A Week in Writing #446 - Internet Ads and QR Codes

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

I don't know about you but there is a lot of non-writing that goes into writing, at least for me. (And, I'm not counting this blog.)

Everyday this week, I've posted on Twitter, anniversary dates for reviews on Trophy Unlocked. I do this every morning between getting home from my morning walk and getting ready for the day. I've tried to shortcut this process by keeping track of the ones I've done in the past, so for the most part it's a case of copy paste and find the image to go with it. I do try to occassionally update the hashtags and stuff but for the most part things don't change too much. My hope is that it drives eyes to the blog, which I think it does. I also post on Facebook and Twitter when there are new posts on the blog, which is at least once a week, sometimes, like this week, twice, but we'll get to that later.

I also post on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram three times a week for Powers Squared. Every Sunday, I post a new peek-of-the-week. On Tuesdays, the posts go up. I set these posts on Sundays through GoDaddy. [Note: For whatever reason, the connection to Facebook had stopped working, please see previous posts where I called this out. I had tried everything I could think to do, including contacting GoDaddy but nothing had worked. GoDaddy wasn't much help. They pointed me to Facebook, which I contacted but never heard back. I had pretty much given up on it but this morning, wonder of wonders, the connection was there.] Once it posts on Facebook, I think share to varrious groups. I'll also post this to our LinkedIn page and any other social media we're on.

Every Sunday morning, I also upload the video from our Friday podcast On the Air with Powers Squared to our YouTube channel. These are scheduled for Wednesdays at 2:30pm to premiere. We've been told this is a good time to post new videos. I want social media posts to go along with it, so I post something on Sundays that will go out at the same time as the video premieres. Paul and I also shoot a short video on Fridays that I put up on Instagram later on Wednesday, again, pointing them to the video on our YouTube Channel. The same process once it appears on Facebook and other social media, including LinkedIn.

Every Friday, I try to post about our upcoming podcast that night. Once the podcast is done, I update LinkedIn making sure that our Powers Squared page gets updated. This past week, Paul and I discussed the topic of "Separating the Art from the Artist", something to check out on Wednesday, or you can listen to it now.

All this leads me back to the headline. With an upcoming release, Issue 16, "Mocha and Raven, Part 1", drops on March 15. I got the bright idea that maybe we should do an ad on all these social media  sites. So I put something together and got feedback from the other creatives involved with the issue.  Today, I got the bright idea to add a QR Code to the ad. This I found not that hard to do. So, as a preview, here's the QR to the Campus Store on our website:

Let me know if it works for you.

That all said, let's talk about what this blog is supposed to be about, which is my writing.

Well, no new review this week. Saturday night turned into a family event, out of town relatives, an acapella performance at UCLA and vegan dinner, you know not the usual but good fun. So no movie, no review. That said, I did have the Saturday Morning review, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris. This week, we had a Game Day review, Trevor's for God of War: Ragnarök.

One new query for Broken People. I'm still, for some reason, holding back on Past, Present, but I will do one this coming week.

I did work several times this week on Skylar. I'm still in clean up mode, but I am taking advantage of any moment I can to work on it, it's just the word count probably doesn't reflect it, yet.

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

A Week in Writing #441 - Getting Some Things Done

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

Well, fewer things are in progress than last week but there's still a lot I'm still working on. Let's start with an example of both.

I finished one review for Trophy Unlocked, the one for Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter. I'm close to the end with my review of Lord of the Rings and I've started a new one for Bullets or Ballots, a 1936 crime film with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart, the latter being from the Saturday night drain the DVR viewing.

I did have a review on the blog, the Saturday Morning Review was The Automat, a 2021 documentary about the automats in New York and Philadelpha. The Wednesday Game Day review was Trevor's for Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time.

Work continues on the new issues of Powers Squared that we intend to release this year. Trevor made all of the edits and now I'm resizing and making .pdfs.

I also completed my fifth go at what I'm calling The Great Escape (title subject to change) a one-shot issue that would resolve a question left over from Issue 18, which you'd have to read in order to understand what I mean. 18 is one of the issues we're planning to release this year, so you'll have to wait, I guess, to find out.

We had our monthly team meeting this past Friday for our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. It was our first without Rachel Wells, so it kind of felt like someone was missing. It was the third time this month that we've had Julia Canon, our new artist on the show; she's getting to be quite the regular, which is nice.

No progress this week on the pilot outline, still too many balls in the air for that to get the attention it deserves.

I still haven't had the chance to fix my GoDaddy/Facebook issue but I've got a sort of work around, using IFTTT, which should connect Instagram posts with Facebook. The issue is that you use handles on Instagram that don't apply to Facebook but that can be cleaned up on the backside. I'll see how that goes for this week. It's just a matter of priorities with me.

I did manage a new query this week. Having a synopsis ready to go has really opened up some additional opportunities for me. I'm still trying to do one a week, so as not to over due it. I don't want to send out a bunch and run through the list too quickly, if that makes any sense. I've also started thinking I need to do a synopsis for another story that I think is ready to go, Past Present.

Unfortunately, aka Skylar got the short shrift this week. One of the issues for me was that sometimes when I'm writing late at night, I'll say after ten, I can fall asleep at the keyboard and so I lost the place I was at with the book. I discovered that late one night as a matter of fact.

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

A Week in Writing #440 - A Lot of Work in Progress

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

I feel like there is a lot of work in progress this week.

Let's start with my least favorite part about writing, the query. I did send one but I'm now down to two active ones; the one that asked for pages and this new one. There is one in limbo, the agency's instructions are to follow up if you haven't heard back. I'll do that this week. However, the rest of them I ended up DNRing, since the response time would have appeared to have expired.

I did work some on aka Skylar but I only worked on it through Tuesday; I'll get to why later. Up to 58,156 words. Should be better and I'll continue to work on it.

I've got two reviews in progress, the one from last week, Bakshi's Lord of the Rings and a new one, Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939). I'm over 2000 words on both reviews and I'll try to finish them both this week.

Speaking of Trophy Unlocked, the reviews this week were both Trevor's. The Wednesday Game Day review was Ed, Edd n Eddy: The Mis-Edventures and the Saturday Morning Review was A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon.

So, now we're down to why so much seems to be up in the air, Powers Squared. We've got a couple of things going on at the same time. New issues, 16-19, which we're trying to get ready to release this year and the old pitch that we've been kicking around for a while now, and in particular the pilot script, which I'm trying to write.

Paul went through the four issues and made good notes. He's much better with grammar that I am, so is Trevor for that matter. One of the things he mentioned as something we need to do, and I won't give that away just yet, but it got me to start working on that story. And considering it's a 20-page issue, I'm about 2/3 through a draft.

Got feedback, as well, on my pilot script outline. Again, good notes but we need to talk about it before I take another try at it.

BTW, I'm still having social media post issues with our GoDaddy website; Facebook won't connect. They want me to spend the time recording what I'm doing in incognito. It doesn't sound like it will take that much time really but this week it's been that bridge too far.

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

A Week in Writing #439 - Writing Without a Net

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

I've been working most of this week without any backup, or way to back up what I've been doing. (I know there's backing up to the web but I'm not set up for that.) While I was writing, in the living room, which I do every night, the battery was getting low. I have a separate power supply in the room just for situations like this and when I got up to retrieve it, my foot got caught up in the cord for the mouse.

As I tried to free myself, I managed to topple the TV tray I use and my laptop fell to the floor. The "h" key, which has been known to become detatched popped off but other than that everything was okay. I put the h key back and all was right with the world, except the two thumbdrives I use to back up my work were both worse for wear; bent and damaged.

I was surprised how hard it was to find replacements and get them in a timely manner. If  I was still willing to wait for delivery, I could have ordered from Amazon, which is my go-to site for such things. Instead, I found them on Office Depot but I had to wait three days to have them delivered.

Both of the drives are 512 GB; though I don't really need them to be that big, it's the potential they provide. Maybe I should be a little disappointed that all my writing, outside of Powers Squared, amounts to just shy of 5 GB of data. The Powers Squared files, amount to closer to 400 GB of data. It is the latter replacement that seems to be taking forever to transfer the data. It flucuates from 6 and a half hours to over a day depending when I look at the progress bar. Even then I had to skip a section when I accidentally jarred the drive while it was copying and had to start again picking up where it left off.

I've been trying to write more this past week, alternating on two projects. Every night, Monday through Thursday, I tried to get through a chapter or two of what I'm going to start calling aka Skylar. Making some progress every day helps keep me engaged. 58022 words if you're keeping score at home.

I've also been working on the outline for the pilot script for the animated Powers Squared show we want to pitch.

I spent a good portion of the weekend resizing every page for the next four issues of the comic book, about 92 pages including covers, and saving tiffs and jpegs for each. Not the most fun I can say I've had but I at least got through it and made pdfs to review before we apply for copyrights.

On the subject of Powers Squared, I'm still having fun with the website and the social media posts I can do from it. Instagram came back on it's own but Facebook, even though it's owned by the same people, is still not connecting; I get the Blue Circle of Death everytime I try, even incognito, which they keep asking me to use. Since what they're suggesting isn't working, the Go Daddy people want me to record my steps, etc but I think, once the above backup is done, I'm going to try to clear the cache to see if that makes it work. I know they mean well but I only have so much time and I don't really want to spend it recording my steps on my laptop and then figuring out how to get them to my phone so I can text it to them. They even said, after I asked, that clearing the cache might work but they still wanted me to do the incognito/record method. I may be recording but I want to try my way first.

We had our fourth Comic Book Club meeting this week, with Rachel Wells, Julia Canon and Trevor joining Paul and me to discuss Joe Hill's Locke and Key. You can listen here or wait until Wednesday and watch it on YouTube. If you're itching to watch something now, there is our Holiday Soda review that Paul hosts.

No queries this week, but I'm committed to starting up that process next week. No word, read that as no rejections, so far this year, though I'm sure I'll have more than a few DNRs. But that fun will have to wait.

No new reviews for me so far this week. We're watching movies worked on by our next guest on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. We record on Monday for uploading later so I consider it prep. Besides, Paul and Trevor are writing the reviews for the two movies we've watched so far.

The reviews this week on Trophy Unlocked  have been Trevor's; Codename: Kids Next Door - Operation: V.I.D.E.O.G.A.M.E. for GameDay Wednesday, and Shaun the Sheep Movie for the Saturday Morning Review.

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

A Week in Writing #399 - The Kickstarter is over 75 Percent Funded

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

I don't mean to bury the lead, so yes the Kickstarter is 75 percent funded with a little more than two weeks left to go. If you're reading this I ask that you take a look at the Kickstarter, as it means a lot to me and I want this to be funded and beyond. All writers want their work to be read and that doesn't only mean serious writers of literary fiction, that means all writers. I've put a lot of sweat and perseverance into Powers Squared and I would hope others would give it a try. Chances are if you read the book, you just might like it.

Shameless plug over.

Had my first experience in a movie theater in over two years. On Friday, my family and I went to see Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (read the review on Trophy Unlocked). It was weird to be back. The last film we'd seen in a theater was the first Sonic The Hedgehog film, so this was a nice bookend, though I'm not convinced, yet, that it will become a normal thing for me. I'm one of those people who still wears a mask in public and I'm not convinced the pandemic is really behind us. The theater was nice and all that but I'm not ready to book my next excursion.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, Sonic 2 was the Saturday Morning Review and Paul's review of Horizon Zero Dawn Complete Edition was the Wednesday Game Day review.

My future contribution is one that I wrote for Murder at the Vanities (1934), a pre-Code murder mystery set on the opening night of Earl Carroll's Vanities. Since we saw Sonic 2 in the afternoon, trying to avoid crowds, we went with something short for our Friday night movie. As always, not sure when it will appear.

Paul and I talked about our experience and about going to WonderCon on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared on Friday, so the feelings were still fresh. We were back on the air after missing last week's show due to Paul being under the weather.

My main focus over the past week has, no surprise, been the Kickstarter. On the advice of our consultant, I started doing a series of posts on Facebook and Instagram getting more into the story behind Powers Squared with a link to the Kickstarter rather than just an out-and-out plug. Not sure how well those are going over but I'm planning at least a couple of more before the week is out.

No new queries this week, I sort of lost the will to do one. No new rejections either, which really doesn't mean anything.

More work on fka Skylar. I'm finding that I usually work on it at the end of the week, like today, or the beginning of the week, like Monday. I really wish I could work on it more than I do but something's gotta give.

Well, it's a short one this week. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week.

A Week in Writing #261

This week, I'm going to build this post as the week goes, rather than try to recollect the week on Sunday, since I'm going to be in transit for most of the day. Since this usually covers Sunday through Saturday, we should be good.

The week got underway with new pages from Nina. There turned out to be an issue that we had to address, which is pretty rare when it comes to the coloring. Even though Paul and I look at everything during every step in the process, there are still things that we occasionally miss and this is what jumped out at us with one of the pages. A character was drawn similar to another character, which meant that they were also colored to match that character as well. We also had a special coloring built into the script, but there didn't seem to be a place for it in the panels on the page. To make a long story short, with some back and forth amongst all of us, including Rachel, we came up with a solution.

I did some more writing on Sunday on The Runaway. Still reworking the story, trying to save as much as I can from a previous version while still making changes. I want to make it better, but I don't want to write when I don't have to. I wrote just shy of 1200 words on Sunday.

Also, on Sunday, Paul and I did our video, A Week in Powers Squared, and sent our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl. Something we still need to work on is building up our audience for both. We're a few weeks short of our 52nd weekly video and would like to get to 25 subscribers. For the newsletter, we're at about 80 and need to get it to 100 as soon as we can. If you're interested, the YouTube channel is here and the sign up for the newsletter is here. Every subscription counts.

Monday was a pretty light day writing-wise. Worked some more on The Runaway. I'm in one of those situations where I've sort of written myself into a corner with the new prose bumping up against the old. I hate to waste what I've written and despite the idea of keeping it for another time, that rarely works out the way it's supposed to. I'm sure as time goes on, the two storylines will diverge again and I'll have several thousand words of useless plot.

I've made the decision to stop posting this blog on Medium since I haven't got any hits in months. It doesn't take all that long to post it there, but with one follower and no reads it's time to cut my losses so to speak. I don't think anyone will really notice it's gone, so this will serve as my announcement. Medium will be just one more social media platform that never took off for me or Powers Squared.

Tuesday was spent on trying to get the word out about Powers Squared's landing page. Made posts on the usual social media (Facebook and Twitter) and even created, using MailChimp, an Email Signup tab on the Powers Squared Facebook page. Using MailChimp has some advantages, but it is not very self-explanatory. I was trying to follow their instructions to link our campaign to Facebook but came across what appeared to be a dead-end. I wasn't getting the dropdown the instructions told me to use. I had to do a separate Google search to find a solution. Got it to work but it took longer than it should have; it always does for me when I'm trying to do something.

Sent out a couple of query letters on Tuesday as well. I don't mind the process, though I have a  certain apprehension when doing them. I'm never sure, based on the instructions on the various agent's websites, if I'm sending the right thing to the right person in the right way. If you're like me and use Query Tracker, you need to be sure to check the websites. While I find the site very helpful, there are sometimes subtleties that get lost. If an agent is shown, as an example, to handle Young Adult and Mysteries, oftentimes, they handle Young Adult Mysteries. Always check the websites and even then it can be a crap-shoot.

I don't like to have too many queries out there at one time. On the oft chance I get feedback from an agent, it might help me to change up the query letter, which is already something I do anyway. Right now I have six out there. I try to give agents time to reply but when it's "only if interested" I'm not sure what that means time-wise. If they're really behind that could be three months, I don't know. But six seems like enough for the moment.

The final page from Issue #11 came in with a slight redesign from Rachel and within about 2 hours and 15 minutes, the coloring was updated and the pages are now on their way to Trevor for lettering. I've said it before but I still mean it, I really like working with everyone on this project. They really seem to rally when it counts and I appreciate that.

On Wednesday, spent some time working on Powers Squared's website. I've been trying to regularly put up a poll question on the site, with varying degrees of success. I thought that it might be related to the fact that the website is the link for them and when you go to the site you actually have to scroll down to find the question. Decided to try to set up a page dedicated to the poll question, which would then provide more of a direct link.

I'm not sure if GoDaddy supports polls, but someone there set it up for me on my home page some time back. I've been using PollDaddy, now CrowdSignal, to create the polls and from there I've been copying the code onto my home page. I discovered that you could duplicate and move a section, which I managed to do successfully today. So now all polls will point to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/poll. There is probably one there now if you want to vote.

Paul did some work with OBS, YouTube and our new Stream Deck to make it work, so we're set for new videos. There is a fairly significant latency period using this method and the videos take longer to process on YouTube but I'm hoping we can not only make the videos more entertaining but also more closely link the information in the newsletter to the info in the videos. They'll still be different but now they can be more closely related.

Late on Wednesday night, finished a review on There's Always a Woman (1938) for Trophy Unlocked. The film was one that I saw recently on TCM and wanted to see since it paired Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas. You'll have to wait a while to read it, but I'm glad I got it done.

On Thursday, I made an effort to reach out to people I knew on Linkedin to ask them to join the Powers Squared mailing list. Six or seven people. Only heard back from one and even then I'm not sure he'll actually sign up, even though he wanted to get together with me. I don't know why it's so hard to get people to sign up.

More writing on The Runaway, finishing off the chapter I was working on. Being a pantser, I'm sometimes curious where the story will go from here. I know how I want the story to end and it's the getting there that's the fun.

Friday will be my last writing day of the week. It got off with a bang, too, a rejection from one of my queries. It appears to me to be one of those form letters that's meant to look personal: "Thanks for sending me Broken People.  I wish I could represent every book I enjoy.  Because my resources are limited, I can only devote my energy to projects that I feel passionate about, and I'm sorry to say that your book isn't right for me."

Notice how she doesn't say she enjoyed my book, only that she wished she could represent all the books she enjoyed. Sort of encouraging but very unspecific at the same time. And I guess it goes without saying that we don't share the passion for Broken People. So I'm down to five.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I found another agent on my list to query. This one doesn't provide any guidelines about what he's looking for in a query letter. In fact, the agent's website is almost non-existent. But he's listed many other places, so it's always worth a shot. Sent him a similar query to one I had already sent: the first two chapters and a synopsis. It's a little like shooting in the dark since I don't know any preferences he might have. And, of course, there is no timeframe for when to expect or not expect a response from him.

Received the news on Friday that our long-time colorist, Nina Gaillard, has decided to leave Powers Squared after issue #12, which will be her seventh one to color. She's decided to seek other opportunities and projects and while we are very sorry to see her go, we wish her great success in the future.

Sort of a sad way to end this week in writing.

Saturday, before leaving for a weekend trip, posted Trevor's review of Atlantis: The Lost Empire for our Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked.

So, that about wraps things up for this week. More next. In the meantime, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #254

Some weeks, I feel like all I really do is work on Powers Squared. It's not that I have anything against it, it's that I also have other interests and writing projects but it seems when I take a long look at the end of the week, all or most of what I have accomplished relates to the comic book.

The week started with new thumbnails from Rachel regarding the first eight pages of Issue #12, which are actually two separate versions of each page and each panel. Paul and I went through them and made choices between A and B versions. Issue #12 is the concluding chapter of What's in a Name? which started with Issue #10.

Trevor, who still has a fractured arm, managed to letter the first four pages of Issue #11 after Nina sent us those pages last week. He has four more to go.

We're still moving ahead, though slowly, with the Kickstarter. We're looking at other things to offer besides digital and printed versions of the issues. One of the items we're considering are stickers and we took advantage of an offer from Sticker Mule to test drive a set of 10 for only $1. They'll look like this:

Theoretically, we could also do a magnet of the same design. Thoughts?

Something that we might also consider would be graphic novels made from previous issues. Our print-on-demand provider would like us to make them and is sending us a sample in the post. Depending on what it looks like, we may offer them as well.

We're prepping to attend San Diego Comic-Con the week after next. Planning both fun and educational programs to attend. Interested in ones that will help grow our lists and sales. It can be a very slow process. As an example, this past week, we ran a Facebook ad to try to boost a post related to signing up for our newsletter and we're offering, in return, a free copy of our first issue. It's a little frustrating with the results. As of this writing, the post has been seen by over 1400 people and over 229 likes on Instagram, but the result has been only one new signup.

Speaking of Comic-Con, wanted to let you know that everything will be delayed a day as a result, both the weekly email about Powers Squared and this blog post. No time to do it on Sunday after returning, so Monday will be packed with trying to get everything out. As per usual, this post will be a Report from the Front and will detail my experiences at the Con.

There was also some writing progress made on The Runaway, though not as much as I would have liked. I didn't really work on it past Tuesday night.

I'm sort of feeling like I need to divide up my writing time so that not everything I do is Powers Squared related. I know with Comic-Con coming up and a Kickstarter to plan that might be wishful thinking, but I'd like to maybe only spend one or two nights a week solely on the comic book and the other two or so on other writing, like The Runaway and reviews for Trophy Unlocked. I also need to send more queries or this will forever be just an avocation.

I also need to call the editor on Familiar Stranger. I'd like to say I'll do it this week, but I know I've said it before.

Did manage a new review for Trophy Unlocked, Spider-Man Far From Home, which came out this past week. Hope you'll check it out.

So, until next week. Keep writing.

A Week in Writing #239

It seemed like every time I turned around this week there was something going on with Powers Squared. Not that it was always underfoot, but there always seemed to be something that needed to or should be done.

We made two unboxing videos this week, the first one when we received new issues from Artithmeric (Kirby Good and Evil, Issues 7 and 8), and a second one when we received our Merch (T-shirts) the next night. Since we didn't want to turn into an unboxing video channel, despite our first such video being our biggest one yet, we delayed the second one until Sunday morning. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it got delayed until Sunday morning.

Thursday I posted a preview image for this week's thumbnail on Instagram just because I want us to be active. Friday I post a poll question on our website. For the first time in 26 weeks, I posted a question a second time. While I'd like to say it was on purpose, I have to admit it was a mistake. I posted the same question that I had on week #13. Back then it got a whopping one vote and as it turns out that choice is not on this week's question. Again, another accident but I decided that I would post the same question in 13weeks. Let's see if anyone notices.

On Friday, we received inks from Rachel for pages 17-20 and the cover for Issue #10 as well as pages from Nina, 5-8 of the same issue. And finally, on Saturday night, pages 1-4 lettered by Trevor. He had been having some issues with WeTransfer which is how we send and receive pages to be lettered with him. I think that's a leftover from the first issues and when we used WeTransfer to communicate with the artist and colorists.

With Nina, we use Dropbox, which this week got to be full, so I had to offload the files prior to issue #9. I've already sort of saved them on my own computer as part of the workflow but I saved those files to a flash drive, you know, just in case. I'll admit that  I do a lot of backing up with this as well as all my writing. I like having a copy with me of everything just in case something comes up while I'm away from my computer.

Paul and I shot our weekly vlog on Sunday afternoon and posted it on our YouTube channel. After which we shot a little promo video for Instagram. Now, I just tuned into this, after what 26 weeks, but I've been sort of double posting about our weekly videos. First through YouTube hitting sites like our Facebook page, Twitter and Tumblr, which are the same platforms I can access through Instagram. So I decided to type in the web address into the description of the Instagram video and then I can skip doing the individual shares from YouTube. The goal is always to spend as little time as you have to on social media, isn't it? (I'm probably passing on the obvious.)

For Trophy Unlocked, I finished my review of Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow, which I should publish next week. This week's Saturday Morning Review was Paul's take on Devil May Cry 5. Planning ahead, Trevor wrote a review of Shazam!, which we saw as part of an early screening through Fandango. We're going to save it back until the week of the film's release, so please look for it then.

As far as Broken People, I did send off two more query letters this past Thursday, mostly so I didn't have to write here that I had not sent any again. So for those playing at home, it's three queries out and no rejections (at least so far). Sadly, didn't really have time for much more this week. Sometimes this gets pushed to the back burner though I never want it to go out.

Hopefully, this next week, I'll get a chance to do more with this part of my writing. I'm going to contact the editor on Familiar Stranger. I know I sound like the little engine that could but I will, I promise you. Will I get a response? Well, that will be up to him.

A Week in Writing #233

Okay, I'm writing this and I am a little nervous. Not because of this blog but I finally sent my first query letter off regarding Broken People. I know it's something that I've been talking about for weeks but I finally pulled the plug and sent one off. And I know I need and will do more but sending off query letters is a little like riding a horse, when you get bucked off (or rejected as might be the case) you have to get back on and send out more query letters.

The agent I sent mine to is one that I had met or rather heard at the Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference last October. I really had the book pretty much completed then but had to hem and haw my way to sending it out. There is always a good reason not to send a query but I knew this day would come. I will, of course, update here as the process continues. I don't and won't name names, as that's not the way we roll at 1000 Words a Day, but this would be my dream agent at this point. But then again, any agent that would take me on as a client would be my dream agent, let's be real.

Already got a response, though it's a form email. I've had it be where I've spent hours to hone the query letter to a particular agent only to have them reject me in a matter of minutes so my first thought was not a positive one when I got the email so quickly. Rejection is never far from my thoughts when it comes to query writing.

Did a little more work on The Runaway as well. I wrote myself into a possible corner but managed to think of a solution before the trail got stale. I'm a little short of 35,500 words into the rewrite. I have a general idea where this is all going it's the getting there that still needs to be worked out.

No new word on Familiar Stranger and I truly doubt the editor reads this blog but we're coming up on almost a year now. I don't know if he's immortal but I'm not and time's a-wasting. I'd like to get this done sooner than later. I will have to follow up and I will let you know what, if anything, I hear back.

Published a review of the short The Balloonatic on Saturday on Trophy Unlocked. Part of our salute to shorts during the shortest month of the year. I've watched and written a review for next week of Making a Living (1914), Chaplin's first short for Mack Sennett's Keystone studio. Look for that next week.

There is also a review I wanted to point you to on that blog, The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part was reviewed by Trevor after we all went to see it on Saturday afternoon. He was the best one to review it as the rest of us sort of blipped out from time to time if that's any indication on how good the movie really is.

This week in Powers Squared, we finished Issue #9 which is pretty exciting. Since we've just submitted Issues 6 and 7 to Comixology it may be quite a while before 8 and 9 are published.

Speaking of 6 and 7, I've reached out to the websites that had provided us with reviews, interviews, and previews for issues 3-5 and only one, First Comic News, has responded. We're hoping their reviewer will do one for the new issues. I sent them to him this morning after emailing the editor-in-chief. Hopefully, we'll get a positive response.

Our poll questions have taken an uptick in the past few weeks and I have to thank our fans in Singapore and San Mateo for getting those numbers up. 11 responses last week and 9 this week is nice. It makes you feel that you're not just writing in a void. I've asked them to perhaps watch the videos as well.

Paul and I do a Vlog every Sunday with whatever is new with the comic book. The last several, despite pushing them on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and Pinterest have garnered zero views. We keep hoping that trend will reverse itself. It hurts, people, it hurts.

We're still working out the details for the Kickstarter that I want desperately to do. Trying to see if our artist is willing to do something by hand that could be used as a tier reward and maybe be used as well on t-shirts and maybe even an alternative cover.

A fellow comic book creator is trying to start an Instagram Pod to support each other. I'm all for it but he wants me to do more than just publicize the videos which I need to do. I went through the last two issues and pulled out all of the sound effects so I might be posting them for a while.

Well, that about wraps up another Week in Writing. Please check back next week and I'll update you on queries and reviews. Until then, keep writing, cause you know, you gotta.

A Week in Writing #209

A sort of quiet week when it comes to Powers Squared. For the first time in quite a while, it wasn't until late in the week that we received pages to look at, pencils for the next four pages of Issue #8 along with a couple of changes we'd asked for on two earlier pages. So, for those keeping track, we're up to page 16 with the artwork or will be by the end of the month. She's also starting to work on the thumbnails for next month as well.

Our colorist is working on pages 5-8 of the same issue, having already delivered the first four earlier. And Trevor is more than halfway through with the lettering on Issue #7, so things are moving along.

We tried a three-way Google Hangout on Friday with Paul and me, Rachel and Nina but for some reason, we couldn't connect again this week with Nina. I think I figured out what the problem has been and it was me. You have to use a Gmail account and I was inviting her under the wrong email. Stupid is as stupid does as they say, or at least Forrest Gump says. We'll have to regroup and try it again.

We did have a nice chat with Rachel and talked about all things Powers Squared including the difficulties in growing a social media following. From my own example, we never seem to have a breakthrough moment. I tried paying Facebook to boost a post for me. Small potatoes, I spent $10 for 7 days and two countries. We did reach 158 people but only 26 actually liked the post, which was about the Shop Now feature we added to the page. Of those 26 people, only one took the invitation to like the page. Not a really great return.

Not to be deterred, I was approached over the weekend by BeAkira.com to help publicize/market our website, which is powerssquaredcomicbook.com. We'll see what we get for the money but the goal is to draw more people to the site and to buy the comic book.

Before that, I had GoDaddy set up a poll for me on the website.

Still no word from our contact at comiXology. Sort of hard to explain why we haven't heard back and while I don't get accustomed to being ignored, this is nothing new. I'll try again this week to see if I can get some reaction before Labor Day.

Speaking of people I can't get a reaction from, I tried twice this week to call my editor on Familiar Stranger. Not only didn't he answer, but he didn't return my call either. Meant to try him over the weekend but ran out of time. Again, I don't appreciate the radio silence, but its nothing new. 

Is it me?

Still working on the rewrite of Getting Even. Had an epiphany about the ending so I'm excited to get to that point and get to work on it. I haven't worked out all the kinks yet but I know what I need to do. Right now I'm up to page 214 as I'm making changes. Hopefully, I'll get further during the week.

Finished a review of The Blues Brothers movie, which was published on Trophy Unlocked as the Saturday Morning Review.

So this week, I'm hoping to finish another review, in this case, Doctor X, which has been dangling for a week or so now. I will also be following up to see if I can get anyone to reply to my queries and, of course, more work on Getting Even.

A Week in Writing #208

Well, let's start at the top with Powers Squared and Monday. I dutifully did as I said I would last week and reached out to my contact at comiXology trying to get feedback on Issue #6. Don't look too shocked but no word back. I won't go through the litany of reasons why, just that I have not heard back.

Meanwhile, work continued on the new issue. Later that day, Nina sent us the first four pages of issue #8. It's all looking good. I haven't sent them on to Trevor for lettering yet, as he's still working on Issue #7.

On Wednesday, we received pencils from Rachel for pages 9 through 12 of the same issue. We had a couple of comments but nothing major. It's always interesting to see things develop and the words on the page come to life, so to speak.

Later in the week, we got our quarterly accounting from comiXology on sales. While I'm happy to report sales were up 350% from the previous quarter, sales were still pretty miserable, considering all the work we've put into it and all the publicity we did receive around the release of Issues #3-5. Let's just say all that work amounted to less than two dozen sales over the five issues. Very disheartening.

Now, there are three ways to approach this. Either I/we could fold but that wouldn't be fair to the story. I really like the story and hope that it would eventually find its audience, so that wasn't really an option, though it did cross my mind. I like having a creative outlet that at least reaches people, even if those numbers are small.

The second option, I/we could continue the same thing and hope things would just turn around. That would be wishful thinking on my part.

So I took the third option and tried to change the way we present ourselves to the world. To begin with, I updated the home page on the website to make it easier to buy the books and how to communicate with us, i.e. join the mailing list. I also updated our Facebook page, activating a Shop Now button. I also followed the marketing advice from Comic-Con and advertised on Facebook, boosting one of the more recent posts. I didn't spend very much but we do seem to be reaching more people and have added several new page likes. I know that seems shallow, but you got to get the word out.

I'm also exploring options with media, including press releases and the like. More on that as it materializes.

The planned-for weekly video didn't come to fruition. We had technical problems connecting with Nina on Google Hangout.

Continued to post on Instagram, which does generate content on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Rather than publishing the same images over and over, I try to find a theme or something for the posts. This week has been first appearances in the story, rather than in flashback. Most of the artwork, so far, is from the first issue. Trying to build up to more recent first appearances in the comic book.

Nina also posted an image from our website on Instagram, one I had posted as a preview of Issue #6. That was unexpected and pretty cool. No one has ever posted anything about Powers Squared because they wanted to, so that was a new experience.

In other writing, I did finish the review I mentioned last time for Christopher Robin, which we published on Saturday morning on Trophy Unlocked. During the week, we also published a review for the video game Epic Mickey 2 written by Trevor and just today Sharknado: The 4th Awakens prior to tonight's final installment of that wrung out TV movie franchise. We had been reviewing them but had overlooked this one for some reason.

On the rewrites, I'm continuing to work on the rewrite for Getting Even. I've read and edited up to page 451, so I think I'll be finishing that next week. Okay, I said I would contact my editor about Familiar Stranger and I didn't do that. There never seemed to be the right time. Unlike the contact at comiXology, I don't think I can just send him an email and hope to get a response. He will take a phone call and unlike the guy at comiXology, I feel like I can call him up, it's just that I never had the opportunity at the right time. So, that's something I need to do next week.