taken, but it feels like we're on our way at last.

The Trophy Unlocked blog has been getting more page views recently, which is nice. Even though some new posts still get about 30 to 40 page views, the blog itself has had over 4800 page views this past month. I'm always fascinated when some older post suddenly gets a lot of page views. For some reason G.I. Joe Retaliation, which was posted in 2013, had the most views this past week.

Tried something different this week. I was feeling under the weather all weekend and didn't want to spend the time reposting the new review, Dave (1993), in its entirety on TCM's Classic Film Union, so I simply posted a link to the review on Trophy Unlocked. I'm not totally surprised, but the page views there have not translated into page views on Trophy Unlocked. We all know how hard it is to follow a link.

Wrote a future review for Westworld (1973), about 2000 words, over the weekend. Will post it soon.

Our next post will be the 650th review on the blog, so I hope everyone will take a look when it's posted next Saturday.

A Week in Writing #66

Holidays on the road and writing are not a good combination. Spent Thanksgiving with family out of town, so didn't write on Thursday or Friday or Saturday. Can't really write too much while driving, which explains Thanksgiving. Came back Friday, but didn't get back until nearly midnight, so there goes another day. Saturday was recovery. Sometimes writing has to give way to real life family and friends.

When I started writing this blog, I was going with the theme of not getting much done, but I checked my work and I did get a few things done. Finished a 2900+ word review for 3 Men in White (1944), one in the series of Dr. Kildare/Dr. Gillespie films that MGM made. Not a truly great film, but with the likes of Lionel Barrymore, Van Johnson and Ava Gardner, there was definitely some things worth writing about. The length of the review has nothing to do with the quality of the film.

Usually in December, Trophy Unlocked features Christmas movies. I'm thinking this year, we'll be doing something quite different. Like the rest of the world, we're overwhelmed by the prospect of a new Star Wars film and are planning our reviews for the month to fall in line with that event. Starting next week, we'll take a look at Star Wars: Clone Wars, the television series directed by Genny Tartakovsky, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and finally The Force Awakens. That's a lot of writing in my future. Look for them in the coming weeks. If you wear a Santa hat while reading them, then they'll qualify as Christmas movies. Either way, they'll be our gift to you. The middle/original trilogy will be reviewed from original VHS tapes, so they will be un-enhanced. Again, our gift to you.

Also worked on some edits from my editor on Public and Private. Good to get back to it. Made some changes with the promise of more to come. Also did some more writing on my Hollywoodland inspired book. While I don't wish insomnia on anyone, having an idea to work on can be a blessing at times.

Did some more work on the comic book. We got 20 responses to the Facebook post we made a couple of weeks ago. The artists are from all over the world and while we'd prefer to work with someone local, we're open. Of the 20 responses, about 15 were pencilers and/or inkers. We narrorwed down the submissions to a few and have asked for a sample page.

A Week in Writing #53

I haven't spent a lot of time lately on queries for my unpublished/unrepresented novels, but the last three queries I had out have sort of expired with no response from any of the agents. So my total from the 4th of July queryfest is 4 outright rejections and 4 no responses. I could hold out hope that the four no response agents might be behind on their queries, but chances are they only respond if they're interested. Anyways, best to move on. Planning to send out more over Labor Day.

I've been spending most of my time working on the comic book. Am disappointed in myself for what happened last Thursday. We were supposed to attend a coffee session with comic creators, but the person who told me about the session and was going to be our envoy in flaked out. I'm mad at myself for letting myself get sucked in by someone who says they're going to help me, because usually they don't. I actually had enough experience with him to know this was a real possibility. I even told my wife after I had printed out a couple of copies of the script and about ten one-sheets about the project that he would cancel on me. Not only that, he didn't even remember making the plans in the first place.

And I'm a little mad at myself for not going without him, but I wasn't psyched up for going in unknown into the situation. Next time I'm (we're) just going to go without him and see what happens.

Attended a retrospective of the work of Jack Kirby at CSUN on Saturday. This guy was prolific as an artist, writer and editor. It gave me some ideas about our own comic book, but more how to proceed before we seek an artist. We need to storyboard the story out before we go looking. I've done some of this before, so I'm not too concerned, but it will be a test for how well the comic book lays out at least story-wise to length. I'm really determined to be as ready as we can be before we put our necks out there again. I'm tired of them being cut off.

Working on the third story, making edits to see how it fits with the first story, since we did such a big rewrite on that one. I'm liking how some of the things work out, even if sometimes it's by accident or circumstance that they do. I hope to be done with this rewrite this week and want to complete it before going into storyboard mode on the first one.

Published a review of The Whole Town's Talking (1935) on Saturday and wrote a future review, a little under 3000 words, on Monkey Business (1952) over the weekend.

So, this officially wraps up my first year of writing this blog. I feel like I've done a lot, but haven't gotten any results yet. But I keep telling myself I've got to keep on. And so I shall.

Comments are always welcome and you can follow me on twitter @lionsroar91406.

A Week in Writing #38

The problem about being a writer is that all too often you make progress, but no one else knows you've done it. For me, I think I had a pretty good week, if you don't count two more queries going unanswered. I spent most of my time working on the rewrites of Familiar Stranger, one of the many projects I do that, at least so far, have gone virtually unnoticed by the outside world. I did about as many pages I had the previous week and I'm a little over a fifth of the way through the book.

No new queries sent and once again no word from the agent with the manuscript. At this point, I'm taking it as a "maybe" rather than an out and out "no", but still I'd really like closure one way or the other. It has been over a year and I hate to think I've been stringing myself along or that after requesting the complete manuscript and several nudges she wouldn't have the decency to respond. I guess I still expect the best out of people.

As far as blogging goes, this was one of my best weeks yet. Last Saturday I published a review of Blackboard Jungle and have gotten 126 pageviews so far, which for one week for me is a record of sorts. (It's also gotten 276 views on the TCM CFU site, which is also pretty high for a week.) Not sure if Blackboard Jungle hit a nerve, or I had a really good tweet, or what? Published a new one: Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was timed to be the 600th review on the blog.

Since Age of Ultron wasn't really appropriate for TCM, I posted a review there that I hadn't before, Out of the Past, which I reviewed back in 2012 before I started publishing on the CFU. In about a day I've gotten 41 views and a complimentary comment. Not bad if you ask me.

Even this past week's post on this blog got 8 pageviews, which is just enough to make me think someone is actually reading these posts. When I've counted pageviews on one hand most of the time, 8 is a very satisfying number. Thank you.

Wrote one new review, for the Blu-Ray version of Out of the Past, which I'm planning to run soon. TCM is finally getting back to the Summer of Darkness and I'm planning on publishing some film noir reviews I've saved back in honor of the occasion.

So that's really about all I've done with writing this past week. I always feel that I could have somehow done more, but that's always the goal for the next week starting now.