A Week in Writing #274

It's amazing the difference a week can make. Our Kickstarter is doing much better. We're up to about 60% funded, so there's still hope that we will fund.

Otherwise, it was a big week for Powers Squared. On Monday, I was interviewed by Adam Torres for his Money Matters podcast. He was really easy to talk to and was not only enthusiastic but also very professional. We talked about the comic book, the Kickstarter as well as let me plug our own YouTube channel and podcast, On the Air With Powers Squared. He also did us a solid and moved the broadcast to the next day to help us with the Kickstarter. A really good experience.

On Tuesday night, we opened a surprise package from Artithmeric, our on-demand publisher. They publish a magazine, Artithemeric 9, the 9th Art and there were two articles that involved us. One was a very impressive story about Powers Squared, which makes us sound like the important comic book we want to be.

The other story was about a promotion Artithneric is doing with Canon printers. Artithmeric uses Canon for their printing because they meet their high standards. Apparently, Canon was also a fan of Artithmeric and wanted to use some of their creators in a promotion with their customers. As a result, Powers Squared was one of three creator-owned comics chosen. As a result, 1500 copies of our first issue will be sent to Canon customers in the United States. Hopefully, that will lead to new readers.

In addition, we received new pages from both our artists, pencils for four pages in Issue #13 and four colored pages from our colorist from Issue #12.

As if that wasn't enough to report, our colorist, Nina Gaillard, is leaving us after she completes work on Issue #12 and we're beginning to look for a replacement colorist. Not sure how we're going to fit that in before the end of the year, but we will try.

In between sending emails to practically everyone I know to mention the Kickstarter, I did manage to do some more work on The Runaway. Got about three chapters done but that was about all the other writing I could manage. It's nice to have the release and I really feel bad if I don't actually write during the week. I don't know what I would do if I didn't.

No new reviews this week from me. Trophy Unlocked did publish one of Paul's for the animated Tarzan (1999).

Well, that's about all from me this week. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #273

I try to write these with a positive point-of-view but sometimes that's hard to do. This week, in particular, has been particularly hard. Our Kickstarter is underperforming, despite our best efforts to get support. Our mailing list feels like a waste of time, as so few open the emails on a weekly basis and even fewer of them have supported the Kickstarter.

I don't mean to blame this on our "fans" but most of those on our mailing list have never purchased a second issue and apparently have no desire to help us with our need for funding. Our need is somewhat artificial, in that I've been paying for it to be made and can probably continue to keep doing it but it comes at a cost. We don't go on vacation because we have a comic book, we don't save money because we have a comic book. The hope of the Kickstarter is to help out with that and hopefully get new readers and buyers in the process.

I feel like what we're doing is good work and unique in comic books, though not so unique that it has no place for it. It seems to me that when people actually read it, they like it. Converting that into sales has been hard, if not impossible. This has been our best year for sales and I don't think I've made back more than a couple hundred dollars.

The work is good enough, even the earliest book that we were chosen to have it reprinted by a major printer company as a promotion for what their product can do. And that first issue is nowhere as good as the later ones we've been working on.

I'm not giving up, in fact, against the advice of other Kickstarter creators, I've hired a company with hopes that they can get us funded. They have a 21-day plan and we have 21 days to go, so I'm cautiously optimistic that we can turn it around. If we do, then we'll have to reconsider a lot of things going forward. I'd love to re-examine our mailing list and perhaps some of the promotional work we're doing. But that's probably going to wait until the new year.

While the Kickstarter has been weighing on me, I've been able to do some other work as well.

I've been happy with the time I've been able to spend on rewrites of The Runaway. I recently had a thought during the night that would help with the story and plot. Not a major update but one that made what happens later in the story make more sense. I  like those little moments that make the work better.

I also wrote a future review of Trophy Unlocked, one for Treasure Island (1950), the film we watched on Friday night. This week's Saturday Morning Review was one that Trevor wrote for Accounting+,
a VR videogame that Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty fame wrote and voiced.

Well, that's enough kvetching for one week. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #272 - Kickstarter and Other Writing

Big week for me as well as for Powers Squared. We finally launched our Kickstarter. If you've never done one, there is a lot that goes into it and I was fortunate to have a good team working with me, my sons, and the co-creators of the book with me, Paul and Trevor. I don't think I could have done it without their help.

I feel compelled to let you know that you can help with the Kickstarter if you want. Please go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/630936668/powers-squared-mathemagical. We have a wide range of ways that you can help, from $5 to $100 and from digital to print issues, t-shirts and a hardcover trade. If you've been reading about the book here in this blog and have wondered what it's about, then this would be a great time to start. Well, I hope you decide to anyway.

Throughout the campaign, I will discuss how it's going and what is working and what isn't, should you ever decide to do one for yourself. So far, we've notified the people on our mailing list, posted on Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter and on various Facebook pages, including our own and groups I'm members of. So far, the response has been slow but it is still early.

Last week, we had started work on the next story arc, The Imposter, and this week we had some feedback from the artist, which is always good to get. Even though we may be the co-creators, we're not artists and her feedback and questions are usually very good.

On Friday night, Paul and I recorded and posted our 10th On The Air With Powers Squared on Podbean. For some reason, it didn't show up on iTunes. There is surprisingly little support available on iTunes or Apple Podcasts. I tried to go back to Podbean but got some confusing "help" so I had to write to their Support. Seems our forever free account has expired? Hopefully, we'll get that worked out in short order.

In other writing, I managed to do some more rewrites on The Runaway going through several chapters as I work to get back to where I left off to work on Broken People. I think I'm working through what had been some rough spots for me.

I did not, though I plan to soon, send out any queries for Broken People. There really wasn't any time for that this past week.

On Saturday night, I did manage to write a future review for Trophy Unlocked. On Friday night, we watched The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and I wanted to get it down on paper while there was some quiet time.

My review of Thieves' Highway was the Saturday Morning Review. We published it in honor of Noirvember.

Well, that's about it. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #271

Sometimes weeks don't go as planned or one aspect takes over for the others. This week, for the most part, was spent working on the Powers Squared Kickstarter. I don't know if you've ever done one but it has been a learning experience. Not hard so much as time-consuming.

Given the limited time I have every day to actually write, a lot of that has been writing and, of course, rewriting things like Our Story and Shipping. But that's not to say that I'm the only one working on it. Both Paul and Trevor have been helping as well. Paul, who shot, edited, re-shot and re-edited our Kickstarter video has also been editing the copy. Trevor has made many of the graphics that we're using to show off the Tier Rewards we're offering.

The software you have to use on the Kickstarter site is a bit wonky if you ask me. To begin with, it's one long page and though it allows you to add whatever you want to, including images, it doesn't act like say Word. If I delete a line at the bottom of the page, all the lines of text above it seem to be adjusted, though the images seem to stay pretty much where they are. The same is true if I add a line at the top, all the text gets adjusted below it. There seems to be a constant re-editing of the page with every change you make. Gets a little old.

I think we're very close, probably one more run through the content and then it's off to Kickstarter to approve. After that, we'll be up and running.

That wasn't the only thing I worked on this week, though it did dominate things.

More on Powers Squared, we got the final inked pages and the cover for Issue #12 from our artist, Rachel Wells. I made a final pass through the script for the next story arc, The Imposter. I hadn't looked at it since July. A few minor edits, like correcting the wrong character name once and adding "Hmm" to the beginning of one line of dialogue.

On Friday, Paul and I did our weekly podcast, On The Air with Powers Squared. On episode #9, we discuss putting together the first creative team for the comic book. You can hear it on Podbean and on iTunes.

Did some more rewrites this past week on The Runaway. I don't know if you've had the experience but sometimes when I go back through something I've written, I get into a better groove with the story. Phrasing I thought was good is made better or thrown out altogether with the goal of making the writing better. Looking forward to getting more back into it when time permits.

No new reviews from me this week but that doesn't mean there weren't several in Trophy Unlocked from Trevor, both video game reviews: SpongeBob SquarePants: Battle for Bikini Bottom (PS2) on the anniversary of the game's release; and Catherine: Full Body which was this week's Saturday Morning Review.

Kickstarter promises to be a big factor next week as well but I'm hoping to get back to other writing as well next week.

Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #270

My big accomplishment of the week was finishing my rewrite on Broken People. The ending that I remembered as being overly long turned out not to be that way upon final review. I think I was remembering an earlier version.

So, I've gone through it for what feels like the umpteenth time, spell checked and even gone through it to make sure the chapter numbers are well-centered. The next thing to do is to resume the query process. To that end, I did some more research using Query Tracker as the starting point. From there, I look up the individual agents on their agency's websites.

The first disappointment is when the genres listed on Query Tracker are not reflected in the agent's profile or else it's the same word but they're looking for Young Adult mysteries, which, of course, is not what I'm writing. The only thing worse is finding out the agent you're looking for is no longer at the agency or even in the agent game. That happened to me this week when I was doing some research.

I didn't actually pull the trigger on sending new queries; I'm saving that pleasure for the coming week.

This week, for Powers Squared, we received four lettered pages from Trevor, so it was overall a slow week on the comic book. That didn't mean nothing happened. Paul and I, of course, did our usual Sunday YouTube video and our Friday night Podcast. On this last Friday's, we discussed writing the first storyline for the comic book. We initially wrote the first drafts more than 8 years ago and that first script went through a lot of changes between then and 2015 when we actually had the first issue drawn.

We also worked some on the Kickstarter we're doing for the comic book. There's a lot of planning that goes into it but we're also making changes on the fly as we're putting it together.

In addition to the work mentioned above, I wrote a new review for Trophy Unlocked, Revenge of the Creature, though I'm thinking it might wait until next October to get published. That's when the blog once again turns to horror. To complete the month's look at the genre we published Paul's review of
Scooby-Doo! Return to Zombie Island.

Things I need to do this next week, besides write, include finishing the Kickstarter stuff and making myself reach out once again to the editor on Familiar Stranger. I keep putting that off because I feel like I know how that will go. I'll call, leave a message and then never hear back. What is it they say about insanity? But I guess the thing is I don't expect a different outcome. Maybe fate will surprise me.

Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #269

There were a lot of pluses and minuses this week in writing.

I continued to do rewrites on Broken People. I'm getting near the end of the book and for some reason, I was having a hard time concentrating on it. Part of it I'll put down to the day job taking it out on me. It's not that I do anything labor-intensive but it is a big chunk of the day, from leaving at 7 in the morning and not getting home until 6:30, most nights take a lot of wind out of your sails.

I decided to put it aside by mid-week. I should be able to finish it next week. There is some post-climax stuff that I'd like to cut down on. I think I go into too much explanation on what happens after the main story ends. I don't want to be too short, as I don't like to see things left dangling, but at the same time I think I say too much. I have to strike the right balance. And it's not what happens to the characters that I want to shorten, it's the bigger picture stuff. There are events that are put into motion that don't necessarily end with the end of the story if you know what I mean. That's the part that I think I go into too much detail explaining.

Did some work on future reviews for Trophy Unlocked, even completing one that probably won't show up again until next October, when the site does a salute to horror films. Saw and reviewed White Zombie (1932), a really low-budget horror film starring Bela Lugosi, who only the year before had appeared in Dracula (1931).

This week's horror film was The Banana Splits Movie (2019), a very badly done horror film starring a somewhat forgotten IP from the 1960s. After seeing the film, it would probably have been better served staying forgotten.

I also completed a review of Sabotage (1936), a British Hitchcock film that I also watched recently. Not sure when that will show up but it's now ready to go whenever it's called upon. That's one nice thing about writing reviews for older films, they are always relevant in their own way. They might become more so, if, for example, a particular subject matter came up in today's world or there is a milestone anniversary. But, for the most part, if the film stands the test of time, there is always room for writing about it.

We're still putting together our Kickstarter stuff for Powers Squared. We've lined up all the tier rewards and now it's down to putting it together and shooting a video. We want to include Trevor but he's away today at a seminar and Paul is still under the weather. We canceled our weekly Podcast, On the Air With Powers Squared, because he was still too sick to do it.

Last week, we ran a contest to try and cross-promote our A Week in Powers Squared videos, our newsletter, the Hound Dogs' Howl, and our podcast, On the Air With Powers Squared.  Fortunately, we had a winner within 48 hours. At least someone listens to OAPS.

We did receive four pages from our colorist but that was really all that happened with the actual comic book this week.

So next week, the goal is to finish the rewrites on Broken People and send out some more queries and to reach out, once again, to the elusive editor on Familiar Stranger to see if he's still alive and what the f- happened. These enduring mysteries keep us going.

Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #268 - Lots of Rewrites

I've never been one to shy away from rewrites and, in fact, that's my favorite part of the writing process. This past week, I continued my work on Broken People and it's a good thing, too. I found where I had used the exact same passage in two places in the book, no doubt, the error from my previous rewrite on the book.

This book has gone through various rewrites in the past, the first being with my disappeared editor on Familiar Stranger. He had been slow back then but I don't remember so much radio silence in the past. Then, it was called Killer Blog, which was a sort of title that sounded okay but really meant nothing. It's not like a killer blog was a real thing but at the time, I liked it. I did query the book around and almost got somewhere with it.

An agency put me in touch with one of their editors and she gave me some feedback on it. I did find when going through it with her that there was some garbage stuff in the manuscript. Apparently, some time after my work with my editor the manuscript had gotten corrupted and things that I thought were there weren't and there was some real nonsense text in it as well. However, this isn't what she was pointing out to me.

After I completed that rewrite, I resubmitted it to the agency again and, of course, got nowhere fast. I was rejected there and other places with one female agent even calling it misogynistic, which frankly hurt and I felt was misguided. There is sex in the book, not graphic and the man, who is the protagonist, does describe the woman he's involved with but he also describes everyone he meets in some detail.

I rewrote it again, changing the name to Personal and Professional but got again, nowhere fast. I let it sit after a round of rejections. I started to look at it again because of a recent news story, not a couple of years old. There apparently was a couple, a doctor and his girlfriend, who would get women drunk and/or drugged and shoot video of them having sex with her. Now, there was something already similar in the book. My protagonist is a private detective and one of his clients in the book is a former news anchor who had appeared in a sex video.

In the earliest versions, that part was based on another news story in which an anchor went on vacation, got drunk and entered a wet t-shirt contest. She apparently wanted to win so bad that she stripped naked, or close to it, to win. Unbeknownst to her, they were recording the event and it got out and she lost her job as a result.

I had changed that to her being in a sex video while on vacation with her husband. A couple got her drunk and had their way with her and recorded it. That seemed rather out there until I heard about the couple in Newport Beach doing the same thing. So, I decided to take a new look at the book and I changed the name as I went. There was a song on the radio by Lovelytheband, called Broken, which I liked and thought one of the attractions between my hero and the former news reporter, was that she thought he was broken like her.

I thought I had done a pretty good rewrite but after getting nowhere with my few queries, I decided to go through it again and have been spending as much time on it the last few weeks before I resubmit it for querying. So far, none of the ones I've sent have gotten even a nibble, not even the online queries. I think the 6 weeks, if not two months, have passed so I'm calling them rejected.

I even took some time to rewrite the query letter, trying to concentrate on what I thought was the best parts of my previous one and pointing out that it is a character-driven murder mystery and trying to downplay some of the big city corruption that is also part of the story.

Work on the rewrite continues. I think it will take a couple of more weeks before I'm done and then it's back to the query cycle. They say you only have to impress one, right?

When that's done, I will go back again to see if the Familiar Stranger editor is still alive and find out what the f- happened. I may not be a patient person but I don't like to give up either.

In addition to the work on the book, I also completed a future review for Trophy Unlocked. This is a short film called Employee's Entrance, which was on TCM recently. I had started to watch it one morning while flipping channels and decided to record it along with several others so I could possibly review them later.

I also published on Saturday, The Fly, my second review for October and Trophy Unlocked's annual review of horror movies during the month.

Not a whole lot happened on Powers Squared this week. No new pages, though we did get a nice mention from our colorist on Instagram. Trevor did letter four pages so he's caught up for now.

Paul and I did our 54th video on YouTube on Sunday and our seventh podcast on Friday night in our effort to promote the comic book.

Well, that just about does it for this week. More rewrites and hopefully a new review. Keep writing. I'll see you next week.