A Week in Writing #631 - A Creative Gut Punch

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

The week ended on a bit of a down note when it came to Powers Squared. I remember a few weeks/months ago, reporting about our surprising sales at Golden Apple Comics in Hollywood. We had, supposedly sold, 8 of 12 copies of the first two trades we'd left there. We felt really good that we had a breakthrough and had made sales at a very prominent comic book shop. Well, all lies.

Friday, the manager of the store called, not only to ask us to pick up the remaining copies, but all 12 copies. The owner had been incorrect in saying we'd sold copies and they want their money back. When you're an independent comic book, that's the last thing you want to hear. Not in a big hurry to do that, but we'll probably have to do it next weekend.

But the call costs more than money. It was a sort of creative gut punch. I think we'll recover and carry on, but the incident won't be forgotten any time soon.

Finished the submission for San Diego Comic-Con 2027 small press, by sending copies of issues #28 and #29. Fingers crossed we'll be chosen. It's hard to know the rules, since there are a lot of non-small press in Small Press, but we're living in Comic-Con's world and by their rules, such as they are.

We're working on something fun for L.A. Comic-Con in October. I won't get into it, but we'll discuss when we get closer and have examples to share. Otherwise, I think we have everything we'll need, including candy for the kids. (It's over Halloween.)

Work continued this week on issue #31, with time spent going over page 4 with the artist. She's very quick to respond, so it means every other night, a new version of a page needs to be reviewed with everyone and then comments have to be written and sent. It's a necessary evil, I guess and a better situation than waiting for pages, which is the flip of the coin. I prefer this side.

My review of the 1943 Batman serial, was the Batman Day Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. It was something I had written about 10 months ago. It's one of the longest reviews I've ever written, since it covered all the episodes in a 15-part serial.

The rest of the week had seen the rollout by Trevor of three different Review Hubs. On Tuesday, Review Hub - X-Men; and, on Friday, two: Review Hub - Resident Evil and Review Hub - Wallace & Gromit. Proof that there's something for everyone on Trophy Unlocked. No new review this week, but while watching TCM's Silent Sundays, I realized I had already watched and written a review for So This is Paris (1926), so I put it up on the blog, but publication is pending; isn't it always.

I'm not much involved with this week's podcast. I mean I was there, but Trevor and Paul handled most of the questioning of Evan Brooks, a Transformers toy designer they had met at several SDCCs. I think it went well and if you're into Transfomers, then you're in for a treat. It's on our twitch channel for the next few days, you can listen to it or find other platforms here, and, as always, the podcast will be on our YouTube channel, starting at 2:30 pm PT on Wednesday.

Worked some on Blackmail. I think, except for some tweaks later on, that I'm done with it. Now that it's fall, I guess I'll start the ol' queries to the black hole of trying to find an agent. Now sure which book to try this time. I still like Broken People but it might be time to move on from that one.

I've been editing the next story idea, and still no name. Maybe I'll call it Cold Case, as he's looking for someone who disappeared 15 years prior. It's loosely, very loosely, based on someone I knew in high school, who ran away from home. We had "dated" if that's the word for it, a few years before. Then her family move to California and then back to Dallas, where I lived at the time. For over a year I was calling regularly to talk to her, only to be told she wasn't available. Then, at some point, the father told me she'd run away after they moved back. Well, it's been more than 15 years, but the idea of a high school girl running away is the prompt. I have no idea what ever became of her, so now I'll be able to get fictional closure; if that's a thing.

So, I'll probably be working on that this week, reviewing pages for Powers Squared, and maybe working on a new list to query.

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

A Week in Writing #596 - Getting Ready for Pasadena

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

The getting ready for Pasadena refers to the Pasadena Comic Con, which we signed up for last year basically on the auggestion of someone we ran into at LightBox. Coincidentally, it is happening in the same place, the Pasadena Convention Center. Now, this is a small one day con, but you still want to be ready for it.

It is small, compared to SDCC or WonderCon. As an example, we don't know where we'll be tabling and won't know until the day of. It's sort of a "come find us" in a sea of Artist Alley tables, which is a disadvantage. And the social media images they've provided are for last year's con, which I guess happened in May.

I tried to come up with some sort of image for our social media. My initial image was something like this:

which I thought was pretty good for a writer, but could be better. I asked Trevor to take a go at it and he came up with:

which is a big improvement. So, if you're going, find us and say hi.

As part of the prep, we spent Saturday afternoon sort of setting up the table. It's good practice to know where everything goes, especially considering we'll be doing the actual setup early Sunday morning and most likely sleep deprived.

I also spent part of today applying for and receiving a resale license; got to pay the tax man.

There has also been progress on the next issue of Powers Squared. Our artist is turning in a page almost once every other day or so. And as good as that is, it takes time to review and give comments, but she's doing really great work.

One of the fun things about doing a podcast is when a guest interview doesn't pan out, you still have to come up with something to discuss. Paul and I decided to do one about GameStop. OAPS #334 - The Fall of GameStop (A Gamer's Perspective) was the result. You can watch it on twitch for the next few days, listen to it here (or the other platforms listed there as well), or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday after 2:30 pm PST.

My review of Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, as promised, was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. Having watched that last week prompted Trevor to want to watch the documentary about Anvil, which he has also reviewed. I'm currently working on a review for Alias Boston Blackie, a leftover Christmas drive-by movie, as part of the drain the DVR.

I managed to get some work in on Blackmail. We're nearing the 80,000 word threshold and are up to 78.525 words.

No queries yet. I haven't had the time to rework a query letter.

Since we're tabling next Sunday, this little missive might be late, either Sunday or Monday. So thanks, in advance, for understanding.

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

A Week in Writing #595 - AI Was the Topic

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

With the prominence of AI in pratically everything, Paul and I spent our podcast discussing for the second time, "AI in Media (Part 2)". We're not experts, but it is something as creators we feel very strongly about. We've talked about it before on our 199th episode "Discussing A.I. in Media", which you're free to watch as well. The new podcast can be listened to here, watched for the next week here or watched on our YouTube channel after 2:30 pm on Wednesday. If you have opinions about AI, we would love to hear them.

We were planning on discussing it with our new artist on the next podcast, which we were planning to record on Saturday to fit her schedule. But things didn't work out as planned and after an hour of waiting, and still in contact, we called it. We'll have to reschedule, but it probably won't be any time this month. Maybe next. It's hard to coordinate a time that is good for everyone.

There are new pages coming in for the new issue of Powers Squared, and our colorist, for the first time in months, has something to work on, so all is good and moving forward.

Speaking of moving forward, my review of One Battle After Another went up on Trophy Unlocked as our Saturday Morning Review. This honestly wasn't a movie I really wanted to see, but seeing as it's awards season and this is being nominated, we decided to watch and review. I also wrote a review for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which should go up next Saturday. I tried to watch The Second Woman to review it, but it was a no-go for me.

I did rework the beginning of Blackmail, and made more updates. I think it works better. I'm up to 77,725 words for those who are counting along with me, about 1700 more than last week. My goal is at least 80,000 words, so I'm feeling more confident on reaching that, I feel like I've got 4 or 5 more chapters to go and then my favorite part, editing. After that, I've got another one to work on, a currently untitled story that I was bout 20,000 words into before switching to Blackmail.

I'm still planning on starting up querying again, but I have to work on a better letter, since the last one went nowhere. I've also come up with a better comps for the book, so I'm hopeful, but you've got to be.

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

A Week in Writing #585 - Newsletter and Dodgers

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

Not the biggest Dodgers fan, not into baseball in general, but I like watching the World Series. Last Monday's game nearly did me in as it went 18 innings and sort of threw me off my routine and sleep, at least for that day. We ended watching most of the games, so everything was a little delyaed on those nights.

Still, got the newsletter done and out and that was the project for the week. For the most part, it writes itself, as it's a collection of things we've already done and most of the sections are standard, though there is new writing as well, including a Heard on Campus (it is supposed to be the school paper), a recommendation, and a highlight on twins. If you're curious you can always subscribe. And this is not a substack asking for money; our newsletter is monthly and free.

On the Powers Squared front, I think we're getting close to signing a new artist.

Four reviews on Trophy Unlocked this week and none of them mine, which is okay. Wednesday was Game Day with Trevor's look at Little Nightmares III. That was followed on Thursday with Paul's review of Fobia, Vol, 1, a horror anthology by Derrick Acosta of Mega64. Friday saw Paul's review of Silent Hill f  and Saturday Trevor's review of Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc.

No review this week from me and we didn't even watch any of The Batman serial that we've been watching. Blame the Dodgers for that, too, going into extra innings and all. We had just come from watching Back to the Future. My sons have loved the movie, but had never seen it in a theater. Hopefully, we'll get back our routine next week.

Our podcast this week was Halloween-themed. Since it was to air, originally, on Halloween, we decided to reminisce about past Halloweens, which was really fun. You can watch it for the next few days on our twitch channel, or listen to the audio here, or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it on our YouTube channel.

Once again, no new queries from me and, surprise, surprise, no responses from agents either.

I did some work this week on Blackmail. I thought of a plot point that would allow me to make the story more interesting and still add to my word count, which is at 64,583, still 15,000+ short. As always, I want to work on it more.

Next week, it will be back to Standard Time and I hope the switch goes well.

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

A Week in Writing #578 - Never too Late

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

Just to show that it's never too late to hear back from an agent, I received an email on Monday, September 8, for a query I sent on May 8, and which I wrote off as DNR on July 8. But that doesn't mean the agent was done with me. It should come as no surprise that it wasn't a request for more pages or even a personalized rejection. Just a form response:

"Thank you so much for giving me a chance to consider your work. Unfortunately, I don’t believe I’m the right person to represent it effectively. Publishing is such a subjective industry; so, please don’t be discouraged. I wish you the absolute best of luck finding an agent who can represent your work with the enthusiasm it deserves."

Not necessarily worth waiting for, but it does show some agents do respond, it's just not in a timely manner.

No queries this week, again. I'm hoping to learn some things soon and will get back into the query game after that.

I did work some on Blackmail this week, though I'm rewriting the newest chapter I'd written, and I've added a few things in what I had already written. One of the things I like about writing is seeing something current and make it relate to what I'm writing. I came across such a story this week, and while I won't name names, it involved two atheletes, from different sports, who had a relationship. It was some of the things the woman said about the man fit in with my book, so I made a point of using the spirit of how she described it, though I made sure not to quote her. So, the word count is now over 56,000, but I am making progress.

Had a little issue with the next issue of Powers Squared. We got back a proof and there was dialogue credited to the wrong character, an easy fix, and why you get proofs, but I wasn't sure if I should delay the issue by a month. I changed my mind this week and it may not be available everywhere on the first day, but that's life.

So, there'll be two issues coming out on the 24th: Issue #7 of The Blade of Miracles and #26 of Powers Squared. I had intended to release four issues of Powers Squared this year, but production issues with #29 have me rethinking that.

Trophy Unlocked hit 1700 reviews this week, with Trevor's review of Look Back having the honors. On Wednesday, Paul put up a review of ENA: Dream BBQ Chapter 1 - Lonely Door. Saturday night was upheaved this week because Paul was judging at a Yu-Gi-Oh! Regional, but we went to see a 60th anniversary showing of The Sound of Music today, and I'll probably be the one reviewing it.

Speaking of Paul's judging, our Friday podcast was about his previous experience with doing that at a previous Regional. I know I learned a few things during the show. You can listen to it here, watch it  on our twitch channel for a few more days, or watch it on our You Tube channel (@powerssquared) here Wednesday after 2:30 pm PDT.

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

A Week in Writing #573 - Another Down Week

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

I seem to be racking up disappointing weeks here. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm pretty sure it's time, or lack thereof.

On the accomplishment-side of the equation, I did rewatch Brother Orchid and write the review. As always, I don't know when it will see the light of day. That doesn't mean things haven't been busy on Trophy Unlocked. My review of the new Superman movie went up on Wednesday. Saturday saw Trevor's review of Freaky Friday, and then today, his review of Bad Guys 2 went up. Soon, there will be his review of Freakier Friday, which we watched this morning. I also started working on one for The Gangster, another recording from the last Summer of Darkness on TCM.

We also discussed movies on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. Paul and I reviewed the summer movies, or the few we wanted to talk about, as there were like 139 films that will have come out between the beginning of May and the end of August. There are several which we think are better to wait for streaming. You can listen to the podcast here, watch it for a couple of days here or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it here.

In the meantime, another video went up today on our YouTube channel, Paul's SDCC 2025 Vlog. After about 20 years of SDCC, we got to experience it from the other side of the table. Paul talks about how that went from his perspective. You can watch it now here.

One of the outgrowths of Comic-Con is that we might have found a distributor. However, I'm going through the .pdfs of our remastered first five issues and there are a lot of changes as far as placement that I need to go through. By that, I mean the margins, which for some reason are really off. I'm going back and trying to correct them before moving on with pursuing the distributor, as they want .pdfs. I've done one issue this afternoon and will keep working on that.

We also registered the next two issues of Powers Squared, #26 and 27, for copyright, so I have to update them as well before getting test printings done. It never seems to stop.

No queries again this week, as we spent some of that time inviting people we met at Comic-Con to be guests on the podcast. So far, the only one to come back to us is David Petersen, the creator of Mouse Guard. This would be his second time on the show. Stay tuned. We're also trying to line up a Comic Book Club session as well.

I did some work on Blackmail this week. Still editing. I'm not really happy with one chapter, so I'm going to work some more on it before moving on with the book. I'm a couple of hundred words south of 51,000 with 80,000 a minimum.

This week, I've got pages to realign, as well as a review to work on. I'm sort of promising to do a new query and to work more on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #569 - Going to the Show

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

The big news is that SRCC Press (Powers Squared and The Blade of Mircales) is going to be tabling at San Diego Comic-Con. And we're pretty much ready, though I wish things were moving a little faster. By that, I mean working with Comic-Con International. I am not a patient man, but I don't see why it took 7 days to go from we have an opening, are you interested to here is your table number. And, while I've paid for the table, I'm still waiting to buy the badges, because they haven't approved a form I sent them on Friday.

So, if you are going, look for us:

If all goes right, we should be M-11 in Small Press. It's going to be a bit of a grind, but it should be fun but in a different way. Looking forward to going and I hope we not only make some sales, but also get more people interested in our books.

We did a mock set up today. We're going to incorporate video into our booth, so we're having to buy a monitor for the occasion. And there are still some odds and ends we still need to buy. Nothing like having a three-week lead time for the biggest event in your creative career.

A fair warning, this post will be late a couple of weeks from now, because of SDCC, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

We had a come to Jesus moment with our artist on Saturday. I'm not sure what's going on sometimes, but I'm hopeful she'll turn it around and get us pages. Otherwise, we're standing still and like a shark, that's deadly for a comic book.

I got to a "refueling point" with Blackmail. By that, I mean I came to a spot where I needed to sort of rethink things and get a running start. For me, that's going back through the book to sort of refamiliarize myself with it and then when I get to the end of what I've written, keep going. I don't think my word count has really shot up as a result. I'm now at 49,726 words and I don't see that number really changing too much either way until I get back to where I left off.

One new query this week. Trying to get back on the horse after missing it for a couple of weeks. All quiet on the agent front.

As far as reviews, I'm currently working on one for 3 Bad Men (1926), a John Ford western. I got interested in it since I'm reading Joy Girl: A Novel of Olive Borden (Forgotten Actresses) by Laini Giles. I've really enjoyed her series of books about silent film stars that are mostly forgotten today. Borden was one of the romantic leads in 3 Bad Men.

Trophy Unlocked doesn't wait for me. The Wednesday Game Day review was Trevor's for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x and the Saturday Morning Review was his as well for Fantastic Four (2005) + Extended Edition. The latter is our look at the previous films leading up to this year's reboot.

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

A Week in Writing #568 - A Weird Week

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

A short week with a National holiday at the end really sort of threw me off my game. Let's begin with Thursday. I didn't submit a new query. I know I said I would, but I figured no one was going to react on the 4th of July and I didn't want to start the DNR clock on anything queries. I know it's an excuse, but it makes sense, at least it did to me.

Friday, even though we had pre-taped the podcast, we all forgot about it until about 6:40 pm, only 40 mnutes late. It went up and if I hadn't told you that, you probably wouldn't have known. But we're all about honesty here. This podcast was our 19th Comic Book Club, yes 19. We were a small party of four, with only Julia Canon joining Trevor, Paul and myself in discussing Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo: Ice and Snow. You can still catch it on twitch for a little longer this time (one week), listen to it now here or watch it on YouTube when it goes up on Wednesday, July 9 at 2:30 pm PDT.

On Saturday, which is usually a night that we watch a movie that I review, we instead watched A Minecraft Movie, which Paul is reviewing. So no new review from me for two weeks in a row. As I said, this is a weird week. That said, the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was my review of Gulliver's Travels, the 1939 film, which was the second animated feature film made; the first being Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

My big project this week was to write the Powers Squared newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which I'm happy to say went out on time, so something worked this week. This was our June wrap up. A typical newsletter, it talks about what happened in the worlds of Powers Squared and The Blade of Miracles during the past month, including new issues for each. We also recounted the news as it relates to Golden Apple, as well as going vertical with the first issue of each book.

There is then a wrap up of the videos we've done, a link to the current audio podcast we had last Friday (see above), a section I call "Heard Around Campus" (since this is supposed to be a school paper), a spotlight on twins, a recommendation, a list of upcoming Powers Squared  milestones, and any social media mentions of us, if there were any. As always, you can subscribe here, if the spirit so moves you. And, it's FREE.

On to Blackmail, the book I'm currently writing. I added the chapter I was thinking about, which accounts for most of my work on the book. The word count is a little more than 49,000 words, so there has been progress.

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

A Week in Writing #567 - Three Down (Well Almost)

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

The three down are in reference to my queries for Past Present. One rejection came in this week, ironically, the last query I sent out was the first rejection I received. I won't go into what it said, but safe to say it was a form letter; what else do you expect these days from agents, other than no response at all? I wonder how many form letter emails I'll receive which will include "...please forgive me for responding with a form letter."

The first one I sent, in late April, has over-ripened into a DNR, as it's been two months. And the second one I sent is a few days away at best from spoiling as well.

And, to top it off, no new query this week. I spent most of Thursday night either getting ready for the trip I mentioned last week, or waiting to talk to the artist who did our podcast this past Friday.

Speaking of On the Air with Powers Squared, Julia Canon, our artist/colorst, hosted the show, bringing in her own guest, Kevin Krust. If you have a good memory, you might remember that we had Kevin on as a guest many moons ago, OAPS # 231 - Attempting to Impart Wisdom, She brought him back for OAPS #305 - The Return of KevinKrust...Hold the Krust. You can listen to it here, or watch it on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT. And, if you act fast, you can still catch it on our twitch channel but only until next Friday.

Despite being out of town, there was a new review on Trophy Unlocked, Trevor's review of to a T. Since we weren't home, no Friday night movie, no Saturday night movie and no new review from me. We'll have to correct that in due time.

Even though I was away for part of the time, I'm now up to over 47,700 words on Blackmail. I did have an idea for it, so I'm going to add a bit at the beginning of the book to, hopefully, set up the subplot of the book. So for a short week, I managed to write nearly 4000 words. I'm impressing myself with that.

For the coming week, I've got a newsletter to write and a new query to make. I'm also having an issue with the copyright office, which I need to address. Oh, the fun never stops.

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

A Week in Writing #566 - Gearing Up for Summer (New Issues)

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

By gearing up for the summer, I'm not talking about repacking the tents but rather working on what needs to be done during the summer months ahead. We took a step in that direction this weekend with some podcasts we shot.

Our ode to the start of summer was the Friday podcast, or "Jaws 50th Anniversary Sharktacular", that we did on Friday night. With the official start of summer comes the summer blockbuster and many credit Jaws with being the first. Paul, Trevor and I spent the time talking about the film, and our impressions, etc. You can listen to it here or wait to watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 PDT here (more podcasts below).

Separate from that, but connected, was a special Friday morning review of Jaws by Paul on Trophy Unlocked published to commorate the anniversary. And even the Saturday Morning Review was Jaws-themed, with Trevor's review of the game, Jaws Unleashed (2006), in which you are the shark.

And if that wasn't enough, we shot two more podcasts on Saturday afternoon with Julia Canon. The first one we did won't go up until the 4th of July. We do an occassional Comic Book Club and not everyone could make the meeting. The four of us discussed Usagi Yojimbo Volume 39: Ice and Snow by Stan Sakai. So, forget about that one for a couple of weeks.

It's the second one that will go up immediately; a preview of the two books SRCC Press is releasing on Wednesday, Powers Squared Issue #25 and The Blade of Miracles #4. Julia was part of the former but not of the latter, so there are really two podcasts put together with some clever editing by Paul. It's called: "[Secret Episode] OAPS #304 - SRCC Press Double Feature! PSQ #25 + TBOM #4 Preview". This is also available to listen to here and will also be available on our YouTube channel on Wednesday but at 2:31 pm PDT.

I would be remiss not to talk more about both issues. Powers Squared #25, "Yuki-Onna" was written by Paul as a companion to Powers Squared #24, "Gashadokuro", which was written by Trevor. Just as that first issue dealt with Eli on his own fighting an evil yokai, "Yuki-Onna" finds Marty in a life or death battle with a yokai known to suck the life force from her victims. The artwork was by artist Julia Canon, colors were by Jennifer Moreno with Trevor doing the lettering.

The Blade of Miracles is Trevor's 12-part epic adventure loosely based on the Arthurian legend. In the fourth issue, "The Black Knight, Part 1," Lancelot returns to his hometown of Benwick in search of Excalibur, only to find it in ruin. Who would commit such a terrible deed and why? In addition to writing, Trevor also illustrated and lettered the issue with Paul serving as editor.

Both issues will be available starting on June 25 through The Campus Store in both print and digital formats.

No new review from me this week. On Friday night, we watched Mission: Impossible 2, which I wasn't going to review, but because there was a lot written about its similarities to the Alfred Hitchcock film, Notorious, we rewatched that film. I had reviewed the film on the blog about 14 years ago, and I'll stand by what I wrote at the time. I did go back and add some images that we weren't adding to reviews at the time.

About 1500 more words this week on Blackmail, so for anyone counting, it's up to 43,806 words.

One new query this week, and while none have come back as rejected, one is about to DNR itself in a couple of days. They all go ripe after 8 weeks and this one is about to hit that mark. Would love to hear from an agent out there.

Well, that about does it for me. One note, I'm spending time with my wife's family this weekend, so next week's may be delayed a day, so bear with me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #565 - Happy Father's Day!

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

Happy Father's Day, to those who celebrate. I know I do.

I'll start this week with our podcast. We were lucky to have Patrick Horvath as our guest. He is the creator of Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees. He was a great guest, as most are, and was willing to talk about his career in film and television as well as comic books. He is about to publish the next chapter in Beneath the Trees, called Rite of Spring, which comes out in early July. You can listen to it now here, watch it for the next few days on our Twitch channel, or wait until Wednesday, when it will premiere on our YouTube channel at 2:30 pm PDT.

Speaking of our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, we came up with a business card for it as a way of hopefully enticing more guests for the show.

On the subject of Powers Squared, and The Blade of Miracles, we have completed our agreement with Digital Paper Productions for a phone friendly version of the first books of each. Not sure yet where they will be released, but we'll keep you posted on that front.

And speaking of the two books, both will have issues coming out on the 25th of June. For Powers Squared, it will be the 25th issue, "Yuki-Onna", which Paul wrote; and for TBOM it will be Issue #4, "The Black Knight, Part 1", which Trevor wrote, drew and lettered. They'll both be available in print and digital in The Campus Store on our website.

Turning to movies, this week's Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked,  was my review of Big City Blues, a 1932 drama starring Joan Blondell. I'm currently working on a review for Berlin Express, part of our clear the DVR. This is a very old recording dating back to the last Summer of Darkness on TCM; 2015.

One new query, and so far nary a word from any agency, good or bad, save a receipt for delivery. But I guess that's just the joy of querying in this day and age.

More work on Blackmail. 41,896 words so far, which is over 2000 more from last week's total.

This week's priority is a press release for the issues, finishing my review and more work on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #564 - One Thing Leads to Another

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

Well, sometimes the best laid plans change and there is a ripple effect. Case in point, this Friday we had scheduled another creator to be on our podcast. He had an experience that I thought would make a good show. However, a couple of days before, he must have looked at his calendar and realized that he was double-booked, our podcast and an out-of-state con. With him out, we had to find a new topic.

We had been kicking around the idea of doing a tribute to Thomas the Tank Engine since the books it was based on was celebrating 80 years; The Railway Series by Rev. W. Awdry. So, we switched to that and I think had a good show. You can listen to that podcast here, or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT and watch it here. It was fun to reminece about a show we all enjoyed watching when the boys were younger.

Having talked about Thomas, we decided that night to rewatch Bullet Train since Thomas is sort of tangentially central to the plot.

But the ripples also extended to our choice for my review of Caveman to go up on Trophy Unlocked as the Saturday Morning Review. The connection being that Ringo Starr, who was the train conductor in the early series, is also the star of the film. Sometimes you just have to play it out.

In the other big news, Powers Squared is now being sold at the Golden Apple Comics store in Hollywood; both trades. This goes back to WonderCon, when we asked the owner Ryan Liebowitz about it and he agreed. The delay was on me. I wanted to make sure both trades had a proper spine and it took the printer longer than anticipated to get them to us and then it was finding a Saturday to go there, and last Saturday was the open date.

But there was a lot of waiting and we went to the Farmer's Market after eating at Pink's, so by the time we got home, the day was sort of shot and so were we. As a result, no new reviews for me this week. At times like that, we usually watch an MST3K episode.

One new query this week, and, as always, no idea if I've been rejected by anyone. Silence is not golden but you never know how long the silence will last.

I did work on Blackmail some more this week, but I've written to a point that I'm not really sure how to proceed. It's more lack of knowledge on my part, so I sort of stopped when I got there. We're at 39,721 words, but the story needs to be longer. But we're not done, just paused.

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

A Week in Writing #563 - OAPS Celebrates #300

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

On the Air with Powers Squared, the weekly podcast that mostly Paul and I host, has hit a new milestone with our 300th show. As I wrote last week, we used a pre-recorded interview we did back in March with Eric and Julia Lewald, animation writers and showrunners, perhaps best known for their work on X-Men: The Animated Series. You can listen to the 300th podcast here or watch it on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here.

I think 300 speaks to our consistency as much as anything. And it is not something we could do alone. To start, I wanted to be sure to thank Paul for being there week after week and Trevor for his participation. I also wanted to thank our colorist/artist Julia Canon, who has picked up the slack when we weren't able to do the show. It takes a village, as they say. Thanks to our guests, everyone involved with Powers Squared and to anyone who listens or watches.

Not much on the Powers Squared front, 'cept Trevor finished lettering what he has for issue #28. That doesn't mean there won't be a new issue this month. That's coming this month, "Yuki-Onna" written by Paul. There will be more about that as time goes by.

It was newsletter week, and the 89th The Hound Dog's Howl went out this morning. You can get your own copy by enrolling at SRCC, here. It's free and you receive a free digital copy of Issue #1 to get you started. We send out one newsletter a month and The Bark when an issue of either Powers Squared or The Blade of Miracles is released.

No new review this week from me. We mixed things up on Saturday. Last weekend, we saw and I reviewed, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning. Since the film harks back to the first movie, on Friday night we watched the film Mission: Impossible, and on Saturday night watched an episode from the original series; Season 2, Episode 1, since that was the first season with Peter Graves as Jim Phelps. I'm not sure who will be reviewing the first Mission: Impossible.

The Saturday morning review this week on Trophy Unlocked was Paul's for Kronk's New Groove, a direct-to-video sequel to The Emperor's New Groove. Wednesday was GameDay with Trevor's review of the mobile game Very Little Nightmares.

Sent out my weekly query on Thursday. This agent wasn't very specific on what they wanted outside of a letter, which is what I sent. Still haven't heard back, good or bad, from anyone, though I suspect we'll start DNRing some if I don't.

More work on Blackmail this week, though not much to show, less than 1000 words, though that does include editing. The count is 37,633. More to come.

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

A Week in Writing #562 - Where Did the Week Go?

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

Some Sundays when I sit down to write this blog, I wonder what happened to everything I planned to do during the past week. For some reason, this doesn't feel like an overly productive one, though we'll see when I'm done.

Let's start with Powers Squared, since we haven't in awhile. Not a lot to report here. Our artist and I have come to an agreement on fewer pages a month, I just haven't seen any since. Her real job seems to be demanding, so I'm trying to play ball but I do want to keep the comic book moving forward.

Our corresponding podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, was a short one this week. We previewed issue #3, "The Lady Guinevere", of Trevor's book, The Blade of Miracles. You can watch it now on our twitch channel, twitch.tv/powerssquared, listen to it here or wait until it hits our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm. This new issue will be available on May 30, through The Campus Store on our website. You can also learn more about the series here.

Next week will be our 300th podcast, and we're premiering our conversation with Eric and Julia Lewald from a couple of months back. We had to pre-record it to work with their schedule and we decided the 300th podcast would be a fitting occasion for it.

I hate to admit it, but I'm still not done with my I Wake Up Screaming review, though I'm close. My review of When Worlds Collide was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. On Friday afternoon, we rewatched Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part 1, and on Saturday morning, and I mean at 8:45 am, went to see Mission: Impossibe - The Final Reckoning, which I also reviewed and it went up this morning on the blog.

I did some work this week on the newsletter, which will be coming out next Sunday. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. I like to get as much of the heavy lifting out of the way as early as possible. If you'd like to get your own copy, of course, you can join the mailing list by enrolling at SRCC, which is the fictious college where the story takes place. And, of course, it's free.

Sent out my fifth query this week for Past Present. Of course, I've received no rejections or requests for more.

I did work some on Blackmail again this week. Not sure if I moved the word count very much higher. It stands now at 36,665, which is about 2500 more than the week before. Remember, 1000 Words A Day is a goal.

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

A Week in Writing #561 - Three Videos and a 4th Query

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

Ever had what feels like a busy week but you're not sure what you've accomplished?

Let's start with the good. Busy YouTube week, shooting three podcasts. For our usual podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared featured an old friend, Josue Kure, as well as his writer Tim Gomez. I had met Josue online in a Facebook group called List Launch, and we had him on the podcast in December 2011, #63 if you're keeping track. He was on, then, to promote a comic book he and Tim had written called Reaper Rules, and this time, he was on to promote Super Foods, and their upcoming Kickstarter. You can listen on our website here, or watch it on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 pm PDT here.

Or, for something you can watch now, try our videoblog, What's in My Bag? FCBD 2025, Part 2. As no surprise, this is a follow up to our What's in My Bag? FCBD 2025, Part 1, from 2 weeks ago. In that one, Rachel Wells, Paul, Trevor and I talked about the books we'd picked up at our local comic bookstore on Free Comic Book Day. In this one, we actually discuss the books we'd read, which can be the more interesting part. You can only watch it on our YouTube channel, here, or on twitch.tv here for the next few days.

On, if that weren't enough, we also pre-taped a preview of Trevor's next book, Blade of Miracles Issue #3, but you'll have to wait to see that. Ths issue drops at the end of the month. I also did a peek-of-the-week about it too, which you can see here. When the book drops on the 28th, you'll be able to find it on our website in The Campus Store.

I sent out my fourth query this past week. So far no rejections (they're no doubt coming) and no DNRs (they're coming as well). But I'm trying to be consistent and get them done.

The Saturday Morning Review this week on Trophy Unlocked was Paul's review of Moana 2, the sequel to Moana, which Trevor reviewed last week. I'm currently working on a review of I Wake Up Screaming (1941), which was another of our draining the DVR. I believe this recording was about 5 years old. I had another one I wanted to watch, A Lady of Chance (1928), but TCM sort of screwed up the recording, since it cut off the first few minutes, meaning they went ahead of schedule. But the other got the job done.

I worked some this week on Blackmail, though I think I'm more in an editing mode with it at the moment, so the word count didn't really grow; 34,157.

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

A Week in Writing #560 - Three Down More to Go

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. And Happy Mother's Day to any mothers who read this.

This week, I continued my one query a week program and got one out on Thursday night. Once again, though, I sent out a query to an agent closed to queries, so I'm not counting that one. I thought I had learned my lesson from week one, but I guess I hadn't. When I got the "we're closeed to queries" response, I sent out another one right away, as I want to stay on task. So the count is three and, so far, no rejections or DNR. I'm sure they're coming in due time.

We had another creator we met at WonderCon on our podcast, Michael Boheem, the man who started Dopecat comics. I think we all had a good time. You can listen to that podcast here, or you can wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) here.

We were originally planning to do our What's in my Bag? follow up on Saturday but that got delayed until next Saturday. I don't know what time but I imagine it will be some time Saturday morning PDT. There will be social media posts to point you to the right time.

I did some more work this week on Blackmail, and I'm now up to 32,496 words, which is about 3500 more than last week. I'm adding a second case my character is handling or handled. I hope to finish that part of the story this week and then get back into the current case he's working on. I'm never sure how much to write about the actual story. While most of it's set, there can always be changes; I'm a pantser at heart.

The Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this week was Trevor's review, actually a second-look at, Moana, the Disney animated feature from 2016. And if there's a second look this week at Moana, that must mean there's a first look at Moana 2 coming soon.

For me, I completed a review this week for The Invaders (1912), an early Western from directors Francis Ford and Thomas Ince. It's sort of sad that so many involved with the film were big stars in their day but are largely forgotten now. Sometimes, their personal stories are as interesting as the film itself. This is another one I happened across on TCM and decided to record it. And now, it can be deleted from the DVR.

This week, more work on Blackmail, and a new query.

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

A Week in Writing #559 - Two Down More to Go

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

My big project this week was the Powers Squared monthly newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which went out this morning. While it's not hard work, it is time consuming. There are three sections that I actually have to write: The introduction, the Heard Around Campus section, and the spotlight on twins. The rest of it sort of follows a format. My biggest complaint isn't the work, but the platform we use. For some reason Mail Chimp, which we've been using since the beginning, and I have different ideas on punctuation. I like the period at the end, but it likes to have it at the beginning of the last line. At least, that's been my editing challenge the last few times. Maybe there's a simple fix but maybe, as Paul suggested, we have to burn the format to the ground and build it back. Anyway, if you're interested, you can read it here. Of course, I'd appreciate it more if you'd subscribe.

It's been a busy week with videos. Two videos went up on Wednesday, last week's OAPS podcasts (see last week's missive for links), then on Thursday, Paul's Ruffles vs Lay's All Dressed Taste Test went up. We used a pre-recorded Comic Book Club for Friday's OAPS. Back in April, we got together with artists Julia Canon and Rachel Wells to discuss The Sculptor by Scott McCloud. You can listen to it here or wait until Wedneday at 2:30 pm on our YouTube Channel. And, if that wasn't enough, we did a live podcast with Rachel, our annual Free Comic Book Day "What's in my Bag? Part 1". We discuss the pulls we made at our local comic book shops for FCBD. Next week, we'll discuss what we read. You can watch the first part here.

A bit of good news, we got pages from our artist this week, so things are, at least, for now all good. Now the final pages for Issue #27 are ready for coloring.

My review for Blade went up on Trophy Unlocked, as the Saturday Morning Review. We decided that since it was one of the earlier Marvel Comic movies, it was fitting given it was also Free Comic Book Day. I also finished a review of Isle of Fury, an early Humphrey Bogart film that I came across on TCM. No hurry to get that one up, if you know what I mean.

Another query went out and I was surprised to recieve a response back. Not a rejection or an ask for pages but rather a "we got your query" email and to set my expectations. If I don't hear back in 8 weeks, it's a pass. So far, we're two in and no rejections/DNRs yet.

Not much happened this week with Blackmail, not that I don't have an idea where to add to the story, but I ran out of time this week. So, with some edits, I only pushed it to 28,966 words; so far to go. But that will have to wait until next week.

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

A Week in Writing #558 - Getting Going

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

Okay, this week, I got on the query train and sent out my first query email of the year. I know that doesn't sound like much, but it was necessary to get over the hump, as it were, and see if I can get an agent. I read somewhere that you're supposed to tell the story in the query, so I did that. I'm not sure if it was too much or too little and I'm sure what I'm doing is probably wrong, so I'll have to look into that before I send the next one out. So, the count is one out and no rejections or DNRs, at least so far.

On the subject of writing, I did more work this week on Blackmail; actually trying to make it more of a priority. I'm up to 28,640 words, which is about 4000 more than last week, so it does pay off. I'm not sure I can keep that pace up, at least not this coming week, more on that later. I'm going back to add in some more details, and a subplot. I don't want to bore you with the story too much. But safe to say, progress is being made.

Speaking of progress, got pages back from our colorist this week and we're now about four pages away from finishing an issue. The hold up is the artwork and since I'm being ghosted by the artist, I don't know the status of them. I'm afraid there might be changes coming in the creative staff if this continues. I love the artwork, but it's the radio silence and the lack of progress that's getting me to my breaking point.

New issue of The Blade of Miracles to discuss. The second issue should be available on Wednesday, again not sure if everyone will be ready, but I'm hoping. It should be available in print and digital through The Campus Store.

There are two OAPS podcasts this week. And, one of them is a preview of the above issue, "Lady of the Lake" and our special guest is Trevor. You can listen to it now here, or wait until Wednesday and watch it on our YouTube channel, here. 

As if that wasn't enough, there's a second [Secret Episode], our monthly team meeting, which included only our colorist, Julia Canon, but it was a good time. We taped it a week ago Saturday to try to accomodate everyone's schedule. You can listen to it here or watch it on Wednesday here. It comes out 15 minutes after the first one. 

As far as Trophy Unlocked is concerned, the Saturday Morning Review was Trevor's review of Sherlock Gnomes. This week's Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's review of Sonic Unleashed for the PS3. I'm currently working on a review of The Boy Friend (1971), which was recently, like Saturday morning, on TCM. It's a favorite of my wife's, so we watched it right away.

This coming week, in addition to another query, and more Blackmail, I need to work on the newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which is due next Sunday. You can, of course, receive your own copy by enrolling at SRCC. It's free and it would keep me from having to mention it if you do. Sounds like a good bargain to me.

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

A Week in Writing #557 - Only So Many Hours in the Day

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

There are so many hours in the week for me. And while I try to stay active, sometimes, like this week, time runs out. Case in point, on Thursday night, my query night, I spent about an hour and a half working on a query letter and including the number of pages the agent states they want. But when I checked to make sure I had covered everything, I discovered they were closed to queries. How long, I don't know. Now, is is my fault that I didn't look before spending that time, but by the time I found this out, I was too tired to look for another agent to send it to. I'm hoping that the time I spent on the query email will pay dividends down the road, but I'm sure there will be an agent that wants only one paragraph to sum up the story or will want something else not in the query so I'm sure not all of it will be used.

And then, there is time shifting. We did a live podcast on Friday night with Scott Lost, a comic book artist and former pro wrestler that we met at this past WonderCon. As always, you can listen to it here or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared). I think it was a good interview, so I encourage you to check it out. Then on Saturday morning, we recorded two more podcasts for use later, including a Comic Book Club with Julia Canon and Rachel Wells, to discuss The Sculptor by Scott McCloud, and then a team meeing with Julia. These will appear at later dates. Even though we had scheduled these for a Saturday so everyone could participate, our artist had more pressing things to attend to and could not be a part of them. As they say, the show must go on.

No new review from me this week, because I realized that I hadn't actually finished my review of Lili, from the week before. And, for the first time in a few weeks, the Saturday Morning Review wasn't one I had written. Instead, it was Paul's review of Gnomeo & Juliet. The Wednesday Game Day review was Trevor's about Project Shoreline.

To round up the week, I did more work on Blackmail. Mostly filling in some gaps and, hopefully, adding atmosphere. But the count is now up to 24,670, so it's more like a 1000 words a week, rather than a 1000 words a day.

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

A Week in Writing #549 - Worrying About WonderCon

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

I'm wondering if I should be getting nervous about WonderCon. We're about a month away and not everything is pulled together. I've ordered additional copies, on the hopes that we'll sell well at the con, but I'm also waiting for some things to arrive, or be sent for that matter.

After L.A. Comic Con, I sent five copies of our first trade to a bookstore in Hawaii. Well, in the middle of January, I wrote to see if I could get them back. Here were are nearing the end of February and I haven't gotten any indications that they've been sent, despite my asking for that. I'm pretty sure we should get them in a week, but they have to send them back, and yes, I have to pay for that shipping, but it would be less than ordering new ones.

I've also ordered some business cards specific to The Blade of Miracles, Trevor's book, that we should also be selling at WonderCon. TBOM will be the first non-Powers Squared title on the SRCC Press label. We're planning to put it out on March 19, so stayed tuned.

I've also revamped the website,  https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/ to include TBOM  and make it more visible, but bunching up the Powers Squared issues to match the trades we've put out or are planning to put out; Issues 1-5, 6-9, 10-14, 15-18, and 19-23. I'll be adding a new page for 24, probably next week, since we're planning to put that one out, the week after TBOM and two days before WonderCon on March 26.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we had our February Team Meeting on Friday with Julia attending. You can listen to our brief update here or watch it on our YouTube channel here after 2:30 pm PST on Wednesday. If you do watch it, I hope you'll also like and subscribe.

Our artist was unavailable when we do the podcast, so I'm hoping we can find a day and time that she might be able to appear, and yes, we do pre-tape on ocassion. Of course, we haven't heard much from her lately, as her work schedule runs into the night.

One more note about Powers Squared, since the month is almost over, I need to write the newsletter for publication next Sunday. You can, if you're interested, sign up for the newsletter, here. It contains some of the information I write about here, but is still different content. Hope you do.

Because of all the hype we've been hearing about it, we watch Anora last night. We're planning to put the review up next Sunday morning. The review I wrote last week, The Locket (1946), went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, mostly because of the tale I mentioned in last week's blog. The Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's for Sonic Superstars (PS5).

No querying this week, I still want to make one more pass on the list, putting email queries above Query Manager submissions. I guess I'm a little nervous about what I'll have to have for those.

Did some work on Blackmail this week. I'm up to 6345 words so far. My protagonist finds out a secret about his wife and her ex-husband and has to work for her ex- in order to get the evidence back.

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