A Week in Writing #533 - Busy Week but Fall Back Looms

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

I'm sort of happy to have last week behind me. Congrats to the Dodgers, but those games pushed everything back in my house. And then there was Halloween, which, while fun, was also a bit of disruption as well. And, of course, looming ahead this week is the great fall back, which means it'll get dark earlier and that could affect me, since it has in the past. But that'll be next week's post.

On to this week and let's start with Powers Squared. At the moment, we have two artists, Julia Canon and Jen Moreno, working on separate issues. While I thought that would be a good idea to get more work done, it also means they'll both want to be paid, and deservedly so, for their work. Julia is finishing her work on issue #27, which is a standalone Billy and Raven story, and Jen is working on issue #28, which is the first of a two-parter that we're aiming for 2026. After a slow start, Jen has shown some real talent for sequential storytelling and we're very hopeful going forward.

So during the week, there was a lot of reviewing of pages from both with comments and some revisions, so good for the future of Powers Squared.

This week was capped by our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, which we send out once a month. I'll put in my plea here for readers to subscribe. It's easy, free, and can be done here. (You get a free digital copy of Issue #1, an added inducement.) We covered the usual topics, including our tabling at LA Comic Con, our bookshelf debut and our support of the Neurodiversity Comic Con, which is happening next week. We also do a salute to twins, this month being  animators Tom and Tony Bancroft, whom we met at Lightbox and much more. Info on subscribing (enrolling at San Romero Community College) can be found here.

Our Friday podcast was a salute to 40 years of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You can watch it here on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PST or listen to it now on our website or one of the other platforms you'll find there as well.

Still working on my review for Elektra, which I need to finish. And I might be reviewing The Thirteenth Chair (1929). That said, my review of The Man with Two Faces (1934) was the Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked. However, it was far from the only review that week on the blog. Paul continued his tribute to Resident Evil games with a second look at Resident Evil Village for the PS5, and on Halloween his review of Silent Hill 2 (2024) went up.

And let's not forget Skylar, I managed to work on that novel for a couple of nights. Some rewrites, but mostly updating per my own edits. I am finding that my chapter numbering in the first draft was pretty inconsistent; I think I had three chapters with Chapter Twenty-Nine as the header. More to come on that.

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

A Week in Writing # 532 - First Time at LightBox

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

This past Saturday, yesterday, I attended the LightBox Expo in Pasadena with Paul and Trevor. They are old hats at attending, but this was my first time to go. If you've never been, the main floor is like a giant Artist Alley, with nice tables, etc., and from what I could tell original artwork, not glorified fan art that you find at many Cons. The emphasis, though, is on animation, so it's a chance to meet and talk to animators, character designers and some voice actors.

There were two panels that I wanted to attend, but was not able to get a ticket for. I know the excuse is to blame line management, but in this case, I think they're not very organized as you're told one thing will happen when something else does. We were told to come back in thirty minutes when they would have the line up but when we came back early, there were already too many people in line for us to get tickets. And, another time, someone from the Expo moved the line we were in only to abandon us and leave us out of the running for tickets.

But otherwise, we had a good time and did make some connections that we're hoping will turn into guests on our podcast.

Speaking of OAPS, this past Friday we had a conversation with Ramon Gil, a comic book writer, artist, creator and teacher about his career and the Neurodiversity Comic Con that's coming up on November 9 at the Gillen Brewer School in New York. Gil is curating the event. Powers Squared is a sponsor and while we won't be in attendance, we have donated a couple of our trades to be auctioned. You can listen to our conversation here or wait and watch it on YouTube on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PDT here.

And, on the subject of trades, I'm happy to announce that our first trade has made its bookstore debut at the Talk Story Bookstore in Hanapepe, Hawaii. So, if you're going to Kauai, please be sure to drop by.

On the subject of Powers Squared, some good work done, but no pages ready to share just yet.

My review of Island of Lost Souls was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. I've been assigned to do the review of Elektra (2005), which we watched on Friday. Saturday night was a MS3K Night after all the walking at LightBox. While my review may have ended horror month, Resident Evil Month continues with Paul's review this past Wednesday, a Second Look - Resident Evil 7: Biohazard with more to come.

I've also been working, slowly it seems, through the rewrite of Skylar, but I am working on it most nights.

So, this coming week, more of that, my review of Elektra and 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 next week.

A Week in Writing #531 - Lots and Lots (Reviews and Videos)

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

I'm still very much in the editing mode on Skylar and at the rate I'm going, I think I will be for the next couple of weeks. In addition to various other things, I'm getting through a chapter or two a night on the nights I'm writing. Some nights, like Fridays and Saturdays, I'm writing, but not at night and not always on this book.

I was thinking earlier in the week about my promise to start querying for an agent again, now that LA Comic Con has passed. Not sure which book to query yet and I still have to write a good paragraph summation. But thinking about it doesn't get it done. I'll have to do better on that one.

Currently, I'm working on a review for Island of Lost Souls. This will be the final Halloween review of the month for Trophy Unlocked; so I have a deadline to complete, hopefully tonight or Monday. My review of Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932) was the Saturday Morning Review on the blog but far from the only review this week. It's Resident Evil Month, so two reviews went up during the week, both written by Paul. On Tuesday it as Resident Evil 6 and on Thursday it was Resident Evil: Revelations 2. And you might be saying, wow that's a lot of reviews for one week, they couldn't do another one, but you'd be wrong. Today, Paul's review of My Hero Academia: You're Next went up as well.

Staying with the Resident Evil theme but unrelated to Trophy Unlocked, our Friday night podcast was Resident Evil Retrospective (RE4R-RE8), part 2 of a videogame retrospective Paul started last year. You can listen to it here (Play Loud) or watch it on Wednesday afternoon at 2:30 PDT on our YouTube channel.

On the subject of podcasts, next week, we're having Ramon Gil on the show. Ramon is a comic book creator, but also one of the principals behind Neurodiversity Comic Con next month in New York (November 9). Information about the event can be found on our website at Events. We were invited to table, but it was a little far for us, but Powers Squared is an additional sponsor of the Con. We go live at 6 pm PDT on twitch.tv/powerssquared.

Since my last post, we've also put up two new videos on our channel both from Paul, Oreo Coke Collab | Taste Test Special, which explores the flavor combination with cookies, soft drinks and Slurpees with Paul as your Tasting guide; and A Tale of Two DeLoreans | LACC 2024 BTS, some behind the scenes footage we shot, which also happens to feature the Back to the Future DeLoreans that were at the show. One was promoting the musical and the other was a reconditioned car from the films.

On the comic book front, we're in a waiting game for pages, but that too should change next week as we're expecting pages from both Julia Canon and from Jen Moreno, both currently artists on different books.

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

A Week in Writing #478 - Under the Weather and Another Birthday

 

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

I'm sorry to say that this has not been a banner week for me, mostly because I've been under the weather for the last few days. It's not so much writer's block as thinking block. I'd rather veg out than do anything constructive.

It's nothing really serious, mostly a dry cough but it has seemed to zap a lot of my energy for most of the week. I get really tired and fall to sleep or just sit and stare at the computer screen.

As a result, not much progress has been made on the rewrite of Skylar. I did start the book over again, using mostly what I've already written but moving up the first encounter to page one, etc., after which things got a little foggy. In the original version, she was a stripper, but I'm adding in a new element to her character, she is also on OnlyFans. I've been reading that many people, during Covid, went to that site when they couldn't work in public, so it might make sense for a stripper to have gone to that site in order to financially survive when they couldn't dance. Some women have done quite well by using the site.

That was the only writing I've done so far this week, which isn't much.

No new review for me this week, and not so much because of illness but because it was my wife's birthday on Saturday and we went out rather than drain the DVR. That said, my review of Drácula (1931) was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. Otherwise, the blog has been mostly Resident Evil with Paul's review of Resident Evil 3 (2020) on Tuesday and his review of Resident Evil Code: Veronica X on Thursday. I would be remiss not to mention that our review hub for Assassin's Creed also dropped on Thursday.

For OAPS this week, it was a look back at EyeShield 21, an American football manga written by Riichiro Inagaki and illustrated by Yusuke Murata that is celebrating its 21th year. Paul and Trevor did most of the talking on this show, which was fine by me. They have and have read all 37 volumes of the story. Listen here now or watch here on Wednesday. Next week's podcast is our Comic Book Club. We're reading Scott Pilgrim Vol 1.

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

A Week in Writing #477 - Rewrites, Thumbnails and Resident Evil

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

I'm about done with my re-reading project. I've decided that Paperback Detective needs some work. I think the writing's too loose and some details come out too early in the book. I need to rework some of it to bring it up to standards, well, my standards.

I've also been doing some thinking about Skylar and wanting to rework some aspects of her character in the book. Now, it's just down to the hard part, or the easy part depending, writing it.

Another, unrelated idea came to me as well but I'm not going to into it just yet. Too much other things to work on first.

Speaking of which, I started doing something I haven't done since the first issue, making thumbnails for what should be the next issue of Powers Squared. Part of the reason I'm doing it is to hopefully help the artist know what I'm thinking of in the script. I've already come to this decision, but this confirms the fact that I am not the artist. I even have a badge to that effect and these drawings prove that, although I think some of it has to do with trying to get an idea across in something in less space than a postage stamp. I'm about halfway through the issue.

We'll have to wait to see if it helps, because we still have the current to get through. We are thinking ahead, as we have artwork already done for the trade we're going to release next year. This one is going to be for issues 6-9. We brought Rachel Wells, the artist on those issues, to do the covers. You'll have to wait a bit to see them.

In a bit of cross promotion, our OAPS this week was about the videogame series Resident Evil, since it is Resident Evil Month on Trophy Unlocked. It was mostly a Paul show since he is the gamer of the two of us. You can listen to it here or watch it on Wednesday when it drops on our YouTube channel.

With that said, it should come as no surprise that Resident Evil reviews dominated Trophy Unlocked. Things started on Tuesday with Paul's review of Resident Evil HD Remaster. That was followed by Paul's review of Resident Evil 2 (2019), and then Paul's review of the movie Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City as the Saturday Morning Review. Oh, and there will be more to come through the month. 

Meanwhile, I'm working on a review of Shockproof (1949), which I should finish tonight or tomorrow.

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