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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #515 - The Artists Takeover

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

We're a day late since I was driving most of Sunday. Too tired to really think much after 9+ hours behind the wheel. I have to give longhaul truck drivers credit, as I don't think I could ever do that.

Thanks to the artists, both past and present, for taking over our podcast in our absence. They decided to do a tier list of the characters from Powers Squared (there's a tab on the home page) if you want to play along. You can watch them on Wednesday at 2:30 pm on our YouTube channel. The audio is coming to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. Not sure I 100% agree with their ratings and am proposing the creators of the book do one of our own.

We're trying to map out podcasts for the month of July, and the artists will return at the end of the month, when we're off at San Diego Comic-Con. Speaking of which, last week, I heard from SDCC about tabling for this year's show (I was on the waiting list). As great an opportunity that would have been, I'm not prepared enough for that show, so I had to respectfully decline the last minute offer. Perhaps I would have been more ready to go if we had tabled somewhere before, but I'm not even sure I have everything I'll need and don't want to blow the opportunity by not being ready for it (and the additional costs associated with it as well).

Part of what I want to learn about tabling, for LA Comic-Con is, hopefully, going to come from speaking with small press exhibitors at SDCC. They are, hopefully, in the know and we can get advice before ordering our books. If the opportunity comes up next year, we'll be ready or at least better prepared to go from standing still to the big show.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we had a nice feature in the patreon magazine Mystic Mind #10 from Kirin Comics. I responded to a post, I believe on Facebook, looking for indie comics looking for publicity and we were selected. I'm told we will be considered for a Reader's Choice at the end of the year. You can support them at https://www.patreon.com/kirincomicstuff. If another way comes up to get the magazine, I'll be sure to let you know.

No new reviews from me this week, though my review for American Graffiti was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. Next month, though, July, will be devoted exclusively to X-Men and Deadpool. If you've been reading along, you know that we've been watching all the X-Men franchise films, including Deadpool, now that all pays off. So, keep checking for the first of 15 reviews, including a Deadpool video game and, of course, Deadpool & Wolverine, which will conclude the month. The movie, unfortunately, opens during Comic-Con, but we've reserved seats for the 29th, so it will be reviewed as promptly as possible.

Travelling Friday to Sunday and prepping for that trip, unfortunately, took a hit on my output this week. I did work some on Skylar and feel like I'm finally getting to new parts of the story. I've already mapped out an ending, but there are still several steps before I get there.

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

A Week in Writing # 429 - Darkness is Coming

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

Sorry about the apocalyptic-sounding headline, and I don't mean anything political by the way, but I wanted to talk about everyone's favorite topic at this time of year, Daylight Savings Time, or the end of it as the case may be.

Usually, this plays havoc with me. I have sleep issues as it is but the change in time can affect me for a week or so. A heads up, if in the coming week or so it doesn't sound like I'm doing much of anything, blame the time change.

I see we're getting back to normal readership levels, so I personally want to thank those of you that read me every week. For a few weeks there, instead of my usual 7-9, we were getting up into double digits. Not sure what caused that spike or what brought it back down to Earth but I will continue to produce this every week no matter the numbers. I do this as much for myself as anyone.

On to writing. More progress this week on fka Skylar (I'll have to come up with a better title at some point). We're up to 53,429 words, which is up from last week but not a sky-high number, I know. The point is progress is getting made and I believe I've worked out the endings of the two stories. More writing to come.

Another query this week for Broken People. One a week is all I can do, honestly, though I keep thinking maybe I should query another title as well. No responses so far, save for an automatic "we've received your query."

On the Powers Squared front, pages (9-16) from our artist, or actually thumbnails for pages. I hate to keep saying this but these are Rachel's last set of pages 9-16 that we'll be getting from her as she leaves us at the end of the year.

As far as the panel goes, no news this week. I know the time is 11 am on Sunday, Dec 4 but not the room. If you're going to LA Comic-Con, I hope you'll come by.

We inducted a guest into the Five-Timers Club at On the Air with Powers Squared. Lucas Scheffel, the Australian creator behind Angry Fred made his fifth appearance and earned himself a special t-shirt for his trouble. We always have a great time with him and you can catch the audio here and the video on YouTube on Wednesday here.

Today was newsletter day for Powers Squared, The Hound Dogs' Howl. It takes a while to put it all together, so in case you're interested, please enroll today at San Romero Community College.

I'm working on a review this week for Plymouth Adventure (1952). We were looking for something Thanksgiving-ish to review and I recorded it from TCM. I'm still working on that one.

Paul's review of Wendell & Wild was Trophy Unlocked's Saturday morning review. The Wednesday GameDay review was Paul's review of the video game The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge. Monday's review was Trevor's review of The Nightmare Before Christmas. That review, for those of you keeping score at home, was the blog's 1400th review.

Does anyone have any thoughts about Twitter they want to share? I'm not sure it's worth $8 a month to tweet without being ghosted. How do you feel about that proposal? Any alternatives you'd recommend? I'm not looking for anything remotely political as that's not my purview, but we're looking for some backup plan in case Twitter gets too much trouble to deal with. I've been tweeting several times a day, but only about something going on with this blog, Powers Squared, or Trophy Unlocked.

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

A Week in Writing #427 - Dog Catches Car

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

After a couple of weeks of little time, I felt I had more writing time this week. I spent three nights working on fka Skylar getting more than 2000 words further into the book. Now I'm up to 49,996 words and to be honest I'm enjoying getting on with it.

Got some news while I was writing this. I had proposed a panel for Los Angeles Comic Con and they accepted it. It's about comic books that are under the radar, like Powers Squared. Now I sort of feel like the dog who caught the car; now what? It's sort of exciting and scary at the same time. I have until Tuesday to confirm and I think I have two other creators lined up. More here as I find it out. Wish me luck.

Switching things up, Powers Squared's latest issue got a good review, which I've been sharing pretty much everywhere I can, so I'm going to do it here as well. I will admit I'm not sure how to get more reviews but we've been lucky to get them from First Comics News'  Richard Vasseur, who has reviewed all 14 issues. For the most part, they've been positive but it is always nice to get some feedback. As a plug, the issue is available through our store.

Speaking of Powers Squared, our artist is working on the first 8 pages of her final book for us. We got pencils this week, the last set coming in last night. We still need to review and send any comments. We also have to decide on the test for our colorist to see if she can be the next artist. I am rooting for her.

Worked on but have not finished my review for Everything Everywhere All At Once, but I did write one for Bride of Frankenstein to complete our October tribute to Horror films.

It's still Silent Hill month on Tropy Unlocked and so there were three reviews this week related to that, all written by Paul: Silent Hill: Origins (Monday); Silent Hill: Homecoming (Wednesday); and Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Friday). Saturday Morning's review was also Paul's for the 1984 short Frankenweenie.

For our Friday OAPS podcast, we (Paul) discussed the Silent Hill franchise, including games, movies and graphic novels. It goes up on YouTube on Wednesday. I think the visuals will be more compelling but if you want to listen to it, it's available now here.

I also sent out one new query for Broken People. It's one of those only if we're interested kind of agencies. This one wanted approx. the first 25 pages. I sent slightly more to complete the chapter.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here 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 #381 - Report from the Front: L.A. Comic Con 2021

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

On Saturday, we did something we hadn't done in a while and went to a Con; L.A. Comic-Con to be exact and the first time we have attended that show. It's hard to compare Cons; L.A. is small by comparison and while we were there for about two hours or so, we managed to pretty much walk the entire floor.

One of the features is that the main stage is front and center when you walk in, which is very democratic in that everyone can see. The downside is that it's very loud and if you're trying to have a conversation with someone nearby, as we tried, hearing each other becomes nearly impossible.

We were able to meet a few old friends, and I will say I felt very special when an artist we hadn't seen in more than a couple of years recognized me. Maybe he's really good with names but I was wearing a mask, and even though I was also wearing a Powers Squared t-shirt, I was also wearing a jacket, since it was cold outside. The recognition really made my day.

In the era of COVID and the Omicron variant, we decided to spend as little time inside the Con as possible. I won't say we gave it a fair shake, but it was a little less like a comic book convention and more like a swapmeet. Mixed in with the artists were a lot of vendors selling all sorts of things. There were a few booths that didn't seem to match my expectations from a comic book convention but still got my attention. One was about changing how we get fresh food, another was a booth inviting attendees to dance, and another one was giving tattoos, several chairs no waiting. Not that I would ever want a tattoo but even if I did, I don't know that I'd want the passing world to watch.

Didn't attend any panels this time, again blame COVID, and the line to get to the autographs was too long to want to stand in line for. Not sure who there was to get autographs from anyway, but it was in another room from the main floor.

Would we go back? Possibly. I wouldn't say we saw L.A. Comic-Con at its best nor did we try to indulge too much in what it did have to offer. Would we table at this Con? I don't know. My budget is always tight with the book, so while that might help with our following, I can't afford too many money-losing outings. And I'm not ready yet to slap money down when I'm not sure we're completely past COVID.

So, what did I work on the rest of the week? Good question.

I did work more on Skylar but a name change is coming, as that character's name has been changed and her importance to the story diminished. I'm now calling her Lillie because the image that prompted her description was from an Instagram post of a woman with that name. The tontine idea is still alive but I'm having it come from a different source, the father of my protagonist's girlfriend. I don't want to get into too much detail but things are changing and I'm getting through it as best I can. I am back to about 11,000 words so far.

No new reviews this week from me, though I did start one for Lady on a Train (1945), a murder mystery set around Christmas, which I had DVRed last year. I hope to have that done and up for next Christmas, as the films for this year have already been selected. One of those, Batman Returns, which is set around Christmas, was Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. Earlier in the week, was Paul's review of the video game Snake Pass.

I'm sorry to report there were no new queries from me this week. The one team I follow in the one sport I follow, the Dallas Cowboys, which is where I'm from, played that night, and I sort of lost focus after that. I will promise to do better next week.

We had an interesting On the Air with Powers Squared. I had talked to one guest about appearing and she invited her partner to join the show. Well, before we went live, the first guest bailed, I guess due to the bad audio. So we ended up interviewing only the danger half of Danger and Mayhem, who were on the show to discuss their new digital platform for comic creators, Comic Rebel. You can catch it here if you want to listen. It will be up later in the week on our YouTube channel.

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