A Week in Writing #541 - The Christmas Week That Was

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. Hope everyone has a Happy and safe New Year's Eve.

Things have sorted of slowed down this past week. There were a couple of big events this week, something called Christmas seemed to really dominated the week. A lot of fun, and, if you're curious, I got some music and books amongst other things. The day following Christmas is unofficially called Movie Day in my house, when we watch/rewatch movies. We still believe in physical media, so we end up watching discs we got, which are usually films we had seen previously in the year.

All that and I did get some writing done. To begin with, I worked on Skylar some, of course not as much as I might have liked. I have about 76 pages to go with this rewrite, so progress is being made.

Trophy Unlocked was busy with four reviews up this week. My review of Sin Takes a Holiday (1930), was the Saturday Morning Review. Before that on Christmas Day was Trevor's review of The Night Before Christmas in Wonderland (2024). On Christmas Eve, was my review of Red One. Coincidentally, both of these films were released on the same day. The week started off with Paul's review of Awaria.

I did write a new review this week for Larceny, Inc., but I wouldn't expect it to see the light of day until next Christmas at the earliest.

On Powers Squared, Trevor finished lettering issue #26, so we're only one issue behind schedule. Nothing to report on the other issues being worked on.

 

We did make a special announcement on this week's On the Air with Powers Squared podcast. Trevor's own book The Blade of Miracles is going to come out next year under the SRCC Press banner. There are still some logistics to be worked out but it was big news for the last podcast of the year. You can listen to it here, on our website, where you can also find other platforms, and, or watch it on New Year's Day when it premieres on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at 2:30 pm here.

I also worked some on the newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which will be coming out next week. Never to late to sign up for it, just enroll at SRCC here. It's free and you get a digital copy of the first issue to boot.

A bit of sad news to report. Powers Squared had our first signing at our local comic bookstore, Galaxy of Comics. We just learned today that the proprietor of that store, Warren Jaycox, was killed in an accident yesterday. My condolences to his family and friends over their loss.

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

A Week in Writing #540 - 'Tis the Season

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

With the holidays fast approaching, it seems like time gets squeezed, and by that, I mean writing time, so don't expect too much from me this week, and/or next.

That doesn't mean nothing has been happening. There has, in fact, been a lot of activity on Trophy Unlocked. There has been a new review every day this week. The week started off with Paul's review of Perfect Blue, as part of our salute to Japanese director Satoshi Kon. That continued on Tuesday with Trevor's review of Millennium Actress. The Wednesday Game Day, with Paul's review of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle. Thursday saw Trevor's review of Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, which we had seen the night before at the IPIC in Westwood. Friday was the penultimate film in our salute to Kon with      Trevor's review of Paprika. The Saturday Morning Review, was both the final film in the Kon salute and the last film in our 3 Godfathers Christmas with Tokyo Godfathers. And if that wasn't enough, today saw Paul's review of Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which we saw on Friday afternoon.

I did manage to finish a review of Red One, which I can say will come out next week. It will be another busy week on the blog.

We received pages from both artists on Powers Squared. Julia submitted the cover for Issue 27, which was good, though we had some changes we wanted made. That issue will be a bit of a departure for us, and I won't get into it here, but we're still not sure how we're going to handle it, so we wanted the artwork to go to the edges.

We had a different issue with Issue #28. I'm not sure what happened, but somewhere two pages got confused and we ended up with a weird page break in the script. So, some minor clean up needed there. But the basics are solid.

Our podcast was our December 2024 Team Meeting. We went through the business part of the meeting pretty quickly. I hadn't planned anything, so I asked about favorite Christmas movies and music. You can hear everyone's choices here or wait an see them on Christmas day on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) here.

And the week wouldn't be complete without working on Skylar. I did manage to go through a couple of chapters, but nothing too much. I'm going to try to keep working on it this week as well, but things will get busy; 'tis the season.

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

A Week in Writing #539 - Growing Pains

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

So, growing pains is the wrong expression, but moving into a new computer has its own issues. Mostly, it's how things work and where things are stored or aren't. We found out on Friday, for example, that some files on my old computer hadn't made it to the new one. That's why, for example, this week's audio podcast is missing the music we usually use. I remedied that today, I hope.

I've also lost some applications that I had been using, like Adobe Elements. I had managed to have a standalone version of the software, which I used for sizing pages, making peeks-of-the-weeks and thumbnails for the audio podcast. I at least knew what I was doing. Now I'm trying to find one that works similarly, but so far it's hit and miss. It took three of us to get the podcast thumbnail done for Friday.

I'm not sure if it's the new computer, but the camera kept glitching throughout the podcast. Not sure why, but it was sort of annoying. Our guest this week was Tony Fleecs, the creator behind Stray Dogs and Feral. It's available now on our Twitch channel https://www.twitch.tv/powerssquared/videos, but only for the next few days. It's also available in audio form. You can listen to it on our website or find the other platforms it's on at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. Or, you can wait and watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) when it goes up on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST. The direct link is https://youtu.be/yc3rBrNrxCU.

There was a lot of activity this week on Trophy Unlocked, including two of my reviews. Today saw Beatles '64 go up, my thoughts on the recent documentary on Disney+. The Saturday Morning Review was also mine, this time for 3 Godfathers (1948); this is a Three Godfather's Christmas on the blog. The Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's for Sonic Adventure played on the Dreamcast.

The holidays have already had a bit of an effect on my writing. This Christmas we have three Advent calendars, the usual chocolate a day, but we've added in one that's a Harry Potter puzzle every day and the other is EXIT: The Game - Advent Calendar - The Missing Hollywood Star, the latter we play as a family. It's fun, but depending on how late we eat and how hard the Exit clues are, it can get kind of late to really start much.

That said, I did manage to get through two reviews this week and keep up with my Skylar rewrites. But I find myself asleep sometimes at the keyboard.

No new review from me this week, as we made our annual Saturday night shopping trek to the mall. We actually are pretty far along with Christmas shopping and actually didn't buy anything, but we like to go once a year at this time to see what's what.

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

A Week in Writing #538 - A Bit of a Scare

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

Had a bit of a scare this weekend. We bought new laptops recently and I'm just starting to move into it, transferring files from the old to the new using something called The Tornado. It's a bit of a slow process, but that's not the scary part. I was transferring a folder called "My Writing" which contains all of the Powers Squared, Trophy Unlocked as well as the J.D. Barrister books I've been writing for years, and several other folders. Well, when the transfer was over, all that was transferred and all that was left under the My Writing folder, on both computers, was Powers Squared and Trophy Unlocked. Everything else seemed to have disappeared.

A bit of panic set in, as I had backed up most of my work onto a thumbdrive, but I would have lost the rewrites I had recently done and am currently doing with Skylar. I waited until the transfer was complete (hours) and was able to find all of My Writing in a backup file, which I put back in the folder. I then backed up a couple of files on a thumbdrive this morning before trying the transfer again.

Speaking of Skylar, I've been making pretty good progress on it, even adding what I'll call touches to chapters I've already rewritten, hopefully making it better. I'm trying to do at least a chapter a day. The computer set up is sort of interfering with that, but I should be back to it soon.

No new review this week, though I have at least one to write for They Call It Sin and, if we watch it, the new Beatles documentary. That said, Trophy Unlocked's Three Godfathers Christmas continued with my review of Three Godfathers (1936) as the Saturday Morning Review. The Wednesday Game Day review this week was Trevor's review of Doronko Wanko.

Our podcast this week was a look back at 2024. In addition to tabling at a "major" Con, we also put out two issues, a trade and had tributes to Transformers, TMNT and Usagi Yojimbo. We also had five book clubs and several well-received taste tests, courtesy of Paul, on our YouTube Channel. You can listen to the podcast here and/or wait and watch it on Wednesday at 2:30 PT here. If you do watch, we hope you'll subscribe to the channel as well.

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

A Week in Writing #537 - Turkeyless Thanksgiving and Other Tales

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

Not the best Thanksgiving holiday. While it's not the meal that's really important, but family, let me tell you the meal is also important. Case in point, this year, no turkey for the Hankins on Thanksgiving Day. You don't realize how much you miss it until you can't have any. Long story short, there were questions on how much the turkey had been cooked, thanks to an electric issue, and when the carving started, there was blood, which isn't a good sign. There was more cooking, but was it enough? We decided, the four of us, not to risk it. Others ate it and no one got sick, but why take the risk? So, no turkey, stuffing and no next day sandwich, which is the real prize.

The trip back was long, 9 hours +, counting stops, helped to being longer by an accident in the Grapevine. Two cars went over the edge and a helicopter had to be called in to take one of the victims to the hospital. Meanwhile, we're sitting in traffic with no clue about what's going on. Not a fun way to end any trip.

Not a total loss, managed to find a couple of Black Friday Record Store Day releases, getting one at less that face value, so I can't complain too much about that.

Because of the holiday, not too much writing got done. I feel like I'm squeezing this in, as a matter of fact.

No new reviews, but my review of Hell's Heroes went up on Saturday morning. This year, Trophy Unlocked is celebrating the Christmas season with a look at various versions of the Three Godfathers story on film. Hell's Heroes from 1929 was the first chronologically that we watched and there is more to come, as this is a popular story to retell. Trevor's review of Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion went up on Wednesday.

Even though we were away, there was a new podcast, one that we had prerecorded a couple of weeks ago. Artist Rachel Wells, colorist Julia Canon and letterer Trevor Hankins, joined Paul and myself to discuss the new issue #23 "Family Affair, Part 2", which drops next Wednesday. You can listen here or watch on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 on our YouTube channel. The issue will be available in both print and digital through The Campus Store on our website.

Also, got out the newsletter today. Most of the work had already been done, but there's always something that has to be corrected. If you'd like your own copy of The Hound Dags' Howl, you can sign up by enrolling at SRCC here. It's free!

Some editing this week on Skylar as I'm reading it through one more time looking for inconsistencies and missing words, etc. Hopefully, I'll be done by year's end, if not sooner.

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