Spent most of the week on rewrites on both the mystery novel and a couple of comic book scripts.
As far as Public and Private, I finished one pass through the novel. I'm sure there will be more before I'm done. Would like to have one more discussion with my editor, but I'm anxious to query the manuscript around. I don't have enough heartache in my life at the moment, so some quick rejections or, better yet, no responses will put me in my place. When I do, I'll be sure to write about my experiences here.
The first issue of PowerSquared, our comic book, is slowly coming together. We've got six pages inked and four pages colored, but no pages lettered. It's an interesting experience for me to see it come to life. I'm also discovering, probably to my co-writer and artist's chagrin that the script wasn't quite as complete as I thought.
One of the things I did this week was do some re-writes on future stories, you know just in case. While re-reading one with an echo back to this story, I was disappointed that I hadn't done a better job of explaining what we needed in a particular image in a couple of the panels. I thought I was done for the night, but I had to get up and email our artist about the changes I realized we needed to make.
Need to be thinking about what we need to do to submit this to possible publishers. I know I need five complete pages, as a sample, but even then, I'd like to get some feedback before going too far in the process.
As far as my other blog, Trophy Unlocked, goes I published a new review of an old film A Mouse That Roared (1959). I also started to work on one for Ferris Bueller's Day Off, but that's not finished yet. I always like to have a project for the next week.
Sunday, February 28, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
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.
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.
Sunday, February 14, 2016
A Week in Writing #77
This has not been a great week pretty much all around. The first bad thing is that I wrecked my car, though that's not related to writing.
The next day, I thought I misplaced my IP, my nickname for the thumb drive I carry with me that has all my writing on it, that I had never quite gotten around to backing up on my computer. And by all of my writing, I mean pretty much everything I've done and talked about on this blog post.
I was driving the rental car, which is actually a pick up truck and which I really hate, when I noticed that my thumb drive wasn't in my pocket. I felt around and it wasn't on the seat, so I did something I'm want to do, went back to the office. I'm the sort that when I leave, I leave, but on this night, I went back. I searched the truck: nothing. I went back upstairs to my work station: nothing. I retraced my footsteps outside: nothing. I knew I had it on me that day, since I had used something off of it earlier. So I was really panicked for about two hours, traffic being heavy.
I was convinced that much of what I had written for the past six months or so, including a lot of movie reviews, comic book scripts and mystery stories were gone forever. Not only that, there were some personal paperwork that had my social security information and perhaps even worse, my Google password. Since I save my passwords on Google, you can imagine what damage could be done by someone with that information. That was not a great feeling to have, let me tell you.
When I got home, I emptied my pockets: nothing. For the sake of completeness, I emptied my briefcase, a place I never put the thumb drive and I mean never. But there it was on the bed after everything had fallen out.
The first thing I did was backup everything from the thumb drive to my computer and I do mean everything. Lesson: always back up.
More progress on the books, both comic and mystery. For the latter, I finally finished reading the entire manuscript, making corrections as I go. Need to do some updating/editing, which I will start this week.
Some progress was made on the comic book. Got some sample pages from our new colorist and we gave him some notes. Also gave some notes to our artist on a new page he delivered. I feel a little strange criticizing their work, but I hope they understand that we just want the best comic book we can get.
Did finish and publish my review of Hail, Caesar! this week. Also published the last of the tributes to the Year of the Monkey on Trophy Unlocked: The Monkee's Head (1968). So far Head has proven to be a fairly popular post with 70 pageviews since Saturday morning.
Glad to see this week end, but I'm looking forward to another week in writing.
The next day, I thought I misplaced my IP, my nickname for the thumb drive I carry with me that has all my writing on it, that I had never quite gotten around to backing up on my computer. And by all of my writing, I mean pretty much everything I've done and talked about on this blog post.
I was driving the rental car, which is actually a pick up truck and which I really hate, when I noticed that my thumb drive wasn't in my pocket. I felt around and it wasn't on the seat, so I did something I'm want to do, went back to the office. I'm the sort that when I leave, I leave, but on this night, I went back. I searched the truck: nothing. I went back upstairs to my work station: nothing. I retraced my footsteps outside: nothing. I knew I had it on me that day, since I had used something off of it earlier. So I was really panicked for about two hours, traffic being heavy.
I was convinced that much of what I had written for the past six months or so, including a lot of movie reviews, comic book scripts and mystery stories were gone forever. Not only that, there were some personal paperwork that had my social security information and perhaps even worse, my Google password. Since I save my passwords on Google, you can imagine what damage could be done by someone with that information. That was not a great feeling to have, let me tell you.
When I got home, I emptied my pockets: nothing. For the sake of completeness, I emptied my briefcase, a place I never put the thumb drive and I mean never. But there it was on the bed after everything had fallen out.
The first thing I did was backup everything from the thumb drive to my computer and I do mean everything. Lesson: always back up.
More progress on the books, both comic and mystery. For the latter, I finally finished reading the entire manuscript, making corrections as I go. Need to do some updating/editing, which I will start this week.
Some progress was made on the comic book. Got some sample pages from our new colorist and we gave him some notes. Also gave some notes to our artist on a new page he delivered. I feel a little strange criticizing their work, but I hope they understand that we just want the best comic book we can get.
Did finish and publish my review of Hail, Caesar! this week. Also published the last of the tributes to the Year of the Monkey on Trophy Unlocked: The Monkee's Head (1968). So far Head has proven to be a fairly popular post with 70 pageviews since Saturday morning.
Glad to see this week end, but I'm looking forward to another week in writing.
Sunday, February 7, 2016
A Week in Writing #76
Like last week, spent most of the time going between mystery novel and comic book.
I'm about 300 + pages into rereading Public and Private after making the changes my editor suggested. I don't know if it's me, but it seems to read well. There are changes I'm seeing I want to make and some possible timeline discrepancies that I need to fix; like I think I have two consecutive days that are Sundays, that sort of thing. Fixable, but nevertheless problems that need to be dealt with.
The comic book is coming along. After some back and forth with our artist, the first four pages have been outlined and inked, which is a milestone of sorts. We decided upon a colorist and I'm hoping to get the agreement for him to sign early next week.
This is where the comic feels like a business venture. There are contracts, invoices and payments, not to mention reviewing all the art and worrying about having everything in the proper format. At some point, I may have to face setting up a website, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Can't wait to see what the pages will look like colored. The next step after that is lettering and once we have five pages completed, I hope to try and see if there is any interest in the project by publishers. But again, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
While that doesn't sound like a lot, those two projects have kept me pretty busy this past week.
I wanted to and still hope to write a review for Hail, Caesar! which I saw over the weekend.
Did post our second Year of the Monkey film post on Trophy Unlocked: the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business (1931), which I would hope everyone will read.
I'm about 300 + pages into rereading Public and Private after making the changes my editor suggested. I don't know if it's me, but it seems to read well. There are changes I'm seeing I want to make and some possible timeline discrepancies that I need to fix; like I think I have two consecutive days that are Sundays, that sort of thing. Fixable, but nevertheless problems that need to be dealt with.
The comic book is coming along. After some back and forth with our artist, the first four pages have been outlined and inked, which is a milestone of sorts. We decided upon a colorist and I'm hoping to get the agreement for him to sign early next week.
This is where the comic feels like a business venture. There are contracts, invoices and payments, not to mention reviewing all the art and worrying about having everything in the proper format. At some point, I may have to face setting up a website, but let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Can't wait to see what the pages will look like colored. The next step after that is lettering and once we have five pages completed, I hope to try and see if there is any interest in the project by publishers. But again, let's not get ahead of ourselves.
While that doesn't sound like a lot, those two projects have kept me pretty busy this past week.
I wanted to and still hope to write a review for Hail, Caesar! which I saw over the weekend.
Did post our second Year of the Monkey film post on Trophy Unlocked: the Marx Brothers' Monkey Business (1931), which I would hope everyone will read.
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