A Week in Writing #258

This was actually a fairly busy week, so let's get going.

Got some big news on Friday that I really can't get into, but it was very promising when it comes to Powers Squared. We may be on the verge of our biggest single distribution. This is being arranged by our print-on-demand partner, Artithmeric, but can't go into details now.

Artithmeric has been encouraging us to make the first five issues of Powers Squared into what they're calling a graphic novel, but what might be considered a trade paperback here in the states. We've made some progress on some of the preliminary stuff, like a title page, credits page, etc. Don't think it will take much to make it a reality, so hopefully, we can pull it together sooner rather than later.

Also asked them if they've considered doing any conventions and it turns out they have. They'd like to have a presence and promote some of their creators, which would hopefully include us should that come to pass. It was actually something I had been thinking of since we were at Comic-Con. I'll admit a chance to do some promotion work at a Con of any size appeals to me.

No new pages from our artist or our colorist this week, which counts from Sunday to Saturday. We did receive pages from Nina on Sunday afternoon, so a little late but better late than never.

Had lunch on Wednesday with a guy from work who has a YouTube channel on which he and his brother discuss comic books. He's read all of our issues and wants to have us on when they resume shooting it. Long story about why they haven't shot it in a while, but that's not mine to tell.

Something else that didn't come to fruition was reaching 100 subscribers on our mailing list. I think I've tweaked the landing page enough, adding a logline on Wednesday thanks to a suggestion from the ListLaunch Facebook page. Now, I just have to keep hitting people up to join. Somehow, that seems harder than it should be.

In other writing, I completed my first review in quite a while for Trophy Unlocked. I think I'll hold it back until November when I tend to do film noir reviews as part of Noirvember as it's called on the internet. The film is Thieves' Highway, which is barely a film noir but was the last Noir Alley film on TCM before they started their Summer Under the Stars month. I'm not a fan of August on TCM.

I have been trying to be more dedicated to my other writing as well. Pretty much every day this week I've been working on The Runaway. I'm liking the progress I'm making on that, but there is still more to go.

I've also been trying to query Broken People. Last week, I sent out my first query in months. As per the usual, I received the oft anticipated rejection on Saturday night. I'll give them credit that the form letter they sent almost sounds personal, though I believe the term is personalized. Nice touch mentioning the book title in the letter: "Thank you for querying me with the first three chapters of BROKEN PEOPLE. I'm sorry to say that, while the manuscript sounds interesting, it is not a good fit for me at this time." Odd to have received it at 6:41 pm on a Saturday evening, which would have meant the agent was in their office at nearly 10 at night. Color me skeptical that it was anything other than a scheduled email.

That's the soul-sucking part of the process. Oh, it's okay when your query is Schroedinger's Cat but once you learn that it is indeed dead, it's hard not to take it personally. But you've got to be thick-skinned to be a creative and rejection is par for the course.

All that said, I had already sent out three more that afternoon. I mean if I want to be a serious writer, I have to do the serious stuff like querying for representation. I will, of course, fill you in on how that works out. (Hint: Don't expect much!)

Until next week, keep writing. I'll do the same and I'll meet you back here with all the details.