A Week in Writing #578 - Not My Best Week

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

Not a banner week for me to say the least. And there are a number of factors involved, but I was never able this week to really sit down and write, like I wanted to. I won't go into specifics, but everything aligned this week to keep me from doing too much. My main goal was to work on Blackmail, but the word count changed miniscully to 82,690, which is less than a 100 words up from last week. I've done a lot of thinking about it but that doesn't get words on the page or in the computer.

We had better success with our guest on our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. Heidi Neunhoffer, a Lorcana artist that the boys liked, was at Pasadena Comic Con, at the table across from us. She agreed to do the show and I think it went very well. Turns out we both went to the same college, though I imagine it was close to 40 years apart. Besides that, she was very open about her craft. I think it could have gone on much longer, but I think we got in a lot at over 81 minutes. You can still watch it for the next few days here (our twitch channel) or listen to it ,or find other platforms to listen to it, here. There is always the option to watch in our YouTube channel at 2:30 pm PST on Wednesday.

Two new pages of Powers Squared were worked on and I really like the artwork. Not sure how the coloring or the lettering is going, but we should have a new issue done in a couple of months. Not quite the assembly line, but pretty good.

No word yet on either WonderCon or ComicCon where we are currently on the waitlist.

Had some printing issues this week, trying to communicate. The printer used a sort of message board where you ask about a particular order or issues in general. However, for whatever reason, if I post a message, I can't see it and when they post a message, I can't see it either. That's not good to say the least.

My review of Little Amélie or the Character of Rain went up on Saturday. It's one of the films nominated for Best Animated Feature. While I fear what the Academy will do, this one should win, but I'm set for disappointment. I'm currently working on a review for Till The End of Time (1946), which will go up sometime in the future.

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

A Week in Writing #577 - Blame it on the Bunny!

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

I know it looks like I'm looking for excuses, but hear me out. I'm going to blame my lack of production on Bugs Bunny. I know it sounds far-fetched, but he was the Star of the Month on TCM and my wife wanted to watch them in real time. This delayed dinner, but my window to work didn't get later. And, hey, I enjoyed them, too.

I'm most disappointed by my work on Blackmail, which was practically nil. I did finish the chapter, but it's going to need a lot of rewrites when the time comes. I'm up to 82,586, which is a little over 1,100 words from last week, which is about average. I'm really surprised to see that total.

It wasn't that I didn't do anything. I did review work from our artist and colorist for Powers Squared, and, of course, pay them for their work from last month.

As "publisher" of The Blade of Miracles, I had a week-long running issue with our printer. While it dates back to a mistake I made in the order, it took a week to work out the upload, but they got it done and the proof is on its way.

I also did some work on future issues of Powers Squared.

Related, the school where it takes place, San Romero Community College, is celebrating it's 70th anniversary and we were working with a former artist on the book to come up with a variant seal to celebrate. You can find here, if you're interested.

There was also the podcast. This week it was one Paul wanted to do, a Megadeth Tier List, celebrating the 17 albums the band has issued. You can watch it here for the next few days, listen to it now here or wait and watch it on Wednesday at 2:30 pm when it premieres on our YouTube channel.

My review of They Call it Sin was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. I also wrote a future review of Little Amélie or the Character of Rain which I assume will go up soon.

So, not the worst week I've had writing but not the best one either.

As always, I hope to work more on Blackmail but I don't always control what is going on.

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

A Week in Writing #576 - Didn't Get it All Done

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

My goals for this week were simple enough: do the newsletter, The Hound Dog's Howl, and work more on Blackmail. Well, I got about half of that done, it was the newsletter. Even though much of it is formulaic, it still takes time. And by formulaic, I don't mean that I'm in possession of some magic formula about how to put together a newsletter, but more that there is a layout to ours that I follow month in and month out. There is some writing involved, things do happen during the month. This past month, as an example, we had a new issue of The Blade of Miracles released, we tabled at a convention and our latest trade went up on ComicsPlus through LibraryPass. If you would like to read it, please subscribe here. It's FREE.

The work on Blackmail never really got off the ground. I'm up to 80,472 words, which isn't much of an improvement from last week. Things happen that get in the way. Some of it is the book itself. I knoew what I want to have happen in the next chapter but sometimes it's a little difficult to get into it.

Our podcast this week, was our 22nd Comic Book Club. It seems like it had been months since I had read Vagabond, a manga by Takehiko Inoue, which wasn't the plan. When you're trying to schedule five people in two cities, and people have their own lives, it can be hard, especially when you're working around the holidays. Our former artist Rachel Wells, and our current colorist, Julia Canon, joined Trevor, Paul and myself. You can listen to it here, watch it for the next few days on our twitch channel, or wait until Wedmesday at 2:30 pm PST and watch it on our YouTube channel. While you're there, please feel free to subscribe and sign up for notifications.

Quite an active week on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Paul's review of Iron Lung went up. He and Trevor had attended what was supposed to be the first screening of the film on Tuesday night. The Saturday Morning Review was my review of Samaritan, a digital release based on the comic book by a friend of a friend. We had watched it after Lewis Felton had appeared on our podcast and talked about how his business partner had written a spec script that didn't sell, but when he made it into a comic book, that sold. If you want to hear more, you can check out the interview with Lewis Fenton here.

I've also written a review of The Beast of the City, a 1932 MGM film starring Walter Huston and Jean Harlow. As always, no idea when it will appear.

This past Wednesday saw the release of issue 11 of Trevor's The Blade of Miracles. You can find it in both physical and digital at The Campus Store on our website. I'm still working on getting #12 ready for release later this month.

On the Powers Squared front, I feel like I'm in a waiting pattern. Our new artist should be delivering a new page soon, our colorist should be sending new colored pages soon and I'm working with our old artist about a new seal to celebrate SRCC's 70th anniversary. San Romero Community College is the ficticious school where a lot of the comic book takes place in and around. Amd according to the story, it was founded in 1956. I'll be sharing the new seal when done.

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