A Week in Writing #497 - Monday Was a Great Day

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

I had one of my best days as a writer on Monday. Not only did I finish the review, X-Men: The Last Stand, but I also rewrote the script for "Billy and Raven", a one-shot related to Powers Squared, wrote about 1500 words on my new story and read one of my son's short stories; something I was very overdue at doing. And if that wasn't enough, my entire family built the Megablocks set "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles", which was 681 pieces and took three hours to build.(Note: I'd still be building it if I was doing it if my sons hadn't done the heavy lifting.) Not bad for a free day from the office.

I tried to duplicate the 1000 words again on Tuesday, and sort of barely made it, on Wednesday, I just fell short of 600. None of this, mind you, had anything to do with Skylar, but I have been thinking about making some changes in her backstory, so it's not like I've forgotten that book, it's just that I've had ideas for this newer story.

I still have to write a review this week for X-Men: First Class. Trophy Unlocked will be doing a series of X-Men movie reviews leading up to the release of Deadpool and Wolverine later this year. Only one review this week: Trevor's review of PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie was the Saturday Morning review.

Started working, over the weekend, on the next Hound Dogs' Howl, the Powers Squared newsletter. Still time to sign up for it at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc. I also need to write a press release or two for upcoming releases. If you're at all curious about the issues, below is a graphic showing when they'll be released through the rest of the year. They'll all be available through The Campus Store as they come out.

Speaking of releases, made the mobi files for the issues this year. I'm not sure why, but it always takes more than one try to make an issue using the software. Sort of frustrating, but the last three went pretty quickly. Paul and I posted the first issue this afternoon, so it will be available for pre-order in a day or so. We also posted the next issue on GlobalComix, so everything seems to be moving forward.

We had our monthly team meeting on Friday for On the Air with Powers Squared, and we all agreed to give Billy and Raven a one-shot. You never know, it might catch on. You can listen here now, or watch the video on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT.

I had to resend the second trade to Library Pass this week. Apparently, the first one failed (?). Next week, we'll get more into the Library Pass when our guest will be Moni Barrette, the librarian we've been working with there. We go Live at 6 pm PT on Friday at twitch.tv/powerssquared.

Just so it's no surprise, no queries yet. Still have some thinking and homework to do on that before I launch into a new soul-sucking round of that.

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

A Week in Writing #491 - Resizing

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

I don't normally lead with the podcast but I think the one we did on Friday might be of interest. Our guest was Doug Neff, the co-author of Epic Win! The Geek's Guide to the Journey From Fan to Creator; the book that is sort of responsible for this weekly blog. We had him on the show a couple of years ago and had him come back to talk about obstacles for creatives and solutions to work around them. If you're writing a comic book or making a video, you might find it interesting. You can listen to it now on our website:  https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps, or watch it when it drops on our YouTube channel @powerssquared on Wednesday. The link will be https://youtu.be/cR20Ghxstho. While you're there, if you like the content, you can always subscribe and ring the bell so you'll never miss a video. And a comment wouldn't be bad either.

Most of the week, or at least several hours Monday through Thursday, was spent resizing about 92 pages of future Powers Squared pages for the next four issues. We haven't set on dates yet, but the first will probably come out in March. More to come on that.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that Powers Squared was going to be available on LibraryPass in January. Well, that day has come and our first trade, Volume 1, The Adventure Begins is now available at https://lpfullcontent.librarypass.com/publishers/product_lines/277.

LibraryPass is a service provided to high schools and colleges that allows readers to digitally check out books, include comic books. So, if you know someone at those levels, tell them to ask their librarian to choose Powers Squared.

On to other writing, my review of Illicit from about three years ago went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. I also wrote new one for a film called Leap Year (1921). I picked the film for the obvious, 2024 is a leap year, but this was one of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's Paramount films that was shelved after he was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Virginia Rappe. Charges he was acquitted on in 1922, by the way. You should be able to read it on the 29th of February.

I was able to spend sometime this week with Skylar. I'm trying to get through a chapter a day with editing. So, I can say I'm actually working on it for a change.

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

A Week in Writing #485 - A Surprisingly Hard Week

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

Let me start off with a plug, the next issue of Powers Squared, #19 "Kamaitachi", is coming out on Wednesday, December 6. It will be available in print and digital and can be ordered through The Campus Store on our website. Now back to the usual blog post.

Not one of my more productive weeks and Powers Squared is to blame. I don't mean anyone in particular connected with the project but my own struggles to get something done. As I had written previously, we're going to be working with LibraryPass next year and I wanted to put togther a new trade for them to have.

I thought it would be mostly putting together some pages from previous issues. The trade ended up being over 80 pages and a certain number of the pages ended up having to be re-sized and then edited and then put back together. What I thought would take a night took multiple nights to get done. And there's not a lot I could do while waitng for the trade to process. My goal was to have it done by the beginning of December and I did manage to get to them on Friday, December 1, but it took way longer than I had anticipated.

That cut into other things I wanted to get done, like sending out a press release for out next issue, which drops on December 6. I had already decided to change up my distribution of releases. Rather than trying to hit up a bunch of sites, most of which ignore that I send, I decided to instead just concentrate on the few that have ever published them or anything about Powers Squared. And I decided it was all-right to wait until closer to release. It seemed to have worked, as First Comics News posted, read the story here, and another wants to include the issue in the Christmas gift guide.

As part of the release of the new issue, our On the Air with Powers Squared  podcast was a preview of the issue, which we called Issue #19 Hype. You can listen to it here now and/or watch it here on Wednesday.

With today being the first Sunday of the month, it was time for the next newsletter The Hound Dogs' Howl. These aren't too hard to put together but there are always issues like misplaced links, which I can only discover when I send myself a test email, which is usually the last thing I do before sending it out. Would love it if you would sign up for the newsletter by enrolling at SRCC (it is free).

To add to the fun, I'm still working on the last review I was writing last week for Trophy Unlocked. The blog kicked off Christmas month with a look at Elf, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, on Saturday. Last week also saw reviews of both Good Burger and Good Burger 2, written by Paul and Trevor respectively.

While I did open Skylar, that was about all I did with it.

So, my goals for next week are to hype the new release, finish my review of Abandoned and work more on Skylar.

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

A Week in Writing #481 - It's Back

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

Well, it's that time of the year again, the big experiment with time-shifting known as the end of Daylight Savings Time. Fall back only means you get an extra hour once and for that you get days betting darker sooner and your internal clocks thrown off for a day or so. Not really sure it's a good deal. I write this, as I do every year, because I don't know the impact it's going to have on me next week. I try to write until I get sleepy and that might come earlier for a few days. Forwarning that next week might not be too productive.

The big project for this week was the newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, and the big announcement was something I've already talked about last week, the book becoming available on ComicsPlus powered by LibraryPass. Last week, I wrote about the anxiety, or the sense of finality with submitting it. That surprisingly went well, so we're on course.

In addition to the news, there are links to last month's OAPS, a link to the newest Peek-of-the-week, an article about Booster Gold and Goldstar, and a recommendation for Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan, not to mention the usual Heard on Campus feature. As always, you can always sign up for the newsletter and get a free copy of the first book by signing up here.

I'm still hoping we can get the second trade ready in the next few days or week and submit that as well. The covers have been drawn and are being colored, so we should be good to go soon. It will be different to release something through another method than we have before, but it's hopefully all about getting eyes on the book.

The drawing on Issue 25 seems to be coming to an end, so we should be start working on Issue 26. I've already sent the artist a list of yokai that will appear in the book and asked her to come up with some character designs before we launch into it.

Finishing up on Powers Squared, our Friday OAPS was dedicated to another franchise, in this case, Five Nights at Freddy's. The movie, currently playing in theaters, is based on a series of video games developed by Scott Cawthon and this what we, Trevor, Paul and I, discussed on our podcast, though they know much more about it than I do. You can listen now here or watch it on Wednesday on our YouTube channel.

Trophy Unlocked kicked off Noirvember with my review of The Killer is Loose on Saturday. I frankly don't remember when I wrote it but it was nice to get one up on the blog. For Halloween, Paul's review of Five Nights at Freddy's the movie went up. Fitting for the day. On Monday, it was the conclusion of Resident Evil Month with Paul's review of Resident Evil 4 - Separate Ways (DLC).

I've started working on a new review of yet another film noir, Two O’clock Courage (1945). Not sure when it will appear. 

I also managed to get some work done on Sklyar this week, though I'm still going through the book and haven't, yet, written anything new.

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

A Week in Writing #480 - Anxiety

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

I know if may not seem like much, but I just sent off a link to our first trade to LibraryPass. But for me it was a somewhat tense and anxious moment. There was a real sense of finality in doing it, something that I rarely feel when working on Powers Squared or even sending a query letter.

We've been told for a couple of years now that we should try to get our book into libraries, especially school libraries, and to put a fine point on it, college libraries, since the book takes place at a college; San Romero Community College. The trick, which no one bothered to show us, was how to do that. School libraries, like any other government agency, buys from a set list of contractors/companies, and little ol' SRCC Press was not on that list. Library Pass is and so the hope is we'll get a little exposure.

While it should have been pretty much a slam dunk, I wanted to add SRCC Press to the cover and, for some reason, this took more than one "build" to do. First the cover was too big and had to be resized and then when I put together all the pages (104 if you're counting), the revised cover wasn't included. Nothing makes you feel more stupid than messing that up.

Well, anyway, it's sent and now the anxiety of waiting to hear back sets in. Hopefully, everything works and we're good to go. The second trade is pretty much ready, we just need the new covers to be colored, a little lettering and it should be ready to go.

Some of this news, about Library Pass, was shared on our latest OAPS podcast, the October 2023 Team Meeting. Listen here now and watch here later (Wednesday on).

Busy week on Trophy Unlocked. Monday was Paul's Second Look at Devil May Cry; Wednesday was Paul's review of Haunting Ground, Friday was Paul's review of Resident Evil 4 (2023) and Saturday was Trevor's review of Willy's Wonderland. This month was Resident Evil/horror, so these all fit that pattern. Spoiler, we did see Five Nights at Freddy's on opening day, and Paul's review will be up on Halloween; something to look forward to.

Unrelated, I'm working on a review of The Famous Ferguson Case (1932), which in and of itself isn't that famous at all but did star one of my favorites from that time, Joan Blondell. You'll have to wait for that one.

Did some more work on the re-tooled Skylar, by which I mean I got through a chapter and part of the next one. So progess is being made on that front.

This coming week, I need to finish Famous Ferguson and also work on the newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which comes out next Sunday.

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

A Week in Writing #479 - Still Slow Going

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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