Sunday, September 6, 2020

A Week in Writing #315 - That Frustrated Feeling

Hope everyone is staying safe and continuing to write.

Before I sat down to write this entry, I was feeling pretty frustrated as everything I've tried to do today hasn't worked or at least worked easily. I was hoping to spend part of the weekend working on things Powers Squared and even though the weekend isn't technically over (Labor Day), I don't think I'm going to get everything done.

My frustration has nothing to do with the people I'm working with on the project, they're all great. But I was hoping to do some preliminary work on Issue #10, which we want to get out in the next month or so. It feels like it is overdue.

I wanted to get some proofs made. We use two different print-on-demand services, one in the US and one in the UK. Our US one won't let you upload your files until after you've paid, which is all well and good, but you can't pay the invoice generated on the site until they send you an email link, which is a bit frustrating. To their credit, they did check their messages on a Sunday afternoon and sent me the invoice, so I was at least able to get that part done.

With the UK one, which also does t-shirts, I wanted to get a couple proofs made, but could only get one done. Again, not their fault, but one of the two images needs to be altered in a way that is above my limited Photoshop skills. I've contacted the original colorist to see if she still has the layered tiff file that would make the change easier to make. If not, there are other options, but it means it won't happen this weekend.

When I tried to upload the comic book to that site to get a proof made by them, I got an error message I can't get past, so I have to wait for them to get back in the office. Again, I'll probably be able to do it tomorrow, but that's not what I was planning to do then.

Otherwise, things are going well with the book. We have a great team and we've started a new issue this month, our 16th (part of the reason 10 seems to be late). Paul and I had Rachel as a guest on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, and she discussed character design and turning the script into thumbnails. You can watch it on our YouTube channel if you're interested.

In other writing, I finished my first round of research on agents. I decided to wait until after Labor Day to send out my first queries. I will admit to being nervous. I researched about 95 agents. As I discussed last week, I've grouped them into three color categories: greens are the best bets (44); yellows are secondary choices (40) and reds are not to query (11). You sort of want to test a few to see if it's the query or the agent, so I'll take it slow.

I did some more writing on Skylar, but not really enough to have more than this much mention here.

For Trophy Unlocked, I worked on two reviews, one I've completed for Old Yeller (1957) and one I'm still working on for Three Men On a Horse (1936). Again, I don't know when they'll see the light of the internet. This week and next have been pretty much dedicated to Tony Hawk, with reviews this week for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (PS1)Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS1)Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2)Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (PS2) and Tony Hawk's Underground (PS2). The Saturday Morning Review was Mulan, but the 1998 original and not the one on Disney+ (see what we did there?)

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

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