A Week in Writing #595 - AI Was the Topic

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

With the prominence of AI in pratically everything, Paul and I spent our podcast discussing for the second time, "AI in Media (Part 2)". We're not experts, but it is something as creators we feel very strongly about. We've talked about it before on our 199th episode "Discussing A.I. in Media", which you're free to watch as well. The new podcast can be listened to here, watched for the next week here or watched on our YouTube channel after 2:30 pm on Wednesday. If you have opinions about AI, we would love to hear them.

We were planning on discussing it with our new artist on the next podcast, which we were planning to record on Saturday to fit her schedule. But things didn't work out as planned and after an hour of waiting, and still in contact, we called it. We'll have to reschedule, but it probably won't be any time this month. Maybe next. It's hard to coordinate a time that is good for everyone.

There are new pages coming in for the new issue of Powers Squared, and our colorist, for the first time in months, has something to work on, so all is good and moving forward.

Speaking of moving forward, my review of One Battle After Another went up on Trophy Unlocked as our Saturday Morning Review. This honestly wasn't a movie I really wanted to see, but seeing as it's awards season and this is being nominated, we decided to watch and review. I also wrote a review for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which should go up next Saturday. I tried to watch The Second Woman to review it, but it was a no-go for me.

I did rework the beginning of Blackmail, and made more updates. I think it works better. I'm up to 77,725 words for those who are counting along with me, about 1700 more than last week. My goal is at least 80,000 words, so I'm feeling more confident on reaching that, I feel like I've got 4 or 5 more chapters to go and then my favorite part, editing. After that, I've got another one to work on, a currently untitled story that I was bout 20,000 words into before switching to Blackmail.

I'm still planning on starting up querying again, but I have to work on a better letter, since the last one went nowhere. I've also come up with a better comps for the book, so I'm hopeful, but you've got to be.

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

A Week in Writing #536 - Under the Weather

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

This was a slower than expected week for me. Wednesday night into Thursday I came down with a cold or something similar. I'm guessing I caught it from one of the half-dozen workmen we had in the house. While I won't go into details, part of our house is 75 years-old and with it comes 75 year-old-wiring, which turns out to be woefully dangerous. It really wasn't until today before I felt whole again, as they say.

I did manage to work on both The Hound Dogs' Howl newsletter, as well as finish the reviews as I was working on: A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (1974), which came out as this past Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, and Three Godfathers (1936), which will be coming out in December as part of our salute to Christmas. If you've been reading Trophy Unlocked, and you should be, you might remember a few years ago, we did a salute to A Christmas Carol, reviewing several different versions from a silent retelling A Christmas Carol (1910), starring Marc McDermott, to a more modern one, A Christmas Carol (1984), starring George C. Scott with several stops inbetween.

This Christmas we're doing the same with movies made based on the novel The Three Godfathers by Peter B. Kyne (New York, 1913) but you'll have to stay tuned to see which films I mean and in which order they will appear.

And mine wasn't the only review on Trophy Unlocked this week. Trevor's review of the video game Please, Touch The Artwork 2 on what I like to call Game Day on the blog.

I had hoped to do some more on Skylar this week, but I really didn't have the energy.

Even though I was not feeling great, I still managed to do the Powers Squared podcast on Friday night. It was our November 2024 team meeting and while we talked about the comic book, we also talked about moving to Bluesky, which prompted a discussion about AI. It was a good conversation and you can listen to it now here, or watch it when it comes out on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST, here.

As far as Bluesky goes, you can follow me @lionsroar91406.bsky.social or you can follow Powers Sqaured @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social. lt would help as we're starting over, so to speak.

Next week starts the holiday season, so you'll have to forgive me if my input drops after Wednesday. Lots of driving, food and shopping to be done. Hope everyone has a Happy (and safe) Thanksgiving.

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