A Week in Writing #617 - So, I Lied

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

I know I said last week that I would be working on Blackmail this week, but I didn't. Instead, I continued to work on the new story, untitled at this juncture. It's been a combination of editing what I had previously written as well as some new bits to tie it together. I do plan to get back to Blackmail, but this one sort of drew me in. In this one, he's hired to find a girl that supposedly ran away from home the summer before her senior year at high school. The twist is that it was 15 years ago. Also, at this point, J.D., my main character, is now a father by his wife, so I get to mix that into the story as well. At this stage, I'm 17,771 words in, compared to the 20,546 words I had on the first draft and there is only one more chapter from the previous version, then I will get back to Blackmail and finish that up.

Our podcast this week was our 24th Comic Book Club. This time it was my choice, usually I let my turn pass but I had become aware of what was supposed to be one of the first graphic novels, It Rhymes with Lust written by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller (under the pseudonym "Drake Waller"), with art by Matt Baker and inks by Ray Osrin. Besides the three of us, Rachel Wells and Julia Canon were also there to give their opinions. The book dates from 1950, and is influenced by film noir. You can watch it on our twitch channel for the next few days but there may be audio issues. You're better off listening to it here or waiting until Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT to watch it on our YouTube channel.

I'm sort of working for a review of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929), though sometimes watching a movie on Saturday night can be a dicey endeavor. And, yes, I dozed during the watching, so I'm rewatching those parts I missed. Being more awake has made me enjoy it more, but I won't be starting a review until I've seen it all. Trophy Unlocked isn't dependent on me for reviews and there were three this past week, starting with Tuesday's review of The Amazing Digital Circus: The Last Act, written by Paul. The Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's review of River City Girls 2; and the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's of Toy Story 3: it is his blog after all.

Waiting for a second proof of the third Trade for Powers Squared and a first for Trevor's for The Blade of Miracles. Trying to get ready in case we're called off the bench for San Diego Comic-Con. We were last year, so you never know. I just don't want to be caught flat-footed again. We managed to scramble to get everything ready with three weeks notice but the stars sort of aligned for some of that to happen, and I don't want to count on that coming together again.

Work continues on issue #30 of Powers Squared. Our artist is currently working on page 14 and our colorist is working on the first 8 pages. The next issue to come out would #28, "Agnes, Wreckage", Part 1 and I think we're probably looking at August for that to come out. It's going to be an interesting story arc, as two different artists will have drawn the two issues.

So next week, I should get back to Blackmail and finish my review of The Last of Mrs. Cheyney. Next weekend, we're attending DesignerCon in Pasadena. I've never attended it before, so it will be new, and hopefully exciting. I'll be writing about it after.

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

A Week in Writing #616 - Going Back to LA Comic Con

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

The big news for me this week, is that SRCC Press, the publisher behind Powers Squared and The Blade of Miracles, will be returning to LA Comic Con in October, as a "guest" of the convention. It seems like every other year, we get involved with this Con. In 2022, we had a panel at the show and in 2024, we tabled and had a panel. Now, we're going back two years later. This is one of those things about Cons that I wouldn't have known if someone hadn't brought it to my attention. Steven Prince, the creator of Monster Matador, brought it to my attention, so I applied. We get a table and two chairs and I'm sure we'll be in the garage somewhere as the halls are being rennovated for the 2028 Olympics, but a free table is a free table. I'll give you more as I learn more, and, of course, will write about the experience here.

This week, the newsletter was the prime activity. Happy to say it was finished and sent out this morning, which is always a good feeling. If you haven't signed up for it, you have until August 1st to do so, if you'd like to receive it. Enroll here. It comes out once a month and it is FREE.

Our podcast this week featured another comic book writer, David Lucarelli, one of the only people we actually talked to at the Fanbase 10th Anniversary Potluck, a couple of weeks ago. He's the writer behind Tinsletown, The Children's Vampire Hunting Brigade, and Dr. Zomba's Ghostly Tales. Cool guy and I think it's a good interview. We prepped questions and he kept answering them before we asked, which is always nice. You can catch it on our Twitch channel for the next few days, listen here, and/or wait to watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.

Next week, our podcast will be the Comic Book Club, and we'll be discussing It Rhymes With Lust, hailed as the first graphic novel. If you've read it or are curious, check us out at 6 pm PDT at twitch.tv/powerssquared.

I'm finishing up a review of Scarlet Street, which I believe was a recording leftover from TCM's last Summer of Darkness. As always, not sure when it will go up. But there are plenty of other reviews on Trophy Unlocked  for you to read, including Wednesday's Game Day review of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by Paul; Trevor's Second Opinion - Toy Story 2 was the Saturday Morning Review; and there was a surprise review this morning on Mortal Kombat 2, also by Paul. If you haven't caught on, this is Toy Story month on the blog.

I haven't yet picked up with Blackmail. Instead, I read through my sketchy start on another story in the franchise. I've started rewriting it, but I will spend sometime working on Blackmail, since that needs to get done.

Well, that's about it from me. Keep writing and I'll see back here next week.

A Week in Writing #607 - Newsletter and Blackmail

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

As I wrote last week, this was newsletter week, so I spent a good part of the time working on that. In addition to the usual, the feature on twins was about the Starn Twins, and some unauthorised usage of our images on X. Here comes the pitch, if you'd like to receive that, it's FREE and you get a digital copy of the first issue of Powers Squared, that comic book I keep mentioning over and over. To be added to the email list, you "enroll" at the fictious college where much of the action takes place, San Romero Commnunity College. There is no further obligation and we send one, maybe two emails a month, and that's only when we release issues. End of pitch.

Besides that work, I did make progress on the edits and rewrites on Blackmail. It's never as much as you want, but I'm up to page 222 of 406, and the word count is now at 88,143. Slow work but it's coming along.

I'm finishing a review of His New Job (1915), Charlie Chaplin's first short at Essasnay. I had recently purchased a remastered set of his work at the studio and time was short last night. Information on it is scarce and I had to rewatch/skip through the short to make sure I captured everything. Most synopses I found are basically extended log lines. As always, not sure when that will come out.

There were two reviews on Trophy Unlocked this week. The first was a Wednesday/Game Day review by Paul of Super Mario Galaxy for the Switch. The Saturday Morning review was Paul's of George of the Jungle, the live-action remake of the animated cartoon.

Our podcast this week, was our 23rd Comic Book Club. Due to mis-scheduling, Julia wasn't able to attend but our former artist, Rachel Wells, joined in on Volume One of Void Rivals, written by Robert Kirkman, and illustrated by Lorenzo De Felici, & Matheus Lopes. You can watch it on our Twitch channel for the next few days, listen to it here now or wait to watch it on our You Tube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PDT. You might want to play it loud, as our microphone isn't doing well and we need to replace it.

Powers Squared is going through a bit of a lull as our artist had to replace the pen she uses, so not much to report there on the new issue, Aroma Therapy.

We've applied for Artist Alley at the next WonderCon in 2027. Our past experience with Small Press left a bad taste in our mouths that still hasn't gone away. We think we'd do better where there are people around. We'll see how it goes, though I'm not crossing my fingers.

Next week, I'm hoping to work more on Blackmail and a script idea I have for Powers Squred. We'll see how it goes.

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

A Week in Writing #598 - 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.

A Week in Writing #582 - 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 #576 - A Much Better Week

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

I feel like I'm finally getting back in the groove, so to speak. While I could have done better, I think I'm feeling good for the first time in about a month.

I'll start with Blackmail, which I usally end with. Previously, I had been waffling about getting started on the next chapter, which I can now report I've finished. Word count is now 52684, which is going in the right direction.

Our podcast was also about books, or rather our 20th Comic Book Club. Of the other members, outside of the Hankins family, only one attended, Rachel Wells. We discussed Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Rather than live, we had pre-recorded it a couple of weeks ago. You can listen to it here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared). The next book, in case you want to read along, is Grommets, written by Rick Remender and Brian Posehn.

We also recorded a new taste test video on Saturday night and put it up this afternoon. Paul taste tests three unique Mountain Dew Flavors: Baja Blast (Taco Bell), Mango Rush (Little Caesars) and Purple Thunder (Circle K). You can find it here.

Wrote a new review this weekend for Thunderbolts*. It came out in May, but we waited until it was on Disney+ to watch it. I would imagine the review will be up sooner rather than later. My review of 3 Bad Men was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked.

I did some preliminary work on the newsletter this week, writing the twin profile piece, and some other odds and ends. That comes out next Sunday, so there is still time to sign up for it, which you can do here.

Our artist has contracted COVID, so I'm not sure what the status is for the next five pages. Our colorist has completed the first four pages of the issue, as well as the covers for the third trade.

We do have a new issue of Powers Squared coming out at the end of September, our 26th, "The Great Escape", as well as the 7th issue of The Blade of Miracles, "Vivienne". So another big month for SRCC Press.

So, hopefully more on Blackmail, finishing the newsletter and working on other projects (maybe even a new query) are on the horizon for next week.

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

A Week in Writing #574 - A Meh Week

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

I want to say I spent a good portion of the week working on issues #1-5. I was trying to prepare .pdfs for a submission, and all of the remastered issues looked bad, the margins were way too large. So, I went through the first five issues, re-sized each page and then moved around the various elements to try and make each issue more consistent with each other and to have less margins. I worked on this most nights and just finished with the .pdfs this afternoon. I know it sounds simple and for some issues went quickly for others not so much. But that's now behind and I can start working on the submission this week.

I'm also trying to work on our third trade, which I would like to have ready by Fall.

I know I said I would do a new query this week but I decided at the last minute to rewrite the query letter, taking yet another shot at it. I'm not saying this to be bragging, but there is almost too much going on in the book to easily condense. But I've got to try and hopefully catch an agent's eye. (I know, bad rhyme.) But I'll finish this week and retry.

This weekend, we did two podcasts. On Friday, we had David Petersen, the creator of Mouse Guard on, for the second time. He talked about his work on Magic: The Gathering cards and what's going on with Mouse Guard. As always, you can listen to "Magic and Mice", here or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel here on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT.

We also recorded a future podcast, our 20th Comic Book Club, Look Back by Tatsuki Fujimoto. I set to record on Saturday to make it more available to everyone, but only our former artist, Rachel Wells, made it on the podcast. I'm thinking that will go up soon.

As far as movie reviews, Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review was Trevor's review of Freakier Friday. I'm going to work on one for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which we watched this morning, and Trevor will be working on one for the anime of Look Back, which we watched on Saturday night.

Editing continues on Blackmail, and I'm only at 51,209 words. I'm almost done with editing what I've written and hope to move on to new chapters this week.

So, submission, queries and Blackmail are on this week's agenda. But plans can change, I'm afraid.

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

A Week in Writing #559 - Two Down More to Go

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

My big project this week was the Powers Squared monthly newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which went out this morning. While it's not hard work, it is time consuming. There are three sections that I actually have to write: The introduction, the Heard Around Campus section, and the spotlight on twins. The rest of it sort of follows a format. My biggest complaint isn't the work, but the platform we use. For some reason Mail Chimp, which we've been using since the beginning, and I have different ideas on punctuation. I like the period at the end, but it likes to have it at the beginning of the last line. At least, that's been my editing challenge the last few times. Maybe there's a simple fix but maybe, as Paul suggested, we have to burn the format to the ground and build it back. Anyway, if you're interested, you can read it here. Of course, I'd appreciate it more if you'd subscribe.

It's been a busy week with videos. Two videos went up on Wednesday, last week's OAPS podcasts (see last week's missive for links), then on Thursday, Paul's Ruffles vs Lay's All Dressed Taste Test went up. We used a pre-recorded Comic Book Club for Friday's OAPS. Back in April, we got together with artists Julia Canon and Rachel Wells to discuss The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. You can listen to it here or wait until Wedneday at 2:30 pm on our YouTube Channel. And, if that wasn't enough, we did a live podcast with Rachel, our annual Free Comic Book Day "What's in my Bag? Part 1". We discuss the pulls we made at our local comic book shops for FCBD. Next week, we'll discuss what we read. You can watch the first part here.

A bit of good news, we got pages from our artist this week, so things are, at least, for now all good. Now the final pages for Issue #27 are ready for coloring.

My review for Blade went up on Trophy Unlocked, as the Saturday Morning Review. We decided that since it was one of the earlier Marvel Comic movies, it was fitting given it was also Free Comic Book Day. I also finished a review of Isle of Fury, an early Humphrey Bogart film that I came across on TCM. No hurry to get that one up, if you know what I mean.

Another query went out and I was surprised to recieve a response back. Not a rejection or an ask for pages but rather a "we got your query" email and to set my expectations. If I don't hear back in 8 weeks, it's a pass. So far, we're two in and no rejections/DNRs yet.

Not much happened this week with Blackmail, not that I don't have an idea where to add to the story, but I ran out of time this week. So, with some edits, I only pushed it to 28,966 words; so far to go. But that will have to wait until next week.

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

A Week in Writing #545 - First Stage Query List Complete

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

My big accomplishment this week is finally compiling a first query list for Past Present, the book I'm looking to try to find an agent to represent. By that, I mean, I went through QueryTracker, a site I've used before, searched for agents that handle Crime/Police and Mystery genres. With that list, I limited my list to Agents in the US who were open to queries. That has given me a list of 227 agents; there may be multiples per agency. I'm tracking agent's name, agency, what forms they want to receive queries (post, email, form, Query Manager), email (if that's how they want to receive them), website, what they want, and dates. I haven't gotten past websites at this point.

Using the comments from other queriests (my word), I marked most (172) as yellow or normal or the kind of comments you'd might expect to see. Some were red for bad, a few green as in good, and some (40) red as in bad, or as Monty Python would say to "lay down and avoid." Reds go to agents who have not responded in a long time (years), or have really bad comments, or want "clean reads" (i.e. no sex no cursing). 14 were Green meaning good. These were agents who seemed to give feedback rather than form letter rejections, or people really liked working with even if they didn't take them on as a client. One agent was new and had no comments, yet.

Now, this was a first run through. I will most likely avoid the reds, but I'll do more research on the yellows and greens. While QueryTracker is a good site for research, I have found in the past that just because QT says they handle a genre doesn't mean the agency/agent actually handles that, or maybe only handles say Cozy Mysteries. And, also what does the agent want to receive.

While post only agents might be ones to avoid, I do prefer emails, rather than Online Forms and Query Manager, which, if you didn't know, is a database many agents are using. But we'll see as the research continues. I don't plan to research every agent before querying, but I may want to find an agent I want to query before starting the process.

I hate to say it, but I've thought of another story for my private detective stories. I wrote out a brief synopsis for myself. So, that's two stories I'll be working on for that character. I hate to say it, the second one intrigues me more at this point.

Last weekend, I submitted the next two issues of Powers Squared to get proofs made. Got feedback on one cover that seemed to have some pixelation. I was able to fix it, having been able to recover my version of Photoshop Elements. Not sure what happened the first time, but it's good now.

We had a Comic Book Club meeting on our podcast this past Friday. Artists Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, join Trevor, Paul and I to discuss Rooster Fighter Vol. 1 written and illustrated by Shū Sakuratani. You can listen to it now here or watch it when it comes out on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm, here.

Next Sunday is the first of February and the latest issue of The Hound Dogs' Howl will be coming out. Be sure to sign up to receive your copy at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc to join the mailing list.

This past Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was my review of the silent film The Johnstown Flood. I figured since L.A. is living through one natural disaster, why not look at how one of the first in the U.S. was handled on film.

My review this week was Blackmail (1929), but the silent version. This is not an all out review, but more an addendum to the one I wrote about the sound version. As always, no date for pub yet.

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

A Week in Writing #535 - Deleting Twitter and Not Looking Back

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

This week, not only had I moved our accounts to BlueSky, but we also deleted our Twitter account. Again, concerns over AI is the main reason. It's slow going rebuilding a following on a new platform, but it's a decision we made and I'll stand by going forward. If you're interested in following me, on BlueSky, I'm @lionsroar91406.bsky.social and Powers Squared is now @powerssquaredcomic.bsky.social.

On the subject of Powers Squared, I'm happy to report that our new artist, Jen Moreno, turned in 8 really good looking pages for Issue #28. I hope we're in good hands going forward.

Our two former artists, Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, joined Trevor, Paul and myself for our 16th Comic Book Club, wherein we discussed Happy Kanako's Killer Life, Volume 1 by Toshiya Wakabayashi. After that we recorded, for the future, a preview of Issue #23, "Family Affair, Part 2". That podcast will come out on Black Friday, and the new issue will be released on Wednesday, Dec. 4. You'll have to wait to see that one, but you can listen to the Book Club here or watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST here.

While I enjoy doing podcasts with the creative team, I'm at least twice as old as any of them and sometimes feel like Roy from the old The Mickey Mouse Club, which was before my time. All the young mouseketters would introduce themselves, then this older man would come out; Roy. You know he had less than nothing in common with Annette Funicello. Again, this was all before my time, but I've seen videos from that era. I don't have the same points of references the others have and they, for the most part, don't have mine either. And, to be honest, no one tries to make me feel that way, it's just how I feel sometimes.

I finished going through my rewrites on Skylar, so now it's down to the denouement, which I started to work on too late to make any real progress on it. I know how the book will end, but it's the getting there that I'm working on.

On to the subject of Trophy Unlocked. My review of Bombshell (1933) was the Saturday Morning Review. I picked that one to go up because last week was the anniversary of the release of Jean Harlow's first big starring role, Hell's Angels (1930) and she was on my mind. I'm still amazed about the impression she made in such a short time. Earlier in the week, Trevor's review of Sheepy: A Short Adventure went up on Wednesday, what I like to hashtag as GameDay.

I'm currently working on a review of Blade, which we watched on Friday night. I won't give anything away, but I drew the short straw.

I've already started working on the next newsletter, as it's due the Sunday we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday, but more on that next week. So, I'll be working on that some more next week and finishing up Blade and hopefully the second draft of Skylar. There's also some finishing touches to be put on the next release, like loading it on a couple of platforms.

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

A Week in Writing #522 - Personal Changes and Fighting the Tired

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

I don't want to get into it right now, but things are changing that may lead to changes in finances. and I I'm talking, of course, about Powers Squared. I've been financing it and after a while, that will probably have to stop. I'm hoping we can do a Kickstarter next year and raise some capital to continue when the self-financing pool gets shallow. More details forthcoming but that's all I'm going to say about it now.

On the subject of Powers Squared, we had our 15th Comic Book Club meeting on Friday. Julia Canon and Jen Moreno joined Paul, Trevor and I to discuss Marvel’s Secret Reverse by Kazuki Takahashi, the creator of Yu-Gi-Oh! There was a 4-to-1 on recommending the book, but you'll have to listen to or watch the podcast to find out the split.

Still doing some prep work for L.A. Comic-Con, which is now less than two months away. The books I've ordered have arrived, as has a display rack for the books. There are still odds and ends we need to purchase, but the list is getting shorter. Today, as an example, we ordered a cloth to go over the table if and when we're away. I will, of course, publicize the location when I know it, and that might not be until after September 1st.

And I still don't know the date and place of the panel, Under the Radar, but I will, of course, publicize that as soon as I know.

A surprise Saturday Morning Review for me, my review of You've Got Mail was selected. We had originally thought about it as a possible drive-by Christmas movie, but it's really too drive-by to really count for that.

I did finish my review of Daughter of Shanghai and have begun, barely, one for Lady Be Good (1941). Again, not sure when either will appear.

I worked for three days on Skylar this week, and while I made a change in the storyline, my three days of work amounted to about a 1000 pages total. I'm trying to power through being tired to work on it, but sometimes the tired wins.

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

A Week in Writing #513 - The Show Must Go On

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing and a Happy Father's Day to all of the dads out there.

More cancellations on this week's OAPS podcast. We were doing our 14th Comic Book Club podcast, to discuss Pompo: The Cinéphile Vol. 1, story and art by Shogo Sugitani. This time, Jen and Rachel had to pull out at the last minute due to reasons. But, as the old saying goes, the show must go on, so just Julia joined Paul, Trevor and myself on the show. Interestingly, earlier in the week, I had the notion that one or more wouldn't make the show. It was a good show, as we also discussed our three favorite films, since that is also something in the manga. If your curious, you can listen to it on our website. If you want to watch it, it's on our twitch channel now (twitch.tv/powerssquared) but only for  a week. If you're reading this later or want to watch it on our YouTube channel it will be available there on Wednesday afternoon.

Next week, fingers crossed, Lucas Scheffel's rescheduled appearance. We're closing in on #250, but unfortunately, we won't be a part of it, as we're having to go out of town. The good news is that Julia will be hosting another artists' takeover.

My plan this week was to work more on Skylar and it did start out well, with my writing more than 1200 words on Monday, but the progress did slow as the week went on and there was more editing than writing.

I'm currently working on a review of Dark Phoenix (2019) for later in the summer. We've been on a mission to watch all the X-Men films prior to the release of Deadpool & Wolverine, so all will be revealed in good time. Trevor had the last two reviews on Trophy Unlocked with a review of Robot Dreams as the Saturday Morning review and Inside Out 2 up today; we watched it on Friday afternoon in 3D before the podcast.

New issue was released this past Wednesday, Powers Squared Issue #21, "Mission: Istanistan, Part 2". Every release is not without a hiccup or two along the way. One of the platforms we're available on, even with a month's notice, missed the date of release, but did make good the next day. If you're curious, check it out here.

They're far alone from problems. As has been noted here, we did a Graphic Novel version of the first five issues some time back and then did a revised version for a Kickstarter with another platform we're on. Not too long ago, we did another trade for the next four issues, which is currently only available on LibraryPass. However, I wanted to have print versions available for the future. When I submitted the pages, I included the cover and the backcover in the .pdf and they ended up in the book. (My mistake, though it wasn't one I rushed to fix.) This past week, I got around to dealing with it; I wanted to make sure I was following how the previous trade looked. When I downloaded the .pdf being used, it wasn't the right one. Rather that using the .pdf we used for the Kickstarter, the old version was being used (that is, if anyone ordered the book.) I'm still in the process of getting that fixed. This is how I spend my nights sometimes, working through fun stuff like this.

Issue 21 was featured in the Indy Spotlight on First Comics News on Saturday. Always nice to get a little unsolicited push. Much appreciated. I won't go through all the gymnastics I had to do to get this link on our website, but it's there as well, along with the other stories which have featured Powers Squared.

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

A Week in Writing #501 - There's Always a First Time for Everything

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

My writing this week took a twist I hadn't expected. Since our artist on Powers Squared, Julia Canon, was finishing up her work on issue #26, The Great Escape, I sent her the script for the next issue. As a change of pace, this one is more Powers Squared related than about the actual story. In issue #1, we introduced Billy O'Shea, a young boy whom like Marty and Eli, had super powers granted to him by a yokai. Billy came back in issues 16-18, Mocha and Raven, Parts 1-3, accompanied by Raven, the Yatagarasu who granted him the powers for his good deeds and turned protector when Dr. Atlas threatened him. We established in that story that Billy and Raven make a living as a long haul trucker utilizing Billy's powers of super strength and punctuality.

Well, there were things in the script that Julia questioned and after conversing with Paul and myself during the week, it was decided a rewrite was in order, so there goes Thursday night. With the rewrites and editing complete, a new version is ready. If this new storyline turns out to be a go, and we make more, Trevor has also come up with some story ideas that we might use in future.

A comic book is a collaborative process, at least for us who do not draw. We've gotten used to changes being made when the words on the page get turned into images. Rachel Wells, our previous artist, would occasionally move and/or combine panels when she thought it was necessary for the story. Usually, we went along with her suggestions. However, this is the first time we've rewritten a script, like this, for the artist.

Speaking of comic books, we had our 13th Comic Book Club session on Friday's On the Air with Powers Squared. Along with Rachel, Julia, Trevor and Jen Moreno, we discussed The Apothecary Diaries manga written by Itsuki Nanao and illustrated by Nekokurage. Afterward, a tribute to Akira Toriyama, the creator behind Dragon Ball. You can listen here or watch it here on Wednesday afternoon after 2:30 pm PT. Our next book will be Pompo the Cinephile, a Japanese manga by Shogo Sugitani. Read along and join us when we discuss. That session hasn't yet been scheduled, but I'll let you know when here. If you do plan to be a part of it, please have your three favorite films ready as well.

On the subject of the movies, on Saturday afternoon, we watched Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and I wrote the review, which will appear next Saturday morning on Trophy Unlocked. It's been a busy week on the blog. God of War month continued with Trevor's Second Look - God of War: Ghost of Sparta on Tuesday, and his Second Look - God of War (WildStorm/DC Comic) on Thursday, with more to come next week. The Saturday Morning Review this week was Paul's take on Kung Fu Panda 4.

A lot of my writing this week has been Powers Squared related. In addition to the rewrites, there was  work on the newsletter, which will go out the first Sunday in April. I think, with the exception of some last minute updates, it should be ready to go.

I did manage to do some work on Skylar, but most of it has been rewrites rather than new pages. 

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

A Week in Writing #492 - Working

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

I can actually report that I did work this week on Skylar. I tried to make a point of it, trying hard to get through a chapter every night. Still have more editing to go but I am working on it, so I wanted to get that out front for a change. I don't know when I'll finish but I am working on it.

Work continued this week on some edits for Issue 20. I think we're getting closer, I need to make new .pdfs before we apply for copyrights, so we're behind schedule on that, but these things need to be right before we move on to the next steps.

Meanwhile, working with our artist on pages for Issue 26, so that seems to be going along fairly well.

One last mention of Powers Squared, we had our 12th Comic Book Club on this week's On the Air with Powers Squared. Julia Canon and Rachel Wells joined Trevor, Paul and myself to discuss Bone: Out from Boneville, written and illustrated by Jeff Smith. It's always fun to have guests on the show. You can listen to it on our website: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps (or a variety of other platforms) or wait until next Wednesday to watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at https://youtu.be/mJwCx6pP4dc.

This week's Saturday Morning Review, was Paul's review of The Last Kids on Earth - Book One (Film), which appeared on Netflix in 2019. It served as a pilot for the other two seasons of the series. He is also working on a review of The Boy and the Heron, which we saw in the theater over the weekend.

The review I wrote this week was for 7th Heaven (1927) which was nominated during the first Academy Award for for Outstanding Picture, losing to Wings for that honor. I was surprised that there was so little information available about it, especially on my go-to website, the AFI Catalog. I was disappointed that the entire synopsis they proved was only one paragraph in length and they had very little information about the production of the film. I like the opportunity to write a better synopsis than is already available and I think I did a pretty good job with it here. I've gotten complaints before that I'm too thorough, but I figure if a film is almost 100 years old and hard to find to watch, someone should tell the story. Not sure when it will appear.

Well, more to do. So, this week I want to finish the .pdfs for Powers Squared and register for copyrights and work more on Skylar as well.

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

A Week in Writing #479 - Still Slow Going

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

Speaking of staying safe, over the weekend, I, along with the rest of my family, got vaccinated for the flu and for the new strain of Covid. In a couple of weeks, I'll go back and get one for RSV, as, yes, I'm in that age range.

Another not so effective week of writing. The cold was still with me for a good part of the week, so that's my excuse. Now that I've rounded that corner, I have to get back to getting things done.

This week, my big accomplishment was getting a dba set up. I'm doing business as SRCC Press, the publisher of Powers Squared. I don't think it means anything really, but my CPA has been after me to set one up, so I finally did it. Partly because I need to but also because in the new year, Powers Squared will be available on Library Pass, which means our books will be in school libraries across the country. This has been something we were told to do by Gamal Hennessey a couple of years ago, but that was easier said than done.

But it looks like that's coming along. I need to send in the materials still. Being under the weather was my excuse, but now it's getting ISBN numbers. Not that I'm afraid of the process of getting one, it's the cost. Since a number costs more than all the monies we've ever received for the books, I've been a little squeamish about the expense, but I think it would help with the entire process so I'm going to have to bite the bullet and do it.

We're putting together a second trade, issues 6-9 for Library Pass. The covers have been drawn, but not colored and it's a chance for us to fix something that bothered my co-creators when it was printed. A minor bit of dialogue, and no, it's not what was said, nothing bad, more like how it was presented. I think I kind of bullied it through the first go round so this would be a chance to make it right. We'll incorporate it into the Kickstarter I'd like to do next year and then make them available some time after that.

I have done some work, but not much, on a new approach to Skylar, that long suffering novel I keep writing about writing. I moved the introduction of the character up and I'm making some other changes. We'll see if it comes out better this time around.

I am working on a review of The Vampire Bat (1933), look for that next Halloween on Trophy Unlocked, so watch for it. In the meantime, it's been horror and Resident Evil Month. Tuesday was Paul's review of Resident Evil 0 HD Remaster followed on Thursday with his review of Resident Evil 4 (2005). The Saturday morning review was, surprise, also Paul's, this one for Frankenweenie (2012).

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Trophy Unlocked hit a new milestone over the weekend, 1500 Reviews.

The OAPS this week was our 11th Comic Book Club meeting, this time it was Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1: Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, written and illustrated by Bryan Lee O'Malley, with Julia Canon, Jen Moreno, Rachel Wells and Trevor. You can listen here or watch it here on Wednesday. Next week, it's a team meeting, which you're welcome to watch on twitch.tv/powerssquared at 6 pm PT next Friday. Be There and Be Squared.

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

A Week in Writing #475 - Never Too Late for a Rejection

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

A few weeks back, due to the lack of reception, I decided to stop querying Broken People. The fact that I stopped doesn't mean the rejections would stop. I received this on Wednesday morning:

Thanks so much for letting me review your query. Unfortunately, your project isn’t the right fit for me. Since it's crucial that you find an agent who will represent you to the best of his or her ability, I'm going to step aside rather than ask to read more.
  

Each query I read, I do so with my own list, preferences, and skills in mind. I encourage you to continue writing, editing, and looking for an agent whose tastes and interests align with yours.
  

I’m happy to look at any future projects, so please query me again if you have new projects.

When I submitted my query on June 6, the agent's lead time was 6 to 8 weeks. I guess this points out that those timeframes are more guides than rule. And, you never know, I might even hear later from one of the agents I've given up on. Hopefully, if I do, it will be better news than this. So never give up hope.

Turning to more positive things, my rewriting of Getting Even continues and I'll think I'll be done this week with it. It still feels like the weakest of the books, a lot of moving parts but at this point, still necessry for the overall story. Next up will be Paperback Detective, a book I haven't looked at for five years, but I think still needs one more go through.

That will, of course, take second place this week to needing to get the next issue of The Hound Dogs' Howl ready for next Sunday. These weeks fly by and a pretty brisk pace. Time will be a little tighter this week with a couple of birthdays this week, mine on Monday and Paul's and Trevor's on Thursday. As much as I enjoy writing, there are some things that take precedent.

We had our 10th Comic Book Club podcast on Friday with Rachel Wells returning and joining in with Julia Canon, Jen Moreno and the Hankins to discuss Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, written by Kanehito Yamada and illustrated by Tsukasa Abe. As always you can listen to it now or watch it on Wednesday when it drops on our YouTube channel; 2:30 PT.

Making some progress on Issue #25, "Yuki-Onna". The hope is to be through page 16 by the end of the month. When we're done with that issue, I'm thinking of us doing The Great Escape, another one-off, which is sort of a continuation of Mocha and Raven. But that's getting too far ahead.

Trophy Unlocked is celebrating Batman Month, so my review of Batman: Gotham by Gaslight

was the Saturday morning review. On Sunday, Trevor's review of Elemental went up since it's a somewhat current title. Trevor's review of Stay Tuned went up on Thursday, which sort of took me by surprise. Apparently it was to celebrate Chuck Jones' birthday, who did some animation work on the film.

We're also working towards October and our annual salute to horror. Since I had the idea of watching it, I wrote a review of Drácula, aka the Spanish-language Dracula, that was made at the same time as the more famous Tod Browning film, starring Bela Lugosi. I'm pretty sure that will go up next month, I just don't know which date.

I'm also working on a review of I Cover the Waterfront for sometime later. I would say "stay tuned", but that's already been used.

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

A Week in Writing #455 - Getting Things Ready

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

I think I spent the past week on the business of writing and not so much on the craft, and I'm afraid I'm not 100% done either. My main focus this week was to get the next three issues ready for printing; not an arduous adventure but one that took longer than I had hoped. Some of it has to do with working after hours with businesses in Florida and England. Best to hope for is twenty-four hours later to hear back, but that's not always the case.

Artithmeric, which is outside of London, has a 24 hour hold on .pdfs you upload before you can submit them for proofs. And granted that hold doesn't necessarily last that long but for me it might as well. They were very quick about releasing them but, even 11:35 PM is after hours for me, so it has to wait until the next evening. And it doesn't help if you upload the wrong .pdf, which I did for one issue. Granted, they caught it, but we're back to the 24 hour cycle, no delayed a day by my error.

Ka-Blam, the Florida printer, requires that you pay first before you can upload the .pdfs, so it's at minimum a two-day process for me while I wait for the invoice to be generated.

Still need to do Kindle and GlobalComix; the former is much more difficult to work with than the latter. Kindle, which used to be called ComiXology, has an approval delay in the process though they are much more strict than the others and take much longer. We had one issue that seemed to take a month to get approved and by then, the release date had come and gone. But of course, the sales make up for it, which is a lie.

The other work project I took on was getting the newsletter ready to go. And, yes, here comes the monthly ask for subscribers. You have to "enroll" at San Romero Community College to receive the newsletter. It's Free, of course, and it would really make me feel better if you did, if you indeed care about my well-being, dear reader.

I've got myself in a bit of a reading pickle. Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and we did a video with our former artist, Rachel Wells, What's in my Bag? FCBD 2023, Part 1. Well, now I have to read five comic books by next Saturday and I read about five to ten pages a night, so I feel doomed to fail. And I have to read another book, Made In Abyss, for our Comic Book Club and I just got my chance to start last week as well. (I finally finished Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, which I feel like I had been reading for months.

Worked more on the pilot outline. I guess I'm ready for it to be reviewed, I just haven't submitted it yet.

Did some work on Skylar this week. It's a bit of a cheat, as I wrote the ending, which had been swirling around in my head for a couple of weeks, so I thought I might as well get it down in Word. Things never read as well on the screen as they sounded when you're driving around thinking about it, but at least the first draft of that part of the book is finished. Now, it's just the next 10 to 20,000 words in between. Piece of cake, right?

One new query this week and so far, knock wood, no new rejections. Of course, that doesn't mean I haven't been, as I'm sure some time frame has elapsed on one of them, but I like to think I haven't been rejected yet on those; gives me hope.

Seeing as it was FCBD, my review of Dick Tracy (1945) went up as the Saturday Morning review on Trophy Unlocked. Now, I'm being tasked with writing the review for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, a movie we saw this morning, so I should probably get on with that.

Keep writing, and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #452 - A Week of Lapses

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

I seemed to have a week of mental lapses when it came to the business side of writing, by that, I mean social media posts about Powers Squared. As the old saying goes, I was a dollar short and a day late all week long.

The crux of this were the usual posts I make during the week. On Sunday mornings, I schedule posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for Tuesday's peek-of-the-week feature and for Wednesday's YouTube video release. These, of course, don't really get much beyond those platforms unless you repost them to various groups, which I have been doing fairly religiously for several years now. I also add them to other social platforms and LinkedIn, where Powers Squared has a page. For some reason, this practice skipped my mind on Tuesday and when it came to Wednesday, I felt awkward reposting both, so I cut back on where I reposted each. I know that might not feel like a big deal, but I think the YouTube video, our Comic Book Club on Stray Dogs, may have suffered, as until today there had only been one view. Not that our numbers are ever really high, but that's particularly low.

I'll blame some of this on the time crunch at the end of the day. My day job doesn't always end smoothly at 6, so it may be later before I'm done. And then I'll usually want to go for a walk, usually my second of the day, to get my step count up. And then my wife and I will watch the evening news. At dinner for the past week, we were watching episodes of The White Lotus, which are about an hour long, so the bit of time I have to write is very limited by then and the social media posts have gotten squeezed out as a result.

I did work pretty much all week on Skylar, but I think the word count may have actually gone down with the updates I'm making. I'm just under 64,000 words and I should hit between the 70,000 to 90,000 word count threshold when I'm done. I think I'm several weeks away from that, though, and then there's the editing, which is the part I really like the most.

I did send out one query this week, but it was very late in the evening before I got it out, like 10:55 pm. And no time for the Past Present one I keep promising to do. One thing that has kept me from the online forms is the question of comparative fiction, or what else is your book like or whatever the question they ask. I was watching a few minutes of the Max series Perry Mason. While I'm not a regular viewer, I do see parallels with my J.D. Barrister stories. While they deal with a case, the show, like my books, also deal with what is going on with the main character, i.e., relationships, etc. Of course, mine is not about a lawyer and the time frames are decades apart but I think there is fertile ground there. Of course, we'll see when I try it.

We had someone we would consider to be a big guest on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, artist Patrick Ballesteros. If you've ever been to San Diego Comic-Con and in Artist Alley, you'll know you're near his table because of the long line in front of it. Trevor had taken a class from him and we've known each other for several years now, but we were all surprised that he accepted our invitation. Hopefully, he'll publicize it, too. I think we all thought it was a good interview. The link above will get you to the audio and the video goes up on Wednesday on YouTube or you can watch the recording on twitch.tv for the next 10 days or so.

My review of The Real Charlie Chaplin was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. This was a movie that I watched over two flights during our trip a week ago to and from Dallas. The movie isn't that long, but I had only watched part of it one way and finished it on the return trip. We sort of rushed it out, since today (April 16) is Charlie Chaplin's birthday. See the tie-in?

The Wednesday/Game Day post was actually a review hub for the video game series Hitman, which Paul has reviewed.

I'm currently working on a review for The Last Command (1928), which we watched on Saturday night. I'm also supposed to add to Paul's review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, you know a non-gamers point of view.

Not much is happening at the moment with the actual Powers Squared book. Our new artist is still working through things and says she should have 5 to 6 pages this month. I must admit I'm getting anxious now that we've passed the midway point of the month and we haven't seen anything yet. But I have faith.

I did make some updates today to the website, adding a preview, minus cover, for Issue #17, which is coming out in June. The cover is done by the way, but I wanted to save it for a future peek-of-the-week series prior to release.

I'm anxious to try to return to the pilot script that we abandoned several months ago. Still at the outline stage and I want to get back to it.

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

A Week in Writing #451 - No Queries, Just Rejections

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

For me, this past week was not really condusive to getting a lot of writing done. I was out of town from Monday to Friday back in Dallas, Texas, where I'm originally from, visiting my mother on her birthday. I did manage to get some writing done on Skylar and deal with some things related to Powers Squared but I did not send any queries this past week.

But even though I might not have sent any, that doesn't mean rejections stopped. After not hearing back for so long, I, in fact, got two in the same week.

In early December, one agent had asked me for additional pages, which I sent him. I had been considering asking what was the appropriate time to wait to nudge on a partial but I guess I don't need to. While I was in flight, I received the agent's rejection:

Dear David,

Thank you for your query and interest in representation. I regret to inform you that Martin Literary Management is unable to take you on as a client at this time. As I am sure you are quite aware, we receive hundreds of queries a week and, as such, we must turn down many projects that might have great commercial potential.

Please know that I personally read each and every query and that some of these rejections are based strictly on the subject material, which may not be an appropriate fit for my interests. Some rejections, however, are based on writers not having a good understanding of how to prepare and pitch their work as a query to an agent.

If you are at all disheartened by this rejection, I encourage you to seek out the anecdotes of writers who have garnered a fair amount of success for themselves after enduring what can be, at times, a very grueling process.

This rejection is by no means an assessment of your writing abilities, your creative voice, or to "rain on your parade." I sincerely hope that you will find a way to continue on this journey until you achieve the desired result.

I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

I don't know if it's just me, but this seems like a form letter based on a query, not one based on a partial submission. Don't get me wrong, a rejection is a rejection, but I might have expected a different form letter since he had requested pages (three chapters) four months ago. Based on that, it's hard not to take it as "an assessment of" my "writing abilities". However, his is not the final word and I'm not done trying.

But wait, the rejections kept coming. On Wednesday, I received this from an agent that I had sent the first chapter of the book. It didn't sting too much since I had already DNRed the the query since it had been two months.

Dear David,

Thank you for submitting your book, Broken People, to me and I am very sorry for the delay in responding.

I am afraid that it is not quite right for my list at this point. Due to the volume of submissions I receive, unfortunately I am unable to offer more thorough feedback, much as I would like to!

If you would like to know what we recommend after receiving a rejection, you might find this page useful.

I appreciate you taking the time to submit your work.

Kind Regards,

Curious, I followed the link noted in the email above to What Happens When You Receive A Rejection? I guess this is supposed to make you feel better about being rejected and "help" you improve your writing and your outlook.

But there was this passage:

Think about the types of passes you’re getting from agents. Are they all form rejections or are any of them personalised? If an agent has taken the time to personalise then you’re possibly very close and it might just mean you haven’t found the right agent at the right time (there’s a lot of luck involved in publishing) and you should keep trying. But, if all you’re getting is form rejections then it might be time to take a deeper dive into your submission package and the book itself in order to help you achieve your goals.

So, now I'm left wondering is what I received a form letter? It came back with my original email attached and seemed to be personalized but is that just a fancy form letter? It also makes me wonder do agents really spend time giving useful feedback to writers they're not interested in representing? Given how busy they all are/claim to be, I would be surprised if they do.

As mentioned before, I did manage to squeeze in some time on Skylar, mostly late at night or in the morning waiting for others to get ready. I don't have a word count for you on how much I did but I am making some progress; we're up to 63,801 words so far.

The Powers Squared work was related to pages from our colorist, Julia Canon, which arrived on Monday and which Paul and I managed to look at that night. I also had some communications with our former artist, Rachel Wells, who is doing some work on the mascot for me, which she had originally designed.

We landed back in L.A. on Friday afternoon and made it home in time to do our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. This time it was a Comic Book Club meeting with Rachel, Julia and Trevor joining Paul and me to discuss Stray Dogs by Trish Forstner and Tony Fleecs. You can listen to it now at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps or watch it on Wednesday on YouTube at https://youtu.be/JcAx6Lwc9MU.

Since we've been home, I've managed to write one review for a documentary I watched on the plane The Real Charlie Chaplin and start another one for Clash of the Wolves (1925) starring Rin Tin Tin. I'm hoping The Real Charlie Chaplin can go up before his birthday next week.

The reviews kept coming on Trophy Unlocked. The Wednesday Game Day review was The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog and Saturday's Morning Review was Puss in Boots (2011), both written by Paul.

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