A Week in Writing #613 - Social Media Meltdown

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

I don't know if you're like me, but there is a certain amount of pressure to post regularly on social media platforms. For me, the main ones I use are Facebook (both David Hankins and Powers Squared), Instagram, LinkedIn (both David Hankins and Powers Squared), Threads, amd Bluesky. [This is not a call to follow me on any of them, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of what I'm on. I used to use GoDaddy for this, but they have very limited reach, like Facebook and Instagram. I decided to try another service, PaddyPost, which are usually Powers Squared related.

With PaddyPost, there were always issues with Bluesky, since they have limited space and for PaddyPost to interface, it has to be shorter than their limit, so I try to keep that in mind. But there are problems with PaddyPost, such as my social media connections keep getting lost, pretty much exclusively Bluesky, but it gets worse. My two LinkedIn accounts stopped working several weeks ago and my emails to PaddyPost Support went unanswered for several weeks. They finally acknowledged me but claimed never to have receive my emails, which I attached on my response. But still no response to my issue.

I also post to Threads directly, because when I try through PaddyPost, I get the largest QR Code I've ever seen and this is only the top part, which fills the screen:

Thanks for nothing.

This led me to reconsider GoDaddy, but you don't create your social media posts, their AI slop does it for you and there's no way to opt out. After spending thirty or more minutes with their help chat, the answer was to let AI write them and then edit it to what you want. What a load of BS. So they're out.

As I'm writing this, I've gotten two emails from PaddyPost about losing connection to BlueSky (both accounts), again, again today! WTF?

My postings are pretty simple. I post every morning about anniversaries of titles reviewed in Trophy Unlocked on BlueSky. I do these directly under my name, and I'm editing as I go to ensure they will work again next year. On Saturdays I post on Facebook and BlueSky about the Saturday Morning Review; I also do it on Wednesday if there is a game review and I know about it ahead of time. Again, these are done directly on the plaforms, little to no issues. I also post on Sunday nights regarding this post on both platforms, again with minimal issues.

What I want help with are the two to three Powers Squared posts, which I try to get to as many platforms as possible. Our Wedneday video goes up at 2:30 pm, which happens to be when I supposed to be doing my day job. So I had been trying to use PaddyPost for those, as well as the Tuesday Peek-of-the-Week post about that feature on our Powers Squared website. We also post a video to Instagram and that works. Even afterwards, there are more groups to post it to on Facebook, which again, I do directly. But it's also supposed to go to BlueSky, Instagram, LinkedIn, but it's not going to LinkedIn and BlueSky's connection, as noted above, is lost at the drop of a hat.

So, I feel like I'm spending too much time trying to get PaddyPost to work properly and if they don't respond in short order, I'm apt to give up on them all together. I had high hopes that they would be a reliable partner and they're proving not to be. 

End of Rant.

In other news, I finsished a review of Moana (1926), the Robert Flaherty documentary. My goal is to save it until the new live-action Disney Moana comes out. You're now officially in on the joke. My review of The Sheep Detectives went up as the Saturday Morning review on Trophy Unlocked. Our artist on Powers Squared has been very busy and I'm already behind as I write this with a new page from her. It's great but every night, I have to review what she's sent and give comments. It's more time consuming that you think, though necessary.

Our Friday night On the Air with Powers Squared podcast, which I had tried to use PaddyPost to "advertise", this week was a look at the Steven Universe universe, the original series, the movie and the Steven Universe Future series. You can listen to it now here, watch it on our Twitch channel for the next few days, or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm. It will go up even if the social posts don't.

I'm still working on Blackmail, but I've come to a part I plan to rewrite, as the timeline in the story allows me to do that. I'm about 84% through the book at this point and standing at 89,538 words. I'm guessing the latter number will go down with the rewrites, which should tighten the story somewhat. 

So, my next week will be reviewing and rewriting.

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

A Week in Writing #612 - Blackmail Gets Short Shrift

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. And Happy Mother's Day to any mothers out there.

My hope this week was to work more on Blackmail, however, I'm far from done. I don't know if this has happened to you, and it's happened to me several times, but I was trying to work on a section of the book that didn't quite feel right. I wanted to have a conversation my protagonist has on his cell phone to be recorded by someone else in the room. I sort of made up something to make it work, but I kept seeing an ad on Instagram for something that could record your telephone conversations and save them to a phone app. Actually, it used some sort of AI feature to make notes of your conversation, but I decided to hijack the technology, minus the AI feature, and have it simply record the conversation. Problem sort of solved. All that said, I'm only at approximately 3/4 of the way through the book.

Part of the reason I didn't get more done has to do with everything else. There were multiple pages of Powers Squared to review and then write up comments. It's coming along nicely by the way.

And then there were reviews. I was asked to write one for The Devil Wears Prada, which turned out to Trophy Unlocked's SaturdayMorning Review. It was proceeded by Paul's Wednesday Game Day second look review of Devil May Cry 2, and followed today by Paul's review of The Devil Wears Prada 2. I'm currently working on one for Dr. Who and The Daleks and I'm going to be writing one for The Sheep Detectives, which we saw this afternoon.

One bad thing that happened at the screening was that the people next to us were involved in some dispute about their seating. The people whose seats they were showed up as the movie was starting, literally as the lights were going down. I don't know why you would sit in someone else's reserved seats, but they had to work this out as the movie was playing.

To accomodate our guest, we pre-recorded our podcast on Thursday night. Our guest was Bin Lee, who had previously been on the podcast promoting his comic book Delegates, but was now back promoting a Kickstarter for his card game, Pack of Penguins. It was great to catch up and we've already backed the game. If you're curious, you can watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it now here, or watch the video when it goes up on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared), on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT. And you can back the Kickstarter by clicking on Pack of Penguins above. He's over 500% funded, so it's going to happen.

And if that wasn't enough, we also did a What's in My Bag? 2026 Edition, Part 2: Discussion, which is a follow up to last week's video about Free Comic Book Day/Comics Giveaway Day. Last time, we told you what we picked; this time we tell you what we thought about what we read. It's also available for the next few day on our twitch channel, as well as on our YouTube channel now.

So, I have a couple of reviews to write and finish, and then I hope to get back to Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #611 - Still Churning

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

I'm still working on Blackmail. After the print out edits, I'm going through it again on the computer, making more edits as I go. I'm not quite to 3/4 of the way through. Currently, the word count is 89,238, though that is subject to change, either up or down. Doing it this way is sort of slow going but I hope to be done soon. I'm also making changes that I may have to also make in previous books, trying to stay consistent with the characters.

The newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, came out this morning. Click the link if you want to read it. It includes links to our YouTube videos, Heard Around Campus section, and a feature on twins in the arts,  as well as a recommendation, and more. It's Free, so take a look.

This past Friday we had the pleasure to interview Megatron, actually Daniel Riordan, who voiced the character during the Robots in Disguise (2001) run. As always, that interview is available on our Twitch channel for the next few days, available as an audio podcast, and will be up on our YouTube channel this coming Wednesday at 2:30 pm.

And because Saturday was Free Comic Book Day/Comics Giveaway Day, we did our annual "What's in My Bag?" stream, in which Paul, Trevor and I discuss the books we picked up and then next week we'll discuss/review them in another stream. Usually, our former artist Rachel Wells will join us, but she couldn't this year.

No new review for me this week. Saturday was a long day, and we decided to watch one of the MST3K films that our recent podcast guest, Joshua Pruett had worked on instead. My recent review of Le Ballet Mécanique went up as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review.

Progress continues on the next issue of Powers Squared. Our artist has completed work on five pages for the next issue, "Aroma Therapy, Part 1", and it is looking good.

My goal this week is to try to get through Blackmail. I'm also going to finally submit the 3rd trade for printing. I'm hoping to have some on hand should we get chosen again from San Diego Comic-Con, Last year, there was so much to get done in a little over two weeks, so I'm trying to be better prepared this time through.

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