A Week in Writing #606 - One Day WonderCon

 

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

Since we weren't tabling at WonderCon, not that we didn't try, we attended the Con on Sunday. And even though we weren't selected, there were plenty of empty tables abound. Sort of makes you think they don't want you.

From an attendee point of view, there seemed to be fewer people. I'm used to the chaingang two-step of Comic-Con, so being able to take full strides at the Con was nice, but it told me that attendance appeared to be down. However, fot those we talked to in Small Press, the Con seemed to be good for them. I think I mentioned this before, but we'd like to attend in Artist Alley, rather than Small Press, since that seems to be more our speed. Not that we'd make any more money, but maybe not lose it as fast.

Did attend one panel about pitching board games.The takeaways: Structure the Pitch from the top down. Pitch - What it's about, then the unique selling points and then key information: audience, age range, components, player count, how long to play a game and MSRP. Basically, provide as much info in as short a time as possible. Fun fact, if your manufacturing costs are say $10, the MSRP will be $90 to $100. Generally, you're looking for a MSRP of $20 to $25 for a mass retail game.

What you should bring with you is a prototype of your game, a sales sheet and a 3-6 page pitch deck, though the latter wasn't required by everyone. There was even the suggestion of a 30 second sizzle reel, but again not universally required. Also, don't worry about the art because it will be changed. Games are also broken down by time spent playing, from 15 minutes (lightwieght) to 1 hour (middlewieght) to several hours (heavyweight).

On the subject of cons and comic books we did release the 27th issue of Powers Squared this past week. "Billy and Raven: Life on the Road." In this issue, we spun off two characters from pervious story arcs, Billy O'Shea and Raven, the Yatagarasu who granted him powers. They're trying to stay off the grid, and away from villain Dr. Atlas, as long haul truckers. In this issue, they find that life on the road isn't without troubles. Hope you take a shot on it. You can find out where to buy it (print and digital) here, or take a preview of the issue here.

I spent most of the week working on Blackmail. I'm trying to review the pages before going through the notes at the keyboard. It's interesting to me that sometimes I'll still make more changes. I did have a moment yesterday that I think improved the book, but only took a few keystrokes to do it. This is a detective story and one of the people he interviews was interesting but the reason for interviewing them was sort of week. But I realized I could move a couple of sentences around, add a few and then they were more of a possible witness. I don't know about you, but I love moments like that.

No new movie review from me this week, as we were sort of getting ready for WonderCon and I wouldn't have time to watch a feature. I did finish mine for The Lady Refuses. But there were two reviews this week on Trophy Unlocked. Wednesday was game day with Trevor's Second Look - Starlink: Battle for Atlas (+ DLC), The Saturday Morning Review was also Trevor's TMNT (2007).

The podcast this week was a look at the films that have been nominated for Best Animated Feature through the years. Paul and I don't always agree with the Oscars choice. You can listen to it here, watch it here for the next few days (though it's in three parts) and watch the complete version on our YouTube channel starting on Wednesday at 2:30 pm. The reason it's in three parts on Twitch, is that a malfunctioning Smoke detector went off twice during the podcast. I had to get on a stepladder and disconnect it.

Next week, more work on Blackmail, and it's newsletter week as well, so I've got my work cut out.

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

A Week in Writing #463 - Pilot Scripts and Newsletters

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

My writing this week took a different bent. I started working again on the pilot script for our proposed series based on Powers Squared. It's something that we've been kicking around for a while now and I finally got back into it. If your curious, there are some subtle changes between the origins of the story in the comic book and what will be in the pilot. I won't go into details but the same basic story will get told but in a slightly different way based on some feedback we've gotten on the idea. I had been trying to work on one scene a night so I'm only about three into it. This is a first draft, mostly for myself, so it won't be the one that sees the light of day.

Just in case anyone thinks differently, I am not a member of the WGA nor am I trying to show this to anyone prior to the end of the current strike. This is, at this point, for myself and Powers Squared. I support the aim of the strike and want all writers to get fair pay and compensation.

To cover it, while I did some work on my new idea, I didn't, this week, work on Skylar. It was more down to time and what I spent it on, which was the script.

Our latest newsletter came out this morning with the usual news about Powers Squared. If you're interested in reading The Hound Dogs' Howl, I encourage you to join the mailing list by enrolling here: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc. For those of you unfamiliar with it, SRCC stands for San Romero Community College, which is where the story is based. In order to get on the mailing list, you enroll at the school. SRCC is not a real school and there are no fees attached with enrolling. All "classes", such as there are, are free. The only thing that costs are the books and merch. End of ad.

There is currently some momentum on the new issue as our artist dropped the last four pages of the month and has already made the edits Trevor requested. It is his story after all. We're about a month away from starting on its companion issue, written by Paul.

I'm also thinking seriously about a new Kickstarter next year, promoting these new issues as well as a new trade of issues 6 through 9. Stay tuned for that.

No new review for me this week. We ended up watching a movie we had seen before, thanks to my confusion. I had originally written the review for Their Own Desire back in 2019, but it hadn't yet been published. I must have forgotten the title and when looking ahead at TCM last week, the logline sounded more salacious pre-code than I remembered. But seeing it again did help me with putting the photos I'd downloaded with the story, so it is now at least in draft form on the blog.

Three new reviews on Trophy Unlocked this week, though none of them mine. Monday started off with Paul's review of Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch, which has proven a very popular post with over 100 hits so far. Wednesday's Game Day review was Trevor's for We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie and the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, an MCU title we did not see in a theater.

One new query this week to round out the checklist and I DNR'd a couple that have spoiled on the shelf. They're the "No Word means 'No'" sort of agencies.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week. And, have a Happy and Safe Fourth of July.

A Week in Writing #441 - Getting Some Things Done

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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