A Week in Writing #430 - Is Routine a Good Thing?

Hope everyone is well, and, of course, writing.

If you're like me, you like a little routine in your writing. I try to hit all the basic food groups so to speak every week: Powers Squared, Trophy Unlocked, fka Skylar, and, a query. It's good to get to everything but is it a good thing? Is it getting me anywhere?

Even writing this blog is part of the routine. It takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to write down what I did during the week. I know that I need this as much as a reminder as anything else.

Routine is good and all but every so often it's good to shake things up. That's coming for me in early December when I moderate the Under the Radar panel but that's several weeks away. And, of course, we have the start of the holidays, and then routine is totally out the window.

But until then, let's go through the routine:

With Powers Squared, our artist delivered pencils for four pages this week. All were good with a couple of changes but overall it's looking good. Nothing else new to report, except that our next issue drops on December 7th.

As part of the release of a new issue, I do a little feature each Sunday, called peek-of-the-week. It goes up every Sunday morning on our website and on Pinterest before sending out messages on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook about it on Tuesday. Again, the looking's free.

This month on Trophy Unlocked, we're playing a little catch-up for the rest of the year, that is movies we've seen, perhaps late, but want to get reviews out before the end of the year. We started that this past Saturday morning with my review of Everything Everywhere All at Once. There will be more to come. Wednesday's Game Day review was Trevor's review of Stray.

I'm currently working on a review for probably next year of Batman & Mr. Freeeze: SubZero. We watched a couple of animated Batman movies on Friday night out of respect for Kevin Conroy, who died. He had been the voice of Batman for many years.

I finished my review of Plymouth Adventure. Maybe this Thanksgiving?

On Saturday night, we went to Santa Monica to see Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio. Paul will be writing the review, as we will be doing a Pinocchio week this month as well. The Classic and two of the 2022 entries. Something to look forward to.

As far as writing, I worked on fka Skylar during the early part of the week. I'm up to 54,423 words. A lot of writing for not much progress. There are always so many other factors that get involved.

One new query this week for Broken People. I DNRed several old ones. No response is the new "no" in looking for an agent.

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

A Week in Writing #428 - It's Official

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

Well, it's finally official, I know the day and time of the panel, just not the room. It's kind of exciting and scary at the same time. I've never been on a panel at a convention before, let alone moderated one. I think I'll do okay. Paul and I have been doing a podcast for several years, so I know what it's like talking and not knowing who, if anyone, is listening. I've ordered some copies of the first and the 15th issue to have with me. I also ordered new business cards for Powers Squared. I just want to be prepared in case there is a chance of a new reader coming out of this.

I also reserved my tickets for San Diego Comic-Con for next year. One of the advantages of doing a comic book is the Professional status that comes with it. I should check into a table or something when it's time for that convention.

Work continues on the books with our artist, colorist, and letterer all working on different issues. As I wrote earlier, we're losing our current artist at the end of the year and we're hoping our colorist will be able to step forward and take that over. We've all agreed to her doing a test with one page and the four main characters. I'm hoping she makes it. We discussed all this on Friday as part of our October 2022 Team Meeting OAPS podcast.

Jerry Lee Lewis died this past week, so in tribute, we watched High School Confidential (1958), the only Hollywood film I knew he was in. This was my review to write and based on the movie's theme of anti-drugs, this will probably be our next 4/20 review.

My review of Bride of Frankenstein (1935) was Trophy Unlocked's Saturday morning review. Part of the blog's celebration of horror films during the month of October. We were also celebrating Silent Hill Month, which Paul wrapped up with Silent Hill: Downpour on Monday; a review of the comic book Silent Hill Downpour: Anne's Story on Wednesday; and a second look at P.T. on Friday.

In other writing, more progress this week on fka Skylar. For anyone keeping track, I'm up to 51,694 words. Worked on it for a couple of days earlier in the week. I want to spend more time with it and hope to get it done sometime near the end of the year. I can hope, can't I?

One new query and two DNRs this week for Broken People, so I'm keeping pace though I still need to finish a full synopsis before I can send to certain agents.

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

A Week in Writing #395 - Your Audience is Growing

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

I chose the headline not to be egotistical but because I received an email today from Medium informing me that my audience is growing. Since I haven't posted on the site for several years, I was naturally curious. I used to post this blog on there as well, in hopes of growing my audience but when that wasn't happening and it was extra work, I decided to stop. Well, as it turns out the number of followers I had on Medium peaked at 2 and my audience hadn't grown in two years. I'm surprised it hasn't dropped to zero. Not sure why they sent me that email but I thought it might be appropriate nonetheless.

Big week for me and reviews, I wrote two this week, one which went up today for Turning Red, the Pixar animated coming-of-age fantasy. We watched it on Friday night and I was chosen to review it, which I didn't mind. We finally got back to drain the DVR Saturdays, and we watched and I reviewed A Family Affair (1937), which was the forerunner to the Andy Hardy series of films, starring Mickey Rooney. Not sure when it will post but it was fun to get back to that part of my writing.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, in addition to my review today, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which happened to just win the Annie Award. On Wednesday, Game Day, we posted Paul's review of Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, a PS1 platform videogame.

Turning away from reviews, I think we finally ended up in a good place with our Kickstarter. I know I was very down on things last week but for some reason, I think I got practically everything I wanted. Now, it all depends on the execution. I hope you will consider backing it when it comes up later this month. As soon as I have a link, I will, of course, share it here.

Had a nice team meeting on Friday night with Rachel Wells, Julia Canon, Trevor, and Paul. We try to have these once a month as they are a pretty interesting and fun group, and we need content. It goes up later in the week on our YouTube channel or you can listen to it now through our website.

I don't know if I mention this enough here or not but we also do a peek-of-the-week of images from upcoming issues. For the last few weeks and for the next several, we're looking at the evolution of our front and back graphic novel covers. End plug.

This had turned into a busy week, with new pages from Rachel to review and the Kickstarter to look over, but I did manage to do two things, send a new query for Broken People, and work more on fka Skylar, which under the right context might make a good title.

This week, no new rejections but we know that doesn't mean they haven't already passed on it. I keep tweaking things ever so slightly with the query letter, even after my major rewrite of it. I'm still avoiding agents who want an online form and who want a 1-2 page synopsis. The former because they always ask you to compare your work to other works, etc., and the latter because I should probably rewrite mine. I'm also thinking crazy here that I might try to query another book. It's not that I really love punishment and disappointment but I feel a sense of urgency with things these days. Let's get on with it, good or bad.

With fka Skylar, I managed to move to a new chapter and I'm on the cusp of getting to one that I've been thinking about for a long time. I won't get into counts and amounts as they are definitely not impressive.

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

A Week in Writing #386 - One Week at a Time

Hope everyone is staying safe, has been boosted, and is, of course, writing.

Welcome to the working week, at least for me. With the holidays over, it was back to the 8 to 5 world, and writing gets put on the back burner, that is in the wee hours after dinner and before going to bed. Oh, how I wish the 8 to 5 was spent on writing.

I get a little mad at myself when I don't use all the hours I can to write. Sometimes, like today, there is a feeling of ennui and you look up and most of the afternoon has gone. Oh, I got some things done in the morning, posting a film's anniversary post on Twitter for Trophy Unlocked; picking and posting a new peek-of-the-week for Powers Squared; uploading the next video to YouTube, and setting up some social media posts to run next week, but then not much. But all of this, I look at as the business side of writing, not actual writing itself.

So, what did I do this week?

I continued working on Skylar (no longer the name) finishing a couple of chapters. I like ending chapters on a page-turner, or at least a question that needs to be answered, and I managed that on both of the chapters I finished during the week. We should probably log my word count, currently, this version is up to 22,646. Please don't apply the 1000 words a day and I think I'll be at near 30,000 next week. That would be great, but the 1000 words covers a lot of sins, so to speak.

As an example, after watching The Cat's Meow, I wrote nearly 3000 words on it for Trophy Unlocked. We watched the movie in honor of the director Peter Bogdanovich's passing. It seems this year has gotten off to a bumpy start with so many Hollywood players dying recently. As always, I'm not sure when this will run but I like having gotten it done within 24 hours of watching the film.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, the blog is starting a salute to the Shantae game series, with Paul's review of the first game appearing on Wednesday. The Saturday morning review was Paul's of Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, a rather odd bit of anime (my opinion) that we watched recently.

I also worked this week on an outline for a pilot episode for our proposed Powers Squared animated series. Paul is the family expert in writing animation and I'm trying to learn from him. I finished a version on Thursday night but I'd like to take another look at it before showing it to him.

On the subject of Powers Squared, we made our first podcast of the year with a team meeting, including the creatives we work with; Rachel Wells, Julia Canon, and Trevor joining Paul and me on the show. I really enjoy talking with Rachel and Julia since otherwise the communication is limited to emails, text messages, and DMs on Discord. We also got the skinny on another project Rachel is working on which is currently on Indiegogo, Commander in Chef. She's been rather hush-hush about it up until now. (You are under no obligation to fund it, please wait instead for our Kickstarter coming in a couple of months.) And yes, I will be hyping it here, so no need to worry that you've missed it or anything.

So, for next week it promises to be more of the same. I'll finish my version of the outline, continue to work on fka Skylar and, yes, wait for it, send out the first query of the year. And who knows, maybe one of them will write back this time.

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

A Week in Writing #383 - It's Almost Christmas!

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

I know that the whole world seems to be in a hurry to resume "normal" life but I think we have a long way to go. I don't know about you but I'm feeling lucky to have avoided COVID so far and I hope my luck continues. The novel I'm working on takes place post-COVID or at least, in a presumed post-COVD Los Angeles.

The protagonist of the story is a private detective, J.D. Barrister, trying to restart his business after COVID had all but shut him down. I won't go into the story so far but after-COVID seems to be a moving and elusive target. I originally had this starting this past summer, but I may move it to Spring 2022. I'm incorporating things like masks and social distancing and it might be interesting to incorporate whatever is next with the pandemic as part of the story. I can't imagine any novel taking place during this day and age that can avoid the pandemic's influence on characters' lives.

One place it hasn't affected is the make-believe world in the comic book I work on, Powers Squared. As much as I wanted to incorporate it in the novel, it doesn't belong in this fantasy, not that it hasn't had an effect on the book itself. I won't go into a year-end look until next time but COVID has touched everything.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we're currently working on thumbnails and pencils for Issue 20, coloring and lettering for Issue 19, and a Kickstarter for a graphic novel of the first five issues. Our colorist is doing some chibis of characters we want to use as a tier. I don't have much to say so far on the Kickstarter but we're having a meeting this coming Monday about it, so I might have more to tell next time. I really want this to be a success and the last time we have to look at the first five issues again.

We had a team meeting with the creatives on the book, which you're welcome to listen to at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. We try to get together once a month to both check-in with everyone, but also to build a sense of team. I also want the creatives to be more involved with selling the book they're working on.

Just wrapped up a review hopefully for next December, Star in the Night, a short from 1945 that retells the nativity. I know it sounds like I'm really planning ahead but it sort of makes sense with holidays and Halloween films to write reviews when those sorts of films are easily available to watch and you're in the mood to watch them.

Speaking of Christmas, my review of Little Women (1933) was a Sunday morning review, since Saturday morning was dedicated to the 11th anniversary of Trophy Unlocked and founder Paul's review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I have to give Paul credit, the blog has grown over the years and currently has over 1400 reviews and has been read by nearly 700,000 people.

Other reviews this week were three by Trevor as Trophy Unlocked's salute to the EyeToy wrapped with reviews of EyeToy: Play 2 on Monday, EyeToy: Operation Spy on Wednesday; and EyeToy: Kinetic on Friday.

Well, that about does it for me. I hope everyone reading this has a Merry and Safe Christmas if you celebrate. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week.

A Week in Writing #360 - What am I doing?

Hope everyone is well and writing. At least, that's what I think I've been doing.

Have you ever had weeks like that, when you look back and realize that you hadn't done everything you wanted to do? I know that feels like me every week and, sadly, this one is no different.

It wasn't until I sat down to write this that I realized I hadn't worked on Skylar at all this past week. I don't think I'd ever really thought about it, except in passing and apparently didn't work on it at all. This doesn't mean that I'm done with it, only this past week I never had a chance to work on it.

This entire week, I felt like I was losing time, and as we know, there is never enough of that to go around. The fun part is that I can never remember where the time went. I mean, I sit down every night and something gets done but when I look back it seems like nothing got done.

Of course, no new queries. Thursday night, the night I set aside for this, was a no-go this week. I'm not going to promise anything this week as I hate to disappoint. But when I do again, I'll report back here, but no more empty promises going forward. I feel like I'm letting you down along with myself.

I finally finished my review of Ace in the Hole, which was harder than I expected. Now I'm working on one for The Trouble with Harry. As per usual, no ETA for when these will appear. Things got a little shook up on Trophy Unlocked this week. On Wednesday, instead of a video game review, it was Trevor's review of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable - Chapter I, a movie. And on Saturday, it was Paul's review of the documentary The Cartoonist, about Jeff Smith, the man behind Bone. Sunday, was a bonus review of Space Jam: A New Legacy, which we had the misfortune of watching on Friday night.

So, don't be shocked, the rest of the week was spent on Powers Squared. Some of it was spent on reviewing pencils for Issue 19 and some of it was spent working on another idea I had for a future book. I'm calling it Aroma Therapy and I'm not going to explain, at least not yet. I've written a first draft or two of the first 20 pages.

We had our monthly group meeting, or what our colorist called "our monthly 'We're Not Dead' Podcast". These are usually my favorites as it's everyone involved in the book. We discuss what's going on and what we're working on. You can listen to it here. We're only about three away from our 100th podcast. It may sound like we're crossing streams, but we're trying to line up Carla Hoch, the writer of Fight Write, as our guest.

Next week, we're having Lucas Scheffel live from Australia to discuss his new Kickstarter for his Angry Fred comic book.

Speaking of next week, it's time for San Diego Comic-Con, though once again, it's @home, which takes the stuffing out of it. I will be "attending" and will report on whatever it is I learn.

Well, that's a good place to stop. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #340 - Marketing and a New Query

Hope this finds everyone staying safe and writing.

This week, I finally finished my grammar check of Broken People and after another round of spell checking and some quick edits decided it was ready to query again. So I did send one off on Thursday night. If you're new to this blog or have perhaps forgotten, I try to do one a week. I really hate the experience, though it is a very necessary step, and find it very anxious to hit send on the email. I'm never sure if I've answered everything a particular agency wants in their query letter.

This time, from scratch, I rewrote the query letter trying to incorporate what this agency was looking for. I'll be honest the letter probably didn't change all that much but it was written uniquely for the agent. In this case, the agent wanted the first 50 pages, so if I don't hear anything back I should take it personally, I guess. It's one thing to get a pass on a query letter but when there is real work included it matters more and seems more like a real rejection of me.

With this agent, their response is stated as "If we are interested, we will be in touch as soon as we possibly can. If you have not heard back from us within six weeks you may consider it a pass." So, I guess we'll see and, if I do hear back, I will write about it here, that's the promise.

I did do minimal work this week on Skylar, almost so little as it's not worth than a sentence mention.

Last week, I mentioned that Paul and I were having a virtual meeting to discuss the marketing of Powers Squared. I won't get into who we spoke with, as this is not that kind of blog, but I think it went pretty well. Our biggest fear was that he would tell us to burn the thing to the ground and start over, which he didn't. We discussed our ideal reader and decided that it would be best to try to work with colleges and students, and if possible twins in colleges, though neither Paul nor I have been able to find any sort of social media that includes that segment of the population. He seemed to like what we had done with the website, telling us that we had the car and the food, we just needed a destination.

One thing that came out of it was that we're going to stop doing a weekly newsletter. We had been doing one big newsletter once a month, The Hound Dogs' Howl, named after the school's paper in the comic book and filling in the rest of the weeks with a stripped-down version called The Bark. Now we're going to cut back to just doing The Howl and reserve The Bark for announcements in between. Of course, you're invited to enroll to receive the first issue of Powers Squared free and the newsletter.

We brought together all of the creative team for our Friday On the Air with Powers Squared to discuss what we had learned. And well, that version won't be available after it runs its course on Twitch, as for some reason, the recording didn't capture Julia or Rachel's side of the conversation. To make amends, Paul and I recorded an abbreviated podcast the next night and that's what's up on the podcast platforms. If you're interested, you can listen to or find where to listen to it on our website at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

On to reviews, I did finish mine for Illicit and in the late hours on Saturday night started one for Rationing (1944). While I don't know when those will go up, I did publish one on Saturday morning, The Trial of the Chicago 7. This had been a busy week on Trophy Unlocked, with five reviews this week. In addition to mine, on Monday, Paul published his review of the video game Hitman (2016), followed on Wednesday with Hitman 2 (2018), and on Friday with Hitman 3. While this is supposed to be about Sunday to Saturday, I'm going to include Trevor's review that came out today, Daft Punk Unchained, since the group announced this past week that they were breaking up and it's newsworthy.

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

A Week in Writing #339 - Grammar Check Woes

I hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

When I say I love editing, I guess I should qualify that. I'm not big on grammar checking, which I'm in the middle of doing with Broken People. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I'm using an online grammar program that only checks online writing. I'm using it by copying up to 50 pages at a time into Outlook Mail and then seeing what issues the program finds and updating the manuscript accordingly.

It's a somewhat tedious process and I still have about 200 pages to go. If it hasn't been obvious to this point, grammar is not my strong suit. In fact, my son Paul, who along with his brother is really good at it, goes through this post every Sunday before it gets published. I really couldn't do this without his support.

This program I'm using finds errors that are not there, which only adds to my frustration with the process. It will tell me that something like "The document" needs a "the" in front of the word "document". It's not something I look forward to, though I know it's a necessary step in the process.

So here's an update on the queries I do have pending. The agent that said they would get back in three weeks if interested hasn't after five weeks, so I'm pretty sure it's a silent "no". There is still one that has another week to go before I pull the plug on that.

I did do some sporadic work on Skylar this week but nothing to write home about, so I won't bother to get into word count here.

On Powers Squared, a lot of artwork from our artist this week, all good. I got feedback from Paul on the Parents' Day script so I think, at least for the moment, it's done. We have about five issues to go before we get to it, so it'll stay on the virtual shelf for a while.

This coming Monday, Paul and I are virtually sitting down with an expert to discuss marketing Powers Squared. It's an hour's worth of his time so I'm hoping we get some good information out of it. We know there are things that we need to do to get the book in front of more eyes, so I'm hopeful something will come of this.

Onto reviews, I finished one new one this week, The Trial of the Chicago 7 (2020), which we watched on YouTube on Friday night. And before you think it was a pirated copy it was authorized by Netflix. I also started a new one for Illicit (1931), another pre-code film.

A couple of new videogame reviews on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Trevor's review of New Super Lucky's Tale for the Xbox One and then on Saturday his review of Little Nightmares II.

So in the coming week, after the big Marketing meeting, I'll see where we go from there. Most likely more work on Broken People and Skylar.

In the meantime, keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #333 - Welcome to the Working Week

Let's face it, going back to work after a vacation sucks. I'm know I'm one of the lucky who has a job to go back to but the statement still stands. And I have been out of work before, so I know what that feels like. There were three years between when I was unceremoniously laid off from Sony to the time I found contract work at Paramount Pictures and before I started this blog. Those who have lost their jobs due to COVID have my sympathies.

But I'm the one writing about my experiences so let me have this one.

I had big plans for the week and for the most part I did most of them, though I didn't do one of those things, say it with me, send out queries. My excuse this week has to do with Powers Squared but not the comic book directly.

Back in November, I had asked another creative, Rik Offenberger, if he waned to be on our twitch show, On the Air with Powers Squared. For his own reasons, he was unable to do the show before the holidays. On Monday, I reached out to see if he would be available to do the show some Friday. Well, bing-bang-boom, not only is he doing the show on Friday but he's also bringing some of his co-creators with him. I had to spend some time during the week prepping, including reading their comic books, looking at their website and drafting some questions to ask in case the conversation died down, it didn't. Anyway, that's my excuse for not getting to the queries this week. If you want to watch or listen to the show, you can find links at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

But there was news on the queries anyway, sadly bad. My first rejection of the year. A nice form letter that managed to insert the name of my book into the blank space, as in:

Dear David,

I'm sorry, but BROKEN PEOPLE does not sound like a fit for me at this time, and so I will have to pass. Thank you for considering me and I wish you success.

I'll wager that any other rejections I do receive will sound somewhat or exactly like this one. They may use the words "my list" but that would be the variety that adds the spice to life as they say.

There was some real work done as well on Powers Squared itself. Rachel did send us four new pages, pencils, which Paul and I had to review but that was about it on that front.

I did do some work on the website, combining several pages into a single folder. As always, you are more than welcomed to take a look at my work at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/ Comments are always welcomed.

I also managed to write a couple of reviews for Trophy Unlocked, I finished The Tall Target and wrote a new one for Five Star Final (1931). As always no idea when either will actually appear.

Otherwise, it was a busy week on the blog. On Tuesday, Trevor's review for Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People was published, followed on Thursday another of Trevor's review, this one for another game, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures. On Saturday, Trevor completed the hat-trick with his third review of the week, The Powerpuff Girls Movie.

To round out the week, I did make some progress on Skylar, finishing my rewrites and going beyond that. If you're counting words, I'm up to 30,775.

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

A Week in Writing #331 - The Holidays are Upon Us

Hope everyone is well, enjoying the holidays and, of course, writing.

Well, the holidays are upon us, and all thoughts and time turn to family. The one thing that seems to go by the wayside, at least for me, is writing. Not that I didn't do any but writing was not the top priority.

As I wrote last week, I did manage to squeeze in that review of We're No Angels, a movie I've wanted to rewatch for a long time. This is one of those to be published in the future reviews, which may be next Christmas season. I look at Christmas/Holiday movies the same way I do Holiday music. Once December 25th rolls around, that day is done. Reviews are the same way.

On the subject of reviews, this past Wednesday Paul published a review of Bridge Constructor Portal, a video game for the Xbox One. On Saturday was our last holiday review, The Thin Man (1934), in which Christmas plays a prominent role. And while that might seem like plenty, Trophy Unlocked wasn't done. On Christmas Day, we watched Soul on Disney+ and Trevor's review, which includes Burrow, the short that accompanied it, went up on Sunday morning.

But that's not the end of it. The day after Christmas at our house is unofficially Movie Day. We watched several movies that day, including Wonder Woman 1984. Today, I reviewed the movie and it should go up tomorrow. If you don't catch it, there'll be a link in next week's post.

Later in the week, we will be posting an Actual End of the Decade list, looking back at films and videogames from 2011 to 2020, the official years of this decade. We're sticklers for that sort of stuff; this millennium didn't start until 2001 either.

Not much new on the Powers Squared front, though Paul and I did review some new coloring work from Julia sent earlier.

We did something new this week for our OAPS. Since Friday was Christmas we used an interview we had pre-recorded. Paul figured out how to use OBS to show it on Twitch. Apparently, Twitch likes things live and you have to be an affiliate to easily upload to the site. But if there's a will, there's a way. You can watch it here if you're curious, and I hope you are.

I'm still fiddling with a time-travel idea for the comic book, though it's not really coming together, at least, not yet.

To update on the Copyright issue, I received the paperwork ahead of schedule but it turns out it was for only one of the two issues. I have been writing to them that the issue I was having involved two issues of the comic book, not just the one. Not sure why both weren't included. Trust me I did write, when I got the registration, to the agent I had been working with there but with the holiday I'm not surprised I hadn't heard anything. And now that the government won't be shut down I'm hoping to hear back sooner than later but trust me, I'm not letting this go.

On other writing, I did find some time to work on my Skylar manuscript but, of course, never enough. I'm up to 28,760 words, so I'm not hitting the blog's 1000 words a day when it comes to that alone.

As I mentioned last week, no new queries and I'm playing Schrodinger's cat with the ones that I haven't heard back on yet. Until I look, they're still live and being considered. Reality can wait until the start of the new year when I promise I will be getting back to the queries.

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

A Week in Writing #328 - The Week That Wasn't?

I hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

I don't know about you but some weeks seem to be a blur and when I sit down to write this post on Sundays, I sometimes wonder what I've done and where the week went. I don't think it's anything to do with getting older, just being really tired.

I feel like I hit the usual marks this week, with one exception. Worked on Powers Squared, that's a weekly check it seems, worked on Trophy Unlocked, and worked on new writing. Do I feel like I'm running in sand? Yes.

Let's start where every week seems to, Powers Squared. There are some weeks, like this one, where I think there is nothing happening with it. I mean, we released a new issue, we reviewed new work, we made posts, we did our vlog and we did our video, but to what end? Despite all that, and buying ads, and being a part of a Black Friday Sale, I don't get the sense we actually sold any issues, which is sort of depressing. I may be wrong and I may get an email later with better news but since I haven't received anything so far, I'm thinking we didn't.

Powers Squared is a passion project but sometimes I feel like no one else feels the passion. To that end, I'm reading Gamal Hennessey's new book, The Business of Independent Comic Book Publishing. The secret sauce, it seems, is to find the ideal reader of Powers Squared, persons we have clearly not found. I backed the Kickstarter for the book and signed up to receive a one-on-one session with the author to discuss my book. It's a one-hour time slot so I want to be prepared. I haven't set the time yet but I want to get through most of the book before that.

The book seems designed to help you before you actually start doing your comic book. Since we're 10 to 16 issues in, I'm skipping the parts about putting your team together and the legal side of it getting started. Too late for me. I'm trying to pace myself, reading a chapter a night and I realize that during the Christmas break from work, I need to spend a significant amount of time doing some research on the competition. I've never been big on homework but I need to do this.

I'm trying to get the other members of the creative team on board with helping. I'm planning to gather everyone in January to do an OAPS show about the ideal reader and get everyone's feedback. While I thought 2020 would be a breakout year for us, 2021 is sort of shaping up as a do or die year. I need this to catch on in the next couple of years or I may have to end the project. If you're reading this and you think you have any ideas, please leave me a comment or email me at info@powerssquaredcomicbook.com.

More work this week on Trophy Unlocked, which later this month is celebrating its ten year anniversary. Paul is writing a review for The Last of Us Part II for that milestone post. This week, I wrote another future Christmas season review, The Holly and the Ivy, a British film from 1952, but we'll all probably have to wait until next year to all read it.

In the meantime, the festive season was kicked off by Trevor's review on Saturday of The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales, a French animated anthology that includes a Christmas tale. The Wednesday video game review was also Trevor's of Wattam. As always I encourage you to check it out.

Seeing as we're getting close to the end of the year, we usually do individual posts wrapping up the year. However, this time, since 2020 was a spare year and the end of the decade, we're more a retrospective of the decade.

I didn't do a new query this week and I don't have any real excuse. I'm thinking the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas might not be the best time to seek representation. Agents, believe it or not are people, too, and are probably like the rest of the human race trying to wrap things up before the end of the year. I know I'm not looking for new things to worry about in the two weeks I have left to work this year and I can't imagine they are either. Am I right?

This version of Skylar is up to just under 22,000 words at 21,794. I'm trying to work on it most nights when I can.

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

A Week in Writing #325 - Where Did the Time Go?

I hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

I can't say this was a red-letter week for me, writing-wise. I had such high goals coming into the week and here I sit on Sunday wondering what happened? I think we've all had weeks like this. So many things can derail your plans.

On the positive side, I did send out a third query letter on Thursday. If I did nothing else last week to forward my writing, then that would be the best thing I could have done for myself. So, that's three out and, so far, knock on wood, no rejections yet. I did find a couple of agents I wanted to submit to were closed for the rest of the year. Not sure if I'll come across more like that as the days of 2020 grow wee. My goal is 5 queries and if you're like me, each one is a nervous endeavor. So, I'm 60 percent of the way there.

I wanted to write three reviews this week for Trophy Unlocked, but I only finished two: Batman Returns and The Big Steal. Still have Son of Frankenstein and now, Man in the Dark, our latest Saturday night drain the DVR feature. I did publish a new one on Saturday morning, The Third Man, a new entry in Noirvember. Also on the blog were three reviews from Trevor: Big Bumpin'; PocketBike Racer and Sneak King, three Burger King Xbox games from 2006.

The work on Powers Squared this week was more behind the scenes than usual. I have been making updates to the website, as well as the landing page experience for the newsletter. I needed Paul's help with some of the latter and we're sending it out to the rest of the creative team to get their feedback.

There were also thumbnails for the last four pages of issue #16, as well as the cover, that Paul and I reviewed and gave feedback on. Then there were some revisions that we also looked at. Not sure when we'll actually be getting those pages; our artist is dealing with a family emergency at the moment, which justifiably takes precedent over the comic book.

On Saturday, Paul and I attended a Zoom class at UCLA, Showrunners and Show Writers (Fall 2020). It was interesting as we were both interested in that part of the animation industry. Me from a Powers Squared perspective but Paul from a longer-term career perspective. It was informative but more from the personal point of view of the showrunners on the program. The takeaway is that there are a lot of different ways to break into the industry and to keep trying and writing.

So, what got left out of the equation this week was Skylar. I really don't have any excuse other than time and perhaps bad time management. I will have to right that this week and I will make an effort to work on it every time I can.

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

A Week in Writing #321 - One More Birthday!

Another week, another birthday at my house. This final one of the year belonging to my wife. No age or birth year, but if you've been paying attention, we're all Libras, which means decisions here are few and far between. Just thought I'd point that out because of the hole in the week.

Has this ever happened to you? I had sort of an interesting night of it on Thursday, the day after the B-day mentioned above. I basically live with insomnia always being a possibility. I may lay down my head on the pillow but if something is off in my routine, I stop reading too soon or turn off the TV too early, or whatever, I can lie awake for hours. What kept going through my head this night was that I hadn't really written anything that day. So to get over that, I got up at about 2 a.m., came out to my office, the end of the dining room table, and made myself write 1000 words on the Skylar story I believe I've mentioned here a few times. Now, what I wrote, I think I'm going to scrap, not because it's bad but because it doesn't fit in with the story I'm writing now. It does work for an idea I've been tossing around during those sleepless nights so I'll put it aside for now and get it back out when I start on that story.

Per my Fitbit, I got a 76 rated sleep, which is both surprising, given the shortness of time (3 hours and 22 minutes), and good for me in general. A great night of sleep for me is an 80 and that is sadly very rare; I'm usually in the mid to low 70s. I'm not writing to get sympathy, but sometimes the lack of sleep does play into the output of the next day. While I made it through work and OAPS with no real issues, I did fall asleep off and on during our Friday night movie. I hate it when that happens.

Speaking of movies, we played drain the DVR again on Saturday night and I wrote a review for Trophy Unlocked as a result; No Questions Asked (1951). Not sure when that will come out, though another one of mine went up on Saturday, The Curse of the Cat People (1944), as part of our October Spooktober series of horror films. This past Wednesday, videogame review day, Trevor's review of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.

Big News: This coming Wednesday, Trophy Unlocked will be celebrating a milestone 1100 reviews. I won't ruin the surprise, but there is a special review planned for that day, so please check back then for that review.

In Powers Squared news, Julia Canon, our colorist, joined us for our On the Air with Powers Squared twitch stream/podcast this Friday. She's always fun to listen to, so I hope you'll tune in somewhere it is available. See https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/media for where you can watch and/or listen to it.

This week, I submitted the Covid Cover for Issue #10 to both Ka-Blam and Artithmeric for proofs. We've never had an alternative cover before, so it's a big deal for us. Not sure we'll wait for them to come back before we submit to Comixology, which we still need to do. There's always something on the horizon that you've got to do.

I wanted to give you an update on our copyright issue. So you don't have to scroll back and look for it in a previous post, we had a slight issue with copyright for a couple of issues, i.e. the script got copyrighted but the artwork didn't. The copyright office told us to rectify this through a Supplementary registration, which didn't seem like it worked. I called the copyright office at the end of September and they couldn't tell me what we had submitted, which sort of scared me, since who else would know what the copyright office had besides the copyright office?

Well, it turns out that what we were trying to do might actually work after all. I got an email from the U.S. Copyright office during the week, asking me, in fact, what we were trying to do. Paul and I sat down today to read through their question and I sent a response to them. They gave me 45 days to respond, which might tell you how fast things move in that bureaucracy. Fingers crossed things will work out for us. I'm at least hopeful now.

On that upbeat note, I'll sign off for today. Keep writing, stay safe, and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #317 - Venting Some Frustrations

Hope everyone is staying safe.

I'm going to do something I rarely do and vent a little on my frustration with someone I had counted on as a friend. I will not name names, as that is not my style, but I do want to make it clear that I don't appreciate the treatment.

As anyone who regularly reads this blog, my sons and I have a comic book, Powers Squared that we've been putting out for several years. To hopefully publicize it, my son Paul and I do a podcast On the Air with Powers Squared, sorry if this old news to some, which we record while live-streaming on Twitch.TV. For the last few weeks, we've been trying to have guests on the show. We've had the artist, Rachel Wells, our colorist, Julia Canon, and our letterer, Trevor Hankins, on the show. To complete the sequence, we thought it would be a great idea to have someone on the show that has supported the book, at least through the Kickstarter, and had read all the issues, including up through #12 (again part of the Kickstarter).

He was someone I had known for about five years now and had championed to my son as a good guest. There were things he had worked on that we could ask him about, etc. He couldn't make it the first week but said he could this Friday. We had been communicating via Linkedin messenger and had done so as late as Tuesday since we needed an icon for the "ad" we put up on Instagram, which feeds Twitter and Facebook. Got his okay and that was the last thing we heard from him since. Friday comes, we send him the Google Hangout invite and nothing and as I'm writing this nearly two days later, since. I've messaged him a couple of times on Linkedin, but no response.

Now, I'll regret saying this if indeed there was some unexpected family emergency, but it would have been nice to have gotten some sort of heads up that he couldn't make it or at least something since saying he was sorry he forgot or something, anything. Again, I won't name him and I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog, but I'm very disappointed.

We were left a little flat-footed at 6 pm on Friday but we managed to pull a preview of Issue #10 out of nowhere at the last minute. You can watch it and/or listen to it. To find the outlets, go to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/join. We managed to add a new outlet this past week or so: Amazon Music, so we're now on five podcast outlets. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Other progress was made on the comic book this week, as both Rachel and Julia turned in pages, though for different issues. With Trevor, we're working on Issues 14 (lettering),15 (coloring) and 16 (pencils).

For the future, Paul and I are both working on separate story arcs. I completed my rewrites on Mission Istanistan, which is a three-issue arc and Paul is writing one tentatively called Kamaitachi Story. We'll hopefully get to these next year if all goes well.

We're currently waiting on some proofs to come back on Issue #10. We got one, but there is another one pending. So, hopefully soon.

No update on the copyright issue. I didn't have a chance to call. I feel like I've given them a chance to respond via email, so I will have to find the time this week. Can't let this fester too long.

In other writing, I'm finishing up a review for two films, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns Part 1 and 2. Saturday was Batman Day, so we watched part one on Friday night and part two on Saturday. I've gotten through most of the review, but not quite done yet.

To celebrate Batman Day, Trophy Unlocked put up Paul's review of Batman: Year One (2011). And just when you think there were no more Tony Hawk game reviews left, we had at least one more, which came out on Wednesday, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD.

Made some more progress on Skylar, though I think I only got about 1000 more words done. I'm up to about 13599 words and counting. I'll try to keep you abreast of my progress here.

And, to round off the week, no queries. I know, I'm bad. Still need to research like-books. I tried but didn't find any results when I googled it. Sadly, there is only so much time in a week.

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

A Week in Writing #304 - New Content

I want to wish all the fathers out there a Happy Fathers Day.

I think I hit all areas this past week, though, of course, there is always more to be done. But let's start with Powers Squared. On Friday, Paul and I shot four videos that we're hoping to put out over the next month or so. Two of them are unboxing videos, one of which went up today and you can watch it here.

We also had two individual Google Hangouts with our artist, Rachel Wells, and our colorist Julia Canon. We had previously done a few with Rachel and our then colorist, Nina Gaillard, but that was almost two years ago now. It was about time that we do a new one and it was pretty cool to talk to them. I, for one, had never actually spoken with Julia before, so it was nice to have that opportunity.

We also arranged this week to have two people narrate Character Profiles for us. I can't go further into the whos just yet, but we're pretty excited about it.

We spent some time this week reviewing pencils from Rachel for issue #15. We had her make a couple of minor changes on a couple of animals. I like how we can ask for reasonable changes and she seems very willing to do them with a very quick turnaround. Now we're on to the inks for those pages.

For Trophy Unlocked, I managed to write two new reviews this weekend, one for Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, which we watched from a VHS tape I had, and one for He Was Her Man (1934), which we watched as part of our Clean the DVR Saturday Nights. I had recently read Allen's autobiography, Apropos of Nothing, and was in the mood for one of his films. I don't know if you've tried to buy any of his movies lately on DVD or Blu-Ray but they're getting to be really hard to find unless you import one from Poland or France. I ended up ordering what I could on Saturday morning.

So to answer your questions, yes I still have VHS tapes, though very few and we do have a VCR machine, two actually, that both work. And, no I don't believe the allegations against Woody Allen. Two investigations have shown nothing happened. I would recommend his book, however.

I did publish a new review as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review, The Most Dangerous Game (1932). We're doing a Pre-Code June so to speak on Saturdays. So far, Wednesdays have been for videogames. This week it was Paul's review of The Last of Us Remastered + Left Behind. Next week, starting Monday, it will be a week-long look at older Transformer video games, but more on that next time.

For my other writing, I did more work on The Runaway, including finishing that chapter which had sort of stalled for whatever reason. I also continued my rewrites on the other chapters. I'm finding that even with these modest edits, I've got a bigger one coming to pull everything together. As I'm going, I see where a revelation I may have made earlier would play well in another spot. I'm sure you've had the same experience. I still want to see how much more I can add to the word count before delving into what will no doubt be a fairly healthy rewrite. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is golden.

I did not start the query process on Broken People. That was one hill that I didn't climb this week, though I know I should. I will try to have at least a good query letter by this time next week.

So that seems like a good place to end it. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #301 - What's Next?

What a difference a week can make and it ain't good. I try not to get political and I won't here, but I don't want to act like I'm living in a vacuum. As if the stay at home order was one thing, now, as I'm writing this, Los Angeles, where I live, is having a curfew, the second night in a row. All I want to say is that while I am saddened by the death of George Floyd (there's no excuse for what happened to him) and upset that some things never seem to change or at least change fast enough when it comes to race, and appreciate the protests in the streets, I can't get behind the vandalism. One thing I remember from the 1992 L.A. Riots was the destruction they caused and how long it took some of these neighborhoods to recover. My six-month pregnant wife and I helped deliver food after the riots and seeing the aftermath up close has stayed with me. Protest, make your voices heard, vote for people who have your best interest in mind but don't burn down and loot the stores. It's a no-win situation for everyone and it detracts from the cause.

On that cheery note, I want to turn to myself and my writing for the week, which is the point of this blog.

I'm still working on my rewrites for The Runaway, which, as I mentioned last week, is sort of my treading water until I can cheat off my son's writing class when it comes to querying. I'm trying to go through a couple of chapters a day and so far I've done just that. I'm up to Chapter Twenty-Seven. The story isn't getting too much longer but I am able to find some story errors which I'm more than happy to fix.

I've been thinking a little about the next book, the one that will be post-COVID and take place in that world. What will the new normal be like for my private detective character? What will happen during the pandemic that will change his world and what sort of cases will he be handling as a result? As I said, I'm just starting to think about that. I figure I'll have some time, too, as this thing doesn't look like it's just going to go away.

I've written a new review, The Merry Widow (1934), which we watched as part of clean off the DVR Saturday. It was a musical that I had sort of avoided watching for years but had recorded it. In my review, I recall hearing another movie, Irreconcilable Differences, of all things, discuss the Lubitsch Touch and use The Merry Widow as an example. I know, but I had to see it in a class at USC led by Arthur Knight, the late great film critic. He would bring guests in and I believe this was one of the films he showed. Well, the quote stuck with me and when I saw the film on TCM, some years back, I recorded it with that film in the back of my head.

I'm hoping I get back on Trophy Unlocked in June but in the meantime, Scooby-Doo Month has wrapped with the live-action Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed on Saturday. Wednesday was another video game review, Helltaker.

Powers Squared still chugs along. Our artist has finished work on Issue #14 and we've sent her the script for Issue #15, which is a one-shot, currently called How They Met.

At Paul's instigation, we've changed up our content on our YouTube channel to include some Character Profiles. This week and next, we've brought in our artist and colorist to read the text. They both did a good job with it and we're planning on making more in the weeks ahead. The nice thing is that it relieves us of doing A Week in Powers Squared and we keep having new content every Sunday as planned.

On the subject of comic books, I backed one on Kickstarter this week. The goal was $500 and they have made way more than this, based, in part, on the writer being a major player in the world of digital comics. They said they needed the money for some of the print costs. The writer had backed our Kickstarter, though for a far lesser amount, and we've been working with him almost since we've been doing Powers Squared. After I backed it, I saw that he was posting photos of a billboard about the book and the Kickstarter. Is it me or does the need for the $500 seem disingenuous? I mean, if you have money for a billboard, don't you have the money to print the book? Or rather, if you need money to print the book why are you spending money on a billboard? It doesn't add up for me.

So, it's been a busy week. Hope you stay safe and I'll see you next week back here.

A Week in Writing #299 - New Issue Released

Big week for us at Powers Squared in that a new issue was released on Wednesday, which is traditionally New Comic Book Day. It was our 9th issue and the conclusion of the Mathemagical story arc. I mention this, since as a writer, this is something I've worked on which could (the keyword here is could) earn me money. Everything else is either free (Trophy Unlocked) or more theoretical in nature, the books I'm writing such as The Runaway.

I would appreciate it if, as a reader of this blog, you would buy the book and/or recommend the series to someone. Should you decide to, I don't know, buy the book, you could look here if you're so inclined.

On the subject of Powers Squared, Paul and I attended a Zoom call with the staff and some of the creatives from the Artithmeric platform. They are our primary print-on-demand and Merch providers. It was kind of cool to be part of a community. We were there to discuss how we and Artithemeric can grow. I'm hopeful that Powers Squared will be prominent in that growth.

On the theoretical side, I got an update this week on a query I submitted back in August for Broken People. That's right, August, as in nine months ago. And was it worth the wait? Unfortunately, no, a form rejection letter:

"Dear David,
Thank you for sharing your query with me, which I’ve now had the chance to review. After careful consideration, I’m afraid I didn’t respond with the intense enthusiasm which I feel is necessary for me to take on a new project. But this is just one person’s subjective opinion, so please accept my best wishes in your search for representation!"

I'm not surprised. If it took them nine months to read my query, then I'd be shocked if they were enthusiastic about it.

Quite frankly, it had been so long that I had forgotten I had queried them but I made sure to note it on the big agent spreadsheet I keep, so as not to bother them again. I will give them credit, they actually wrote back, which is more than I can say for most of the agents I've queried recently. I can't remember if there was some note on their website, which other agencies have, which states something to the effect that if you don't hear back from us consider it a pass. I mean it took nine months to get a "no", how long are you supposed to wait to hear back if it's a yes?

It's possible that this could have been a "yes". It could have read:

"Dear David,
Thank you for sharing your query with me, which I’ve now had the chance to review. My sincere apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I was about to write you back when I caught COVID-19 which put me out of commission for the last couple of months. I'm just getting my life back in order and am very enthusiastic about your book. If you haven't already found representation, I would really like to read more. Please send me the next 100 pages of Broken People and I will do my best to get back to you as soon as possible."

I'm not wishing COVID-19 on anyone, but that would have been an acceptable excuse for taking nine months.

The kicker is, I've got more of that to look forward to. I'd say in the near future but if they're all the same as this one, it may be next year before I hear back from everyone.

Speaking of writing, I am getting closer to the end of this draft of The Runaway. I've written the conclusion of the story and I'm writing a final follow up chapter. I've been thinking about what I've written and may need to do some editing on the ending before I put the book down and get on with query hell.

Wrote another future review for Trophy Unlocked this weekend. In our Saturday night clear off the DVR night, we watched THX 1138, the first George Lucas film. I don't recall really loving it, but I thought my sons should see it. You'll have to wait for the review to be published to see what I thought of it.

You can find out what I thought of Scoob!, which came out on Friday. Paul, Trevor and I discuss the film on our A Week in Powers Squared video on our YouTube channel. You can also read Paul's review of it on Trophy Unlocked. There's been a lot of Scooby-Doo lately, as the Saturday Morning Review on the blog was Paul's Scooby-Doo! Legend of the Phantosaur.

Well, that about wraps it up for this week. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #292 - Stay at Home Week 2

I hope this finds you staying safe and staying home. We all want to make it through these times to what we hope will be a brighter tomorrow, so please do as the CDC recommends.

Sorry about the PSA.

Well, stay at home Week 2 is over and Week 3 looms and what did I do this week? I always feel like the answer is not enough and never too much. I'm not sure if there is really ever a too much but I know all too well about the not enough.

Still trying to get a better schedule set and still trying to adapt from the going from work to "work" without the normal commute in between. When I had to hit the road to come home, I tried to work the 8 hours and then get out of there as soon as I can. Now, I feel like I'm letting that slide just a little. I mean I can work until 5:30 since I don't have to drive home. And then everything gets delayed just a little and prime writing time gets eaten into.

Okay, let's start with something different, The Runaway. I'm still working on the rewrite that, months ago, turned into a new draft. I'm liking the direction it's going in but I'm honestly not getting there as fast as I can. I think I've written one new chapter and am about 500+ words into the next one when I sit down to write this post. Far from the 1000 words a day namesake of the blog.

I'm into uncharted territory now, meaning I'm working on pages I've never written before. And, even though I'm a pantser at heart, I know where this is going though I'm still working out the means. That for me is part of the fun.

I also know that I need to spend more time on that part of the business of writing and send out queries again. Come to think of it, I"m not even sure how the coronavirus has affected that part of the business. Are agents working from home and still taking queries? I guess I'll need to find that out before I start sending new ones.

As far as writing reviews, I finished the one I had been working on for Song of the South and I actually started a new one on Chaplin, the 1992 biopic about the famous film star, director, and writer. Not sure when that will finish or when Song of the South will be published but when it does, I'll let you know here. The Saturday Morning review on Trophy Unlocked, this week, was Paul's review of Celeste, a platform game on the PS4.

Powers Squared is never far from the plate. We received new pages from our artist, the first 8 for Issue #14, which is cool.

In addition, I did another round of edits on the Powers Squared animated series pitch deck and the pilot script, even though I said I didn't want to spend too much time on it. Well, so much for intentions.

Well, that will just about wrap up this week. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #291 - The Influence of COVID-19

Well, a whole week of working from home with the promise of more to come. Personally, I don't mind working from home. No commute every day and no ironing shirts every Sunday. It's not so bad. There are some things I know I could do better. My schedule is off. I'm allowing myself to sleep in which means I don't have as much time in the morning for other things, including walking and social media. My step count is way down from the past month or so. I keep telling myself I'm going to walk everyday at lunch but there is a difference between work lunch, which is going to the gym and then eating, and stay at home lunch, which includes my family. It also doesn't help that it's been rainy most of the week. I mean, I like walking but I don't want to get wet doing it.

So the subject of routine includes writing, which has surprisingly been a little harder now that I'm working from home. I know it may sound weird but some of it has to do with the separation of work from home. I'm used to (don't read that as enjoy) a commute everyday, or a break between one thing and the other. With working from home, I might sign off from Citrix at 5 but I'm still at my "work" desk. I keep thinking I'll use this time to walk but I'm also with family so just getting up and leaving isn't all that easy.

I'm still writing, though this week, I tried to write something very different than I have been. I've made mention of the Pitch class that Paul and I took at UCLA, so I tried my hand at working on the Pilot script for our proposed Powers Squared animated series. Yes, I have dreams. Paul has had more experience with this type of writing but I've taken the first step of trying to turn our comic book into a series.

My first attempt hued very closely to the original text but as I've been working on it, just finished the third draft, I'm finding it somewhat freeing to not stay so strict to the comic book. Oh, don't get me wrong, most of the first issue and a little bit of the second have found their way in but there are other changes, like the teaser Paul thought of, that are not in that issue but it ties really well into the pilot.

There is also other dialogue that I've played with, some at Paul's suggestions but also some new bits, things we didn't see in the comic book between characters who's last name isn't Powers. Not sure how all of it will fly but I think it makes the story better and that's always the first priority.

I did some other writing as well, including working a little bit on The Runaway and some on my oft mentioned review of Song of the South but nothing, pardon the pun, to write home about.

Speaking of reviews, mine of Sabrina finally made it out and was featured as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review.

Well, the week ahead looms again. I'm hoping to put major work on the Pilot aside for a few days and concentrate on The Runaway for the week's writing. There are parts I'd like to get done You know, those bits that you keep in your head before you put them into the book.

I'm also toying with an idea for a story related to the coronavirus. As a writer, I can't see letting such an event not get into my work. For awhile I've had the idea of a couple being thrown together, you know, a bad date with a natural disaster afterwards. Thinking this virus would make a suitable backdrop. Details to be worked out.

Well, that's it for this week. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #290 - Coronavirus, Working from Home and other issues

First off, I hope that this finds you safe and healthy. Things are really getting crazy out there and I hope you're able to maintain your good health during the coming weeks and months. Like many of you, I've opted to work from home for the duration and I'm fortunate that there is a way I can do that. While these are terrible times, I'm trying to look on the bright side: no commute means about two to three hours a day that I get back, which I'm hoping to put to good use. I figure I can transition from writing to work in a matter of seconds rather than an hour or more each way.

This all started for me on Friday, when I was volunteered to work from home as an experiment, which turned out to be permanent, at least for the upcoming week. I received notice today that next week they want everyone to work from home. While other companies are saying to work from home for the duration, mine appears to be taking a more conservative approach. Even then, things have changed quickly. On Thursday, as I wrote, I was part of an experiment. On Friday it was voluntary to work from home and on Sunday, it became work from home.

On the downside, and there are many, our signing at Golden Apple Comics was postponed indefinitely as they stopped all in-store events. Unluckily, we were the first to be affected. While we have to agree with the decision, it is still disappointing. One of the things we wanted to do more of in 2020 was in-store signings and conventions. Now, it appears, those plans are put off as everything is being canceled or postponed.

It will be interesting to see how things play out in the near future as we all have to get used to what will no doubt be a new reality, at least for a few weeks, if not longer.

With the coming chaos, it hasn't been a great week for me as far as writing goes. I did some work on The Runaway this week, but only about 1000 words, which I know is pitiful. I know there will be more rewrites in all of this over time, so the important thing is to finish this draft.

Since Paul and I took a class recently at UCLA about pitching, I decided to try my hands at writing the pilot script. I think I'm through the first act and I know there will be edits to come but it's kind of cool to be doing something different.

Paul and I also managed to get our twitch stream to work though it took two tries. Apparently, the connection dropped, which is why we don't live-stream anymore on our YouTube Channel. We've decided to twitch stream the recording of our podcast, On the Air With Powers Squared, which is still available on PodBean and Apple Podcasts. I hope you'll take a listen or watch.

No new reviews from me, though I am trying to wrap up one on Song of the South. I think one of my reviews will go up next week but in the meantime, the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was Darksiders Genesis by Paul. With studios postponing releases, it's playing havoc with some month-long celebrations we're trying to do, like Bond month. We'll have to play it by ear until the dust settles.

Hope you are healthy and safe. So keep writing and I'll see you next week.