A Week in Writing #537 - Turkeyless Thanksgiving and Other Tales

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

Not the best Thanksgiving holiday. While it's not the meal that's really important, but family, let me tell you the meal is also important. Case in point, this year, no turkey for the Hankins on Thanksgiving Day. You don't realize how much you miss it until you can't have any. Long story short, there were questions on how much the turkey had been cooked, thanks to an electric issue, and when the carving started, there was blood, which isn't a good sign. There was more cooking, but was it enough? We decided, the four of us, not to risk it. Others ate it and no one got sick, but why take the risk? So, no turkey, stuffing and no next day sandwich, which is the real prize.

The trip back was long, 9 hours +, counting stops, helped to being longer by an accident in the Grapevine. Two cars went over the edge and a helicopter had to be called in to take one of the victims to the hospital. Meanwhile, we're sitting in traffic with no clue about what's going on. Not a fun way to end any trip.

Not a total loss, managed to find a couple of Black Friday Record Store Day releases, getting one at less that face value, so I can't complain too much about that.

Because of the holiday, not too much writing got done. I feel like I'm squeezing this in, as a matter of fact.

No new reviews, but my review of Hell's Heroes went up on Saturday morning. This year, Trophy Unlocked is celebrating the Christmas season with a look at various versions of the Three Godfathers story on film. Hell's Heroes from 1929 was the first chronologically that we watched and there is more to come, as this is a popular story to retell. Trevor's review of Epic Mickey: Power of Illusion went up on Wednesday.

Even though we were away, there was a new podcast, one that we had prerecorded a couple of weeks ago. Artist Rachel Wells, colorist Julia Canon and letterer Trevor Hankins, joined Paul and myself to discuss the new issue #23 "Family Affair, Part 2", which drops next Wednesday. You can listen here or watch on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 on our YouTube channel. The issue will be available in both print and digital through The Campus Store on our website.

Also, got out the newsletter today. Most of the work had already been done, but there's always something that has to be corrected. If you'd like your own copy of The Hound Dags' Howl, you can sign up by enrolling at SRCC here. It's free!

Some editing this week on Skylar as I'm reading it through one more time looking for inconsistencies and missing words, etc. Hopefully, I'll be done by year's end, if not sooner.

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

A Week in Writing #484 - The Thanksgiving Hole

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

If you're like me, you spent a good portion of the Thanksgiving holiday travelling. For me it was two days, Thursday and Friday with about 14 hours behind the wheel. While it's nice to spend time with family, the holiday leaves a hole in the week in writing that really can't be filled. Which is my way to introduce this blog where not much happened.

I'll start with our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. We weren't sure we'd be back in time on Friday to do it live and if we were would we feel like doing one. So, to fill the void, we pre-recorded one, just Paul, Trevor and myself, discussing the Japanese drama series Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan and the feature film Rohan at the Louvre. Our artrist, Julia Canon, was nice enough to post it for us. As always, you can listen to it now here or watch it on Wednesday after 2:30 pm here. The choice is yours.

Next week, a new issue of Powers Squared drops. Issue #19, "Kamaitachi", written primarily by Paul with my assist. Of course, I'd appreciate it if you would check it out. It will be available in print and digital, all of which you can find in The Campus Store, where the Hound Dogs shop. It's the site for links to all our publications and merch, so I would encourage you to check it out.

I still have a lot of work to do between now and then. I need to send out a press release for the book. I usually send it out to several outlets and, of course, am ignored by them. I'm just going to send it this time to the few that have actually published it or have published something about Powers Squared. That way I'm not so disappointed.

Still waiting to hear from San Diego Comic-Con about our professional renewal. We're still within the window for hearing back but I'd rather have it settled. I believe we qualify so I'll give it a few more weeks before I out-and-out panic. I'm also trying to find out about tabling at WonderCon and SDCC, as it appears to be the time. More waiting ahead for me and for us.

For Trophy Unlocked, my review of Three Strangers appeared as the Saturday Morning Review, ending the short celebration of Noirvember on the blog. We're now turning our attention to Christmas. No shortage of reviews for that holiday, so stayed tuned. I'm also working on a new review of Abandoned (1949); don't expect it to appear this year but want to get it done.

As usual, more progress but not as much as I'd like on Skylar.

For the coming week, besides the press release, I have the newsletter to complete, a review to complete and hopefully, the next trade to complete; it's close. Well, more about in the next blog.

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

A Week in Writing #436 - So This is Christmas

Hope everyone is safe, and, of course, writing. And, while we're at it, Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, if you prefer).

I don't know if it shows dedication or stupidity, but here I am writing out this post on Christmas evening. All the presents have been unwrapped, a couple of returns, and we're waiting on dinner but for the most part, the "fun" part of the holiday is over. If you're curious, the big gift for me this year was the Remastered Revolver set, which I held back on until Christmas. Items like that with a healthy price tag seem better suited to Christmas. But enough about me, well, the personal me, well, the really personal me; I mean this blog is pretty much about me, isn't it?

Writing, as it always does, tends to be harder, somehow, during the holidays. I think it has to do with the routine being thrown out the window. Big chunks of time and so many other things to do. As an example, I spent three hours getting a tire replaced this past week. While I really enjoyed walking around to shops and a bookstore, I had planned on doing something else during that time.

So, what have I done so far this week? Well, I did complete a 3000+ word review for Trophy Unlocked for the film O. Henry Full House. I've seen bits and pieces of the film for years and one night it was on, so I watched it. And when I watch, I review. As always, not sure when it will appear, but it's another one under the belt, so to speak.

There was a review from each one of us this week on the blog. Trevor started things off with his Wednesday (Game Day) review of Little Inferno: Ho Ho Holiday (DLC). My review of the short Star in the Night (1945) went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Christmas Eve. Today, Paul posted a review of  the TV Special Adult Swim Yule Log. I'm pretty sure you caught on to a general theme surrounding the reviews.

By the end of the year, or later this week, I have to write my Year End Wrap Up. All three of us write about the highlights of the year. I'm sort of limited to films, but Paul and Trevor can write about games as well. That's a little out of my wheelhouse. Didn't really see all that many new films this year and I'm pretty sure we've avoided most of what will be nominated for Academy Awards, though not on purpose. Ironically, one of the best films we did see in a theater was It's A Wonderful Life, but that film is 76 years old, so I don't think it will count.

Did a little bit of writing on fka Skylar. Again, nothing to write home about and it's getting about as much mention as it deserves here.

More work on Powers Squared, though not all of it writing. As I believe I've mentioned once or twice, our artist, Rachel Wells, is leaving us at the end of the year and we're "auditioning" Julia Canon, our current colorist, for the gig. We had a productive conversation with her about some character designs. I have high hopes that it will work out. Should get revisions this week.

Wrote my premise for the pilot we've been toying around with rewriting and Paul did his own. I don't think we mesh exactly, but we'll have to work it through.

I also started working on an idea for a spin-off story, Billy and Raven, characters from an upcoming story arc. I'm just in the beginning stages of it now. Don't want to give too much away since the books they're from haven't come out yet.

We were used recently in a promotional video for Artithmeric. I tried to post it here but it didn't seem to work. We're just one of the books highlighted. It's nice to be recognized. You can watch it here, if you're interested in seeing it.

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

A Week in Writing #432 - More Like a Week in Driving

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

Oh, the holidays are upon us, which means things get pushed to the side to make way, including writing, I'm sorry to say.

Thanksgiving is one of the hardest holidays for me, when it comes to writing. The week is short, so less time and there is a lot of driving involved, about 16+ hours over three days, and there is the pressure to socialize rather than write. And, I'm usually so tired that I can't concentrate enough to write anyway.

So, let's bottom line it: No queries this week. That's a Thursday thing for me and I think I was probably driving or eating when I would normally have queried someone.

No live On the Air with Powers Squared on Friday. We still did the podcast but it was a prerecorded meeting with the panelists for Under the Radar, the panel I'm moderating at L.A. Comic-Con. We recorded it a couple of weeks ago, and Paul was able to edit for playback on Friday. The big event is coming next Sunday, so I'm sure I'll be writing about it in this space afterwards. If you're going, hope to see you there.

Had a pleasant surprise on Thanksgiving related to Powers Squared. We were spending the holiday with my neice and nephew through marriage. If you've ever bothered to look at the Creative Team tab on our website and under Other Contributors you'll find his name since he designed the original logo for us. Well, on his own, he decided to update it. I am not one for change for the sake of change but I also like to make things better. We're going through some changes, so next year might be time to refresh the logo along with everything else. I won't unveil it until we've made the decision to make the update but I think it's coming soon.

If we do change the logo, I'm not planning on going back and updating older issues, but have the change reflected going forward on newer issues and on the various banners we have around the internet.

Had a less than pleasant surprise on Friday, when I discovered or at last realized that the date on our graphic for the panel was wrong. It said Saturday when it should have been Sunday. The artist, also a panelist, made the change that night and sent it to me but I had already included it with the press releases and it had already been used on the internet. I really hate myself for not being more on the ball with things like that. This isn't the first time I've messed up a press release with bad data.

No new review from me this week, as we watched the The Guardians of the Galaxy Holiday Special when we got home from our trip and Trevor will be reviewing that for Trophy Unlocked. It will be the first of our usual holiday reviews, so next Saturday. I did, however, have two appear on the blog this week. Saturday Morning's review was mine for See How They Run, and on Thursday we posted my review of Plymouth Adventure (1952) for Thanksgiving. The Wednesday morning GameDay review was Trevor's for Endling - Extinction is Forever.

Well, that about does it for me. Hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving and I'll see you here next week.

A Week in Writing #420 - Happy Labor Day!

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

If you're in America, Happy Labor Day!

Let's start this week with On the Air with Powers Squared. This past Friday, Paul and I celebrated the third anniversary of the podcast by reviewing the guests we've had on the show, which is a fairly impressive list considering the number of viewers we have. For the most part, I can't think of a guest we haven't enjoyed having on the show. If you're interested, you can listen here or watch it next Wednesday on YouTube.

More progress this week on Issue #22, as our artist sent new thumbnails as well as possible covers for Paul and me to review.

This Sunday was also the newsletter, which takes a few days of work to put together. But we got it out, which is the important thing. If you are ever interested, you can always enroll at SRCC. It's free and there's no obligation, plus you'll be helping me out, which I'm sure deep in your heart of hearts you know you want to do.

On the query front, not only did I send a new one on Thursday, but I also set 4 older ones to DNR as they reached their expiration dates. I never know if I'll hear from one of them but I have to assume after three months or 10 weeks or whatever timeframe they set that it won't be "please send us more." If I hear from them, there will probably be something along the lines of "not right for my list" or "not what I'm looking for."

I don't know if you took advantage of Saturday's $3 cinema admissions but we did. It was a great opportunity to take a chance on a movie for pretty cheap, though the chain I bought it through charged me an additional $7.20 for the pleasure. (I miss the Arclight.) We took a chance on Bullet Train and I'll admit, we were happy we did. I wrote a review that will be up on tomorrow's Trophy Unlocked.

We also watched another movie that same night, The Wild Party, which I also reviewed. Not sure when that one will go up. Between the two, I wrote over 3000 words.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, my review of Batman vs. Two-Face was the Saturday Morning Review. I think I wrote it a little over a year ago so you never know. We're kicking off Batman month on the blog and I believe I'll have three of the posts.

Trevor wrote Wednesday, Game Day's, review for Destroy All Humans! 2 which was timed to go up on the same date as the new game came out.

More work on fka Skylar though most of my work was at the beginning of the week. Making progress but it always seems slow.

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

A Week in Writing #384 - Happy Holidays

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

I will come clean this week and let you know this has not been a great week for writing. It seems that leading up to Christmas, there is always something to do, and writing sort of takes a backseat.

It wasn't all cookies and cider though. We started with the week with a meeting with the partners at Artithmeric to discuss our upcoming Kickstarter. The start got sort of pushed back to late February, though there was no explanation for the delay. We still have some work to do. I can't say I've done a lot of work on what we need to do, but that's what next week is for, right? We'll get it done.

Paul and I also shot a couple of videos for On the Air with Powers Squared back-to-back on Wednesday. The first one we posted was a look back, or Rewind as it were, for what we did during 2021, including publishing two issues, a signing, and 50+ podcasts. Of course, I encourage you to listen for yourself at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. If you're curious who we've interviewed you can watch some of them through our website at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/videos.

Work still continues on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Paul's review of the indie game Octodad ran, and we finished the holidays with my review on Saturday of We're No Angels. I did write another Christmas review, A Carol for Another Christmas, but you'll have to probably wait a while to read it. I think we might be good for next year already.

I did some work on Skylar earlier in the week, but I haven't touched it since Wednesday. I know the next chapter I'm going to write but I haven't written it yet. I'm sort of tired of not working on it, to be honest. I think about the chapter almost every night, so I need to write it.

Well, that about does it for me. Hope everyone has a safe rest of the holiday and I'll see you next week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #382 - Getting Really Personal

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

Not to get overly personal but on Friday I had a colonoscopy, which I encourage anyone of the age to get. The prep is not really too bad anymore, but you do sort of lose a day after being sedated, which I did. But that is a small price to pay for peace of mind. End of public service message and on to what I did or didn't do this past week, which is the point of this post.

No queries this week, partly due to prep for the above. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be doing any more for the rest of the year. I'm not seeing the point in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Agents, I assume, have families and lives and may, like all of us, be looking forward to time off at the end of the year. I'd hate to be something they either ignore or give quick treatment to in order to clear their desks.

Busy week with Powers Squared. We've been showing our pitch packet around and the comments have been positive and helpful so far, as we'll continue to tweak it before trying to sell the idea. I won't give away names but I do appreciate the feedback we've received so far.

More thumbnails from our artist, for pages for issue 20. It's interesting to see what you've written being, for lack of a better word, storyboarded. You see things that you didn't expect and sometimes seeing it drawn out leads you to want to make changes, which was the case this week with one of the pages we received. It's not the artist's fault but seeing it makes you rethink it sometimes.

The process of putting together a comic book, if you're not the writer/artist, is one of teamwork and compromise. Sometimes you don't get everything you want and sometimes you get more than you expected. The latter has been our experience for the most part. Our artist makes changes when she thinks the work is better than how we wrote it but we also get the final say.

More reviews this week. One new one for Fitzwilly, a Christmas heist movie from 1967. Look for it next year when we get back to holiday films. On Saturday morning, it was my review of The Holly and the Ivy, a British drama from 1952. Before I get too far into Trophy Unlocked, I did want to say the blog is about to celebrate its 11th anniversary. In honor of that, this past week's On the Air with Powers Squared was about the blog and holiday films, as well as a little bit about L.A. Comic-Con, for those who don't read this blog. Enough of crossing the streams.

Back to Trophy Unlocked, this past week has been devoted to the EyeToy with Trevor's reviews of  EyeToy: Play, EyeToy: Groove, Nicktoons Movin', Sega Superstars, and EyeToy: AntiGrav. If you're saying to yourself, there are more EyeToy games than that, well there are and there will be more reviews next week. In addition, Saturday morning will be Paul's 11th-anniversary review. I'll let that be a surprise. Anyway, please check it out.

I worked on Skylar for the first few days of the week, but the rest of the week was sort of taken up with what I noted in the first paragraph of this post. Enough said on that. But I do think I'm making progress on this version.

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

A Week in Writing #380 - Holidayus Interruptus

 

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving, and, of course, did some writing as well.

That was me over the long holiday weekend, sneaking it in where I could. Now, part of the reason I didn't get as much writing done this holiday wasn't so much about Thanksgiving, though that did take most of the day in and of itself. I spent nearly eight hours watching The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+. It definitely took a big chunk out of three days. If you're curious what I really thought of it, hit the link above and read my review on Trophy Unlocked.

Speaking of that blog, there's been a lot of activity trying to map out the rest of the year and Paul is considering what to review for the blog's 11th anniversary, December 18th. But there will still be the mix of games and movies, with an emphasis on that other holiday, Christmas. We already started the holiday season with Trevor's Saturday Morning Review of 8-Bit Christmas, a new-to-streaming movie. There will be more coming, some traditional and some not, as the month progresses.

So far, this week, besides my review and Trevor's Saturday review, was his Wednesday's (Game Day) review of Smashing Drive on the GameCube. There will be lots more game reviews in the coming few weeks, so check it out.

Such was the holiday that we didn't attempt to do a new On the Air with Powers Squared, but instead replayed an edited version of the session we had a while back with the rest of the creatives playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which was a team-building exercise. I'm sure it makes for great radio if you just playback the audio.

Did have a thought over the break about changing one of the future scripts for Powers Squared to give us a "holiday" issue. I'd written a script in which the boys' parents come for a visit. I had used the old idea of a parents' day at colleges but decided to make it so they're coming for a visit on Christmas. I'm working on that revision presently and hope to have it done this week.

I want instead to concentrate more on the coming Kickstarter, as in February. I just want to be done with my deliverables as soon as I can. Must write to Artithmeric to get guidance on what they want.

No queries this week, again the excuse is Thanksgiving. I will endeavor to send one next week. New letter old start pages; we'll see if that makes a diff.

Did manage to get some work in on Skylar, though the character's name has changed in the meantime. Still holding on to the idea of the tontine but who is involved is changing. I don't like to write too much about what I'm writing but I'm hoping the changes will make it better.

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

A Week in Writing #332 - Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a Happy and Safe start to the New Year! Here's hoping 2021 is better for everyone!

One of the nice things about the holiday is time off from work, i.e., the day job. Part of the fun of these days is not having to do anything and I'm afraid some days I feel like I didn't do anything, or at least, not all that I would have hoped I would have done but that's true for every week.

Let's start with Powers Squared, which is always a good place to start.

As I'm sure I've written several times here, we want to pitch the comic book as an animated TV series. Paul and I even took a class pre-pandemic at UCLA on how to do that. However, getting over the hump has been another thing. I've taken a few shots and putting one together but there has always been something missing, full character designs for most of the main characters.

Now our artist has been good about providing them for the characters that she's designed but our previous one was not. Maybe they exist somewhere but even if they did, they would be outdated as the style has changed since Rachel took over on Issue #6. But that leaves us with about 11 characters that have been important to the story but for which there are no useable character designs.

Artists deserve to get paid but at the same time I've got to pay them, so we had to work out a reasonable per character rate. I won't go into that but I think we'll have them all by the end of March, so I'm hopeful we'll have a pitch packet ready to go by then.

I also spent some time this week researching possible podcasts that we could approach about being guests on them. There are about 15 possibilities, not all of which I could find contact information on. Now to listen to them to see if they're the type of shows we would be good guests for. If they only deal with mainstream books, they're not going to want us.

On Friday, Paul and I, as part of our On the Air with Powers Squared podcast, took a look back on what did and didn't happen in 2020 and looked forward to what we want to accomplish in 2021.

For Trophy Unlocked, I wrote a couple of reviews for a couple of silent films, The Racket (1928) and Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919). Have I found a sudden love for somewhat obscure silent films? No, not really. I've been reading Bathing Beauty: A Novel of Marie Prevost by Laini Giles and thought I should watch some of her films. Not sure when they will come out but I didn't want to let the viewings go to waste.

I still need to write one for The Tall Target, our Saturday night drain the DVR feature.

Otherwise, it was a busy week on the blog. On Monday, my review of Wonder Woman 1984 came out. (I promised last week that I'd link it here.). On Tuesday, Trevor's review of Ernest & Celestine was published. On Wednesday, unofficial game review day, Trevor's review of Deformers (PS4).

And if that wasn't enough, Thursday was a day to reflect not only on the past year but the past decade. both Paul and Trevor put out their year-in-review posts (I didn't since we had only seen a handful of films released during the year). And, since this was the end of the decade, we did a collective Actual End of the Decade List (2011-2020) post covering the best, worst, underrated and overrated live-action, animation, and video games from the past decade.

And, one more to grow on, Saturday's Morning Review was Paul's review of My Hero Academia: Heroes Rising.

In my other writing, I did work on the Skylar manuscript. I was mostly doing some editing on previous pages. In the story, I had my characters sharing a drink, one that I also tried during the break and I wanted to get some thoughts about it into the story. So, the word count, for those keeping track, I'm at 29454 words.

So, next week, things get back to the new "normal" for me. I'm hoping to keep working on the marketing issue for Powers Squared, finish my review of The Tall Target and get back on the query train. That's the plan but as they say, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, so we'll see.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #329 - Making Silly Mistakes

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

I hope that I'm not alone in this but this week, I kept making what I'll call silly mistakes. I'd like to put it down to being hurried but since this is a blog where I share the good and the bad, I thought I should share the silly as well.

On Friday nights, Paul and I host a live twitch show, On the Air with Powers Squared, that we call a behind the scenes look at our comic book, Powers Squared but in reality, we also interview not only our creative team but also other creatives as well. This past Friday, we lined up Josue F. Kure, the creator behind Reaper Rules. Josue and I had met through a list launch event and had kept up on Facebook and supported each other's Kickstarters but had not actually ever even spoken.

Well, Josue is a very interesting man with a lot of interests, talents and ambitions so it was a very interesting interview. My silly mistake here was in the lead-up. For every show, I post an image on Instagram, which feeds down to the comic book's Twitter account and Facebook page. Since I'm at work when I make this post, I try to do it as quickly as possible. The mistake here was that Josue uses a middle initial, which while I got right in the image I got wrong in the text. I was able to edit Instagram and Facebook posts, I wasn't able to change the Twitter one. As anyone who has Twitter knows, you can't edit tweets. I didn't have the time to fix it and it wasn't a big deal it still was sort of embarrassing.

On Sundays, I write the newsletter for Powers Squared, this week The Bark,  and while I think the text was good and the links worked I made two more mistakes. To start with, I didn't update the Message line so what went out, rather than saying Happy Holidays Hound Dogs made mention of the now over Black Friday Sale. Since I receive other people's emails, I know that I'm not alone in making mistakes, so I resent the newsletter with a correction. Problem solved.

But wait, no. One of the items every week is a Peek-of-the-Week, or an image from the comic book that is discussed in the newsletter but with a link, in the hopes of driving readers to the website. The nice thing is that while the image may change the link doesn't. And, all is well and good, as long as the website gets updated. But if you don't actually hit the button to publish the change no one will know there's a new image. It took me several hours to realize the image hadn't been updated. Don't know how many people, if any, checked for the new image but again, it was a silly mistake for me to make.

So with that confession behind me, let's move on to other writing and places where I didn't make missteps.

As I've written before, I've decided to wait until the New Year to take up querying again. I just don't want to get caught up in the end of the year desk cleaning that goes on in all professions. And, if you're still keeping track I've sent four and have been rejected once. I have a feeling I'm probably running into that "if you haven't heard back from us" clause, written and unwritten, that means they've passed but I'm not going to worry about it until when I start up again.

I've been working on Skylar most nights. My son Paul writes every night from 10 to 11 and I try to do the same. Some nights it's harder than others. I've had a couple where I start to fall asleep but I still try to make it through. I'm up to 25368 words and 140 pages.

I'm sort of leaving the best for last, I guess. I did write a new review this weekend, Repeat Performance (1947), a sort of mixed genre film that may, by design, not see the light of day until 1/1/2022. This past Saturday, on Trophy Unlocked, I did publish the first of my Christmas film reviews, this one a drive-by Christmas tale, The Last Picture Show (1971). To qualify as drive-by Christmas is either the backdrop or plays a role in an otherwise non-holiday tale.

During the week, Paul published his review of the videogame Injustice 2 Legendary Edition. And on Sunday, Trevor published a review of Onward, the pre-pandemic Pixar release that we watched this past Friday night on Disney +.

In other Trophy Unlocked news, the blog will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday. Not only will Paul publish a review on that date but we're also going to cross the streams and discuss the blog on our OAPS that evening. I promise not to make any silly mistakes when posting about that. I hope you'll take this as your invite to watch and ask questions. It is quite an accomplishment. We're live on twitch at 6pm PST, hope you'll watch.

Well, if I don't see you then, keep writing and I'll see you next week.

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

I hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #327 - Let's Talk Wednesday

Hope everyone is staying well and had a Happy and safe Thanksgiving.

I know last week I wrote a lot about the previous Thursday, I thought today I'd write about this past Wednesday, or the release date of the latest issue of Powers Squared, #10 What's in a Name? Part 1. I know that sometimes I plug hard the comic book but it's only because I want it to be a success. As with any endeavor a writer undertakes, he/she wants it to be a success. I double down on Powers Squared since it is also something I am self-publishing. i.e. paying for. If you insist on supporting me in this, then please go to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/the-campus-store.

Well, it may sound easy to self-publish a comic book but there are a lot of steps involved, which you can multiply by the number of outlets or platforms you're going out on. As a publisher, you stress over each one.

The first step, which I undertook sometime back, was to submit the comic book to the various outlets. We're on ComiXology, Artithmeric.com, IndyPlanet and Kindle, each with their own requirements, though many overlap. By that I mean if I meet the specs for say IndyPlanet, I can pretty much send the same files to the other outlets as well. I have been updating the cover for ComiXology, which doesn't like a border around the cover.

The submission process is a little different for each site. As an example, neither ComiXology or Kindle require you to purchase the book when you put it up. To be honest, neither Artithmeric or IndyPlanet require that either, but you want to see what a book looks like before you sell it, you have to order one and have it printed and shipped. With Issue #10, we have two covers, so I had to have two different copies from each of those outlets.

Some are more helpful than others. Paul and I had decided on our own that we wanted to have the issue out before Artithmeric's Black Friday Sale, which is going on right now through December 4, so we picked November 25th, the day before Thanksgiving. Releasing prior to a holiday, or a big convention, is probably not the best idea, as people's minds are elsewhere, but that was the date we chose. It was only a week before the release that ComiXology confirmed that they were also releasing it on that date as well.

ComiXology is the only outlet that you have no control over when the release date is picked and my guess is that they pick the dates based on some sort of algorithm rather than what is the best date to release it. They've picked dates that were the Wednesday before Comic-Con, the day before the 4th of July and this time the day before Thanksgiving.

So everything seemed to be in place except for something special I wanted to do on IndyPlanet. I had given them more than a week but never heard back on it. We wanted our B cover or Covid Cover to be print only and when submitting the issue, I didn't see a way to do that. I wrote to them a couple of times but it wasn't until the 25th before they confirmed they would do it.

About a week before the release, we sent out Press Releases to eight comic book news websites. This netted one story on First Comics News, who has been pretty supportive of us. That story came out the next day. I checked the other outlets today before writing this and that would otherwise be a goose egg.

Then there was the review. First Comics News has also been the only outlet to review all the issues and I was expecting it to be up on the day of release but it wasn't. It took a couple of emails on Wednesday and bothering the editor on Thanksgiving but it did go up a day late.

I also purchased some Facebook ads. I believe I had sworn off those earlier but I was hoping to see if things had changed. Each ad is $10 and runs for five days. We placed one when we launched our new landing page. Despite reaching 5558 people, I don't believe any of them actually signed up. We placed one when the issue was released. So far, that's reached only 984 people 31 clicked the link; no telling if any bought the book. On Friday, we put out another one for the Black Friday Sale. 1204 reached two clicks. I keep telling myself this is a marathon but it would be nice to get somewhere now.

So, the jury is still out on the ads and the release. I'll report back here if I receive any numbers on sales.

No queries this week. Thursday is my night and it was Thanksgiving. For those keeping score, I have sent out four and have one rejection.

I did work a couple of nights on Skylar. I guess a word count would be appropriate; that way we can all track how I'm doing on that project. So, right now I'm at 16535 words. Check back next week to see how much futher I get.

My review of The Clay Pigeon was Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review, thus ending our Noirvember salute. There were two more reviews this week on the blog, Trevor's review of  Transformers: Prime - One Shall Stand went up on Thursday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the series that it derived from. And on Wednesday, there was Trevor's review of Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion (PS4).

Next month starts the blog's salute to Christmas titles. Not necessarily for next month, I did write three reviews this weekend of Christmas titles, including A Christmas Carol (1910), Mickey's Christmas Carol, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Maybe they will come out this year, maybe next. I think we have enough for this year so it's nice to get ahead.

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

A Week in Writing #280 - Pretty Much Taking the Week Off

The holidays and writing aren't always complimentary. While I did do some writing, I didn't do as much as I thought I would have. Maybe not the best way to start the New Year but what are you going to do.

Let's start with what I did do. I did some rewrites on The Runaway but didn't really do anything on it after Monday. I believe I've gotten through all the changes I needed to make so far in the story. Making a change in a story is like throwing a rock in the water, it starts a ripple effect and there might be changes still to come as I continue the rewrite process.

On Saturday, a review I wrote last year about Treasure Island (1950) was published as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. Next week, we'll be featuring a review of a remake of sorts, Treasure Planet, which Trevor wrote as a companion piece. The blog is counting down to its 1000th review. Mine makes 995 so we're getting close. 

Before the year ended, all three of the writers on Trophy Unlocked published our highlight/lowlight lists for 2019. Mine is more film-centric than Paul's or Trevor's.

I also wrote a new one for Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, a film we watched as part of our annual post-Christmas movie day. We have more than one copy of the film in our library. The version we watched as a Criterion Blu-Ray of the 1969 re-release. The review ended up being about 2500 words. 

Work on Powers Squared continued. The comic book seems to be the one thing that we never take a break from, at least not a long break. Paul and I spent part of a day doing some business work, checking to see if we need any new copyrights, not yet; uploading a digital copy of Issue #8 onto the Comixology website and reviewing some candidates for the coloring opening we have.

During the past week, we also made our first attempt to line up a signing at a comic book store. I will admit I was a little surprised at the positive response to our overture but there is still more to do before I mention the who involved but it is one of our goals for the new year and I was happy  we at least got a start on it.

Later that day, I uploaded issues we have on Ka-Blam to their IndyPlanet website. IndyPlanet provides both digital and printed versions, so we're hoping that it will increase our readership and coffers.

I also paid for all the Kickstarter Rewards with our physical providers and updated the Kickstarter page with information from one of them. 

Paul and I continued to do our weekly On The Air with Powers Squared podcast and A Week in Powers Squared YouTube video. We are changing the newsletter from weekly to monthly. It's a real grind to do a full-blown weekly newsletter. We're still going to email our list throughout the month but make them more targeted. In fact, I imagine we'll be sending out more emails than before.

Seems like a busy week, though I always feel like there is more I could have done. But holidays are meant to be enjoyed. Next week, reality comes back with a vengeance. It will be back to a routine and I'm hoping there will be more time to write as a result.

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

A Week in Writing #278

Since this is my last blog post before Christmas, I want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays.

The holidays are a hectic time, especially when you're trying to wrap up a Kickstarter before the holidays take total hold and people go out on vacation. One of the things I hadn't counted on was backers being slow with their surveys. I finally had to call the last person with a physical reward to get them to fill out the survey. People don't seem to realize they had to fill them out and that it holds up other people when they don't return them.

The other thing I hadn't counted on was one of our suppliers being somewhat difficult to reach and that while they handle Kickstarters and tell you what they want, they don't tell you how to deliver that file to them. There is no place on their website to attach the .csv file they want. It took a lot of effort on my part but I was able to finally reach them and I think we're squared away. The emphasis on think.

Whew! Then there's the actual comic book itself and all the things that go with one. Our artist sent us the final four pages for the month but didn't send the .tiff files right away. Really not an issue since we still don't have a colorist for them, nor do we have the final pages of the issue our colorist was working on. Something to follow up on this week, I guess.

Besides that, I did manage to work in some rewrites on The Runaway. Since I changed out a sequence and a character's part in that, I'm going back from that point forward and seeing what, if anything, I need to change. Reading it for the umpteenth time, I 'm still finding things to change but nothing too major, at least not so far. I'm trying to go through a chapter a day at least, that is when I can get to it.

On the review front, I published Holiday Affair as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review and wrote another one for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, which was published on Sunday morning. We saw the movie on Saturday morning so it seemed timely for us to publish one as soon as possible.

We even talked about it on our A Week in Powers Squared video, bringing Trevor into the "show" to discuss it as well. It makes for a longer video than we usually put up but it's always fun when the three of us work on the video.

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

A Week in Writing #277 - Kickstarter Wrap Up and The Holidays are Upon Us

Well, a new week but the Kickstarter is a little like gum on my shoe. We're still not quite done with it. The fun part now are the Backer Surveys and getting backers to actually fill them out. We tried to stress the importance of those with physical rewards sending theirs in but after about a week, about 14 backers have yet to reply. Oh, the joys of bugging people.

Monday night this week was spent on the Backer Survey questions, which are pretty much the same for physical rewards and the same for the digital ones. However, you have to do a separate survey for every rewards tier, so there were 12 that had to go out. It doesn't seem like much but it took about an hour and a half to complete.

We tried to do a video update on Tuesday night but that got to be trouble. Streaming it on YouTube didn't look good and when we recorded it to be edited, we accidentally saved it in the wrong format, which appears to be an unrecoverable sin with the editing software we have. We ended up posting an update on Wednesday, which prompted a few more to turn theirs in.

In last week's rant, I erroneously underestimated how much my siblings had donated. One of our guest backers was a sister-in-law and one of their grown children. It was my blood relatives that I should have been more upset with. Besides my mother, who gave generously, my brother and half-brother gave all of $10 which is very disappointing. I mean come to play or don't come at all, they chose the latter.

I hate to say it but I'm small, so I blocked one of them from messaging me on Facebook. I didn't need to see photos of snow on his farm if he was going to ignore my repeated messages about the Kickstarter. I know, I know but I didn't drop him totally, did I? And he gave nothing to the cause.

Other work on the comic book continues. Our artist sent us four inked pages to review. However, our colorist has gone radio silent though she did say she would finish her pages (and her work with us) by the end of the month. We're still in the market for a new colorist though we haven't had the time to really spend looking for one. There are only so many hours in the day.

Did more work on The Runaway, inserting a character for previous books into this story. My main character, J.D. Barrister, has a former colleague who shows up from time to time and he seemed like a better fit for a certain part of the story than what I previously had. Now, of course, I have to update all the references to the other characters for that action in the subsequent pages. A good idea always has a cost attached.

I did manage to write and complete a review of Little Women (1933) for Trophy Unlocked but it probably will stay in the files until next Christmas, as we have the three we need for this month. First it was The Man Who Invented Christmas, which went up last week, and yesterday's Saturday Morning Review was Cover Up (1949), a murder mystery set at Christmas-time. Next week, we'll get back into the spirit of the season with Holiday Affair.

So while The Waltz of the Flowers plays in the background, I will sign off for now. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #226

Well, the holidays are practically upon us and as I suspected prep has taken its toll on output.

For the most part, I'm rethinking The Runaway. I got to the point where I'm not sure where to go next. My premise needs more attention that I can give it at the moment. I need to figure out how my PI can find someone with little or no information provided by his client. It will take some thinking and perhaps research so it moved to back burner for now.

This week in Powers Squared has been fairly active as everyone involved gets ready for Christmas and family. Our colorist, Nina, has notified us that she won't be able to finish the next four pages until after the New Year. That should be fine since there won't be more than four pages and a cover for her to do in January, so I don't anticipate us getting behind schedule.

Rachel sent us the final pages for Issue #9 and the cover both based on a little feedback we gave her. I really like how the last panel got worked out.

We finished a rather last minute rewrite on the script for the next story arc, Issues 10-12, currently called What's In a Name? It started with my taking a final look which led to some rewrites and then more edits from Trevor and Paul. Some of the changes were grammatical (apparently I don't know a question when I write one) and word choice. We had pretty much worked it all out prior but this is the 12th and hopefully last rewrite.

Rachel has, in the past, made some artistic changes but we're also curious about how she likes the story since we're all going to be living with it for most of the coming year. She seemed anxious to get to work on it but I'm not expecting anything from her until after the holidays.

Still trying to Direct Message Powers Squared followers to also follow us on other social media sites. Once again, I did five and then Twitter won't let me do any more than that at one sitting. Not sure what's up with that but it does make sure I'm not spending too much time on social media. So far, the results haven't been overwhelming, no new followers on Tumblr or YouTube, as a result, this week. I know its supposed to be an uphill march but I never realized it would be this slow.

Our poll question, "Who is your favorite supporting character in Powers Squared?" has gotten our usual one vote so far. Somehow the saying, if you can reach just one person, seems a little hollow when you only ever reach is one. If I knew who the person is who responds to the poll question every week I'd point them out for praise. Again, thank you for paying attention.

New video up on YouTube, A Week in Powers Squared #13. You can watch it here. Paul and I discuss the origins of the characters: Uncle Brian, Mocha, and Jennifer Perry.

As far as Trophy Unlocked goes, we've completed our annual look at Christmas films with the comedy The Santa Clause. But wait that's not all, Paul reviewed Once Upon a Deadpool, which is a PG-13 version of the R-rated hit Deadpool 2, which came out much earlier this year. A bit of a box office grab for Fox/Disney, but really worth the trouble if you managed to see a screening during its limited run. I'm sure it will see the light of day on home video next year if you missed it.

I did finish two more reviews, one for next week, What Price Hollywood? and one for next Christmas, Cover Up, so you're going to have to wait for that one for about a year. With the year coming to a close, please look out for our annual lists of Highlights from the past year, with each of the reviewers weighing in with their own lists. Those should be out early next week which means you'll have to wait a few days for those.

So until next week, hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!

A Week in Writing #225

With the holidays upon us, some writing has been spent on Christmas cards rather than rewrites. Couple that with general fatigue (am I still getting over it being dark at 5pm?), a dental appointment, shopping, and a neighbor who suddenly had to discuss replacing our common fence and this wasn't my most productive week. That doesn't mean nothing happened, but when there are so few hours in the day to write in a day, every hour is precious and not to be wasted. That's not to say that all there is to life is writing, but I hate it when I haven't done any during the day.

This week in Powers Squared, sort of quiet for most of the week. We did receive four pages from Nina, pages 9 through 12 of Issue #9. They came in at 11 pm our time on Saturday night, so Paul and I haven't at the time I'm writing this, which is Sunday morning, had a chance to look at them. Had a bit of a scare when I got a notification that Dropbox could no longer synch with my computer so I couldn't see her pages. Turned out to be a pretty easy fix, literally pointing the Dropbox to the E drive instead but it was a momentary concern.

Decided to get serious with the script for the next issue, currently What's in a Name? I haven't looked at the script for a couple of months and with fresh eyes I am finding some changes that we need to make. Hopefully, I can get that done in the next few days so it's ready for review and for our artist come the beginning of the year.

Still trying to make a social media push. Decided I could direct message those who are following the comic book on Twitter and ask them to follow us on Tumblr, YouTube, and Pinterest. I'm finding that after five DMs in a day, Twitter will no longer let me send messages; not sure what that's about. So far, the only reactions have been from Nina or related to her. Not sure if that's a good percentage, like 20 DMs and 2 responses but it would be nice if someone with no connection to the project would step up. I'm posting our linktree in case there is something you might care to follow us on as it relates to Powers Squared. As I say, any and all support is greatly appreciated.

It's a little disconcerting to try to keep all the balls in the air and realize so few people are watching. Our weekly vlogs are becoming an exercise in frustration as we tend to have few or no views. Last week's at this point has zero views. Our weekly poll on the website gets few hits; week after week, we get one vote. Whoever you are, thank you.

I did do some rewrites on The Runaway. I did have some time to think about it on my hour plus each way daily commute and did find some time to work on it on Saturday afternoon. Sort of interesting experience to writing a murder mystery while listening to Christmas carols but I think the pages I worked on did get better.

On the review front, I've tinkered a little with Song of the South but haven't really make any real progress on getting it done. Published our third Christmas review, this one Babes in Toyland (1934) aks March of the Wooden Soldiers. This version stars the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy.

We attended a somewhat botched preview screening of Aquaman on Saturday. This was a paid screening but the lights were left on through the first ten minutes and for a few seconds towards the end of a scene the sound went out; not the AMC putting its best foot forward. Did write and publish a review this morning.

So looking back, while I'm disappointed I didn't do more, I did get somethings done. It's all about moving the chain every week.

A Week in Writing #169

This may be the last complete week of the year before the Holidays totally take over, and while some good things were accomplished, there is still a lot that didn't get done. This may be a rather short post this week as I just don't think there is, sadly, that much to report.

As I wrote last time, I put Familiar Stranger aside for most of the week. The last time I touched it was Monday night. I'm up to a little over 23,000 words and 125 pages. I'm not happy that I wasn't able to get back to it, but I kind of figured that was what was going to happen. Next week is a short week, with travel and Thanksgiving on Thursday, shopping on Friday and a return trip on Saturday, so I'm not hopeful about getting much done.

Part of the reason is that I need to finish a review for Trophy Unlocked for Saturday on Tuesday rather than later in the week. I'm close to completing one for 36 Hours (1965), a film we watched on Friday night. It's a little bit of a juggling act since we won't have our usual movie night this Friday, thanks to being away from home for Thanksgiving.

I'm also working on one for Scrooge (1935), a film we watched the previous Friday. That one will come to play in December when Trophy Unlocked focuses in on Christmas.

Trophy Unlocked's Saturday morning review this week was Godzilla (2014), a film we watched on the anniversary of the original Gojira's release in Japan.

The other project that got attention this past week was Powers Squared. Our search for a new colorist was finally completed, so we're excited about that. I don't mention names without permission so I won't say who we selected. As we launch into Issue #6, we're going to have a somewhat new creative team. Not sure how all that will play out, but we can go through that together.

Right now, we're pretty close to finishing off this story arc. We have almost all of the artwork and we're still missing a few pages of lettering, but I'm hopeful we'll get it all done in the next couple of weeks.

Well, that about does it for this week. Hope you have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving. And try to write when you can.