A Week in Writing # 562 - The Time Had Come

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

Well, things finally came to a head this week and I fired the artist on Powers Squared. It was not something I wanted to do, but after two months and no finished pages and two weeks and no response to a direct message, I didn't feel like I had a choice. It was time to move on. We're in the process of looking for a new artist and hopefully we'll find one soon. There have, so far, been only four artists to draw the book, which isn't bad for 28 issues. One drew five, another drew four, this last one did only one and one aritst drew 18 issues in all.

On this week's podcast, Paul and I discussed horror movies, in time for Halloween. I figured if we did it on Halloween it would be too late. For me, watching horror films after Halloween is a little like watching Christmas movies in January; the season has passed. You can still watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it now here, or wait and watch it in all its glory on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here. The choice is yours.

Next week's podcast should be a preview for the next issue of Trevor's book The Blade of Miracles, #8, "Mordred, Part 1". There is also a new review of the book for your perusal. And the peek-of-the-week is from that book as well.

Speaking of horror films, or more like Gothic Science Fiction, we attended a screening of Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein this past Saturday. I was anxious to see it because I had read the Mary Shelley novel and had high hopes del Toro's version would be a closer adaptation to the book than Universal's Frankenstein (1931) had been. My review will go up next Saturday, so you'll have to wait until then to know how I feel about the new movie.

In the meantime, Paul's review of Tron: Ares went up on Saturday on Trophy Unlocked. And on Game Day Wednesday, Trevor's review of the PC game Tron: Catalyst was featured.

I also did some prelimary research on the Batman serial we're watching, though we didn't watch any this past Saturday.

More work on Blackmail this week, but more like editing, though I did add a chapter. The word count is now 61,671, so some movement forward on that. This Tuesday past was my wife's birthday, so I took the day off. Since it was raining, we sheltered in place for half the day and I was able to get some work done on the book.

No new queries this week. I've got to get back on that horse soon.

The next week, we'll keep working on finding a new artist and I hope to get in more writing on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #561 - Not As Bad As Advertised

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

I sort of lost part of a day this week. It was colonoscopy time again, which I had scheduled for Wednesday. I feared I would be more out of it that day/night, but it wasn't that bad. I'm not going to make this blog about getting screened, but it's better to know either way than not know. I'll leave it to you to decide what you want to do.

I did do some writing on Blackmail, which was supposed to be the week's main event. I ended up adding a new chapter and making some other revisions. Now, I'm up to 61,000+ words, but still about 19,000 to go with more story to tell.

Our podcast this week was our 21st Comic Book Club, Grommets by Rick Remender and Brian Posehn. Julia Canon and Rachel Wells joined us for the discussion. You can see it for the next few days on our twitch channel, listen to it here or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT. Our next book will be Vagabond by Takehiko Inoue, if you want to virtually participate. Not sure when that podcast will be made.

We had a bit of a discussion, offline, about the sitch with Powers Squared and I will be letting our current artist go come Monday. By then it will have been two weeks of radio silence, which for me is a no-go. We've been stuck about five pages in on an issue for over two months, so I don't see it getting done this year. Time to make a change.

The Saturday Morning Review this week on Trophy Unlocked was my review of The Sound of Music. Next week will be Paul's for Tron: Ares, which we watched yesterday in IMAX 3D, the way it was intended. We're still slogging our way through The Batman 1943 serial, so that review is still several weeks away.

I need to get back into the query game soon. Hopefully next week or the week after, depending on how things go.

This week, I also need to prep for the next issue of The Blade of Miracles #8, "Mordred, Part 1", which is coming out at the end of the month, October 29. Several things need to happen before then, so it's not a mad rush like last month.

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

A Week in Writing #560 - Newsletter Week, Again!

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

My whole family had our COVID vaccinations yesterday. It seems vaccines effect people differently. Besides the sore shoulder, I know that at about 10 last night my mind went to mush. Now, it seems to do that more and more to me anyway. I try to write until about 11 pm and some nights by 10:30 I'm really done. If I'm not falling asleep at the keyboard, then I'm in a half-sleep haze, wanting to do something but not quite making it happen. Time for bed at that point.

For our podcast on Friday, we interviewed Lewis Fenton of Mythos Comics. They were one of the booths next to us in Small Press at San Diego Comic-Con. It was a pretty good interview, and I ended up buying some books off their website as a result. One that Lewis had worked on, The Brave, is the story of Squanto, the indian who came forward to help the Pilgrims and also spoke perfect English. I also bought the two issues of Samaritan, a comic book that started out as a screenplay but became a comic book when the script didn't sell, but when it did, they lost rights to the story, so the book only had two issues. You can hear more by listening to the podcast here, watching it on twitch.tv/powerssquared for the next few days, or catching it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PDT.

Following our interview, we watched Samaritan, which lives on Amazon Prime, and I wrote a review of it over the weekend. As always, not sure when it will go up. However, my review of Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale did go up as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. Earlier in the week, on Game Day Wednesday, Paul's review of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach went up as well.

This week was sort of dominated by The Hound Dogs' Howl, our monthly newsletter. This month, the featured twins are Bridgette and Paula Powers, no relation to Marty and Eli Powers, from Australia. There is also a round up of stories about Powers Squared, The Blade of Miracles and our videos and podcasts on YouTube. It's FREE if you want to subscribe. In keeping with the collegiate theme, you "enroll" at San Romero Community College to get on the list, plus you get a free digital copy of Issue #1. You can sign up here. End of plug.

I am about finished with our current artist on Powers Squared. I believe I mentioned last week that we got pages a week and a day late, but there has been no communication back since we sent her comments, which we sent on the 29th and we're coming up on a week of radio silence. I don't like firing people, but it seems to be headed in that direction.

On the subject of Powers Squared, we sent in the physical issues required as part of the application for Small Press. They had to be postmarked by the 11th, but I wanted to get them sent and not have to worry.

Some work this week as well on Blackmail; remember, this was supposed to be a newsletter week. I'm writing a couple of chapters that are out of my wheelhouse totally, so I'm making up procedures that a law enforcement organization would follow. It makes me feel rather tentative while writing it. My best hope is to get through it, which I've done. I'm at 58,526 words, which is about 22,00 short, with more to come.

I've got to get back to Blackmail this week, though I will warn you I'm going to miss a day, but that can wait until next week.

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