A Week in Writing #326 - Let's Talk Thursday

I hope everyone is staying safe and, of course, writing.

Let me start with a plug: Powers Squared Issue #10, What's in a Name? Part 1, releases on Wednesday, November 25th. If you're reading this, I would really appreciate the support. Issues are available in print and digital and links will be live on the day of release at the website's new Campus Store. There is also going to be a Black Friday Sale at artithmeric.com for a week. You can get 25% off by using the code BLACKFRIDAY. If you've ever thought about buying an issue of the comic book I write about each week, then this would be a golden time to do it.

I don't know about you, but some days are more successful than others when it comes to writing. This week, Thursday sticks out as a particularly busy day. As with most weeks it seems, it starts with Powers Squared.

It began in the morning, when I received an email from the US Copyright Office, in effect, denying our request to update the copyright. It wasn't so much that we couldn't but the mechanism the Copyright Office had told us to do it turned out to be wrong. I don't mind re-doing the claim, with the right instructions, but I was resisted to losing the $200 fee they charged me to make the revised claim, since I was working off their instructions. To their credit, the agent I was working with has offered to see if the fee can be refunded, so that's still up in the air.

During the day, we received pages from Rachel; pencils for the last four pages of Issue #16 as well as the cover. Paul and I did sit down and review after dinner. These sessions don't usually last very long but there are usually comments which are sent back to her and that night was no exception. Nothing really major mind you; all minor. I was reminded with getting Issue #10 ready for ComiXology that they didn't like the cover having a border. I've had to make adjustments and since I'm making changes months after the issue has been drawn, colored, and lettered, I have to be careful not to go outside the margins so to speak. Don't know if you've ever published a comic book, but print versions have margin and trim spaces. I don't think making that change or any of the changes we asked for were necessarily difficult since the next morning, she had the changes ready to go.

That night, I had some things to take care of with posting the new issue of Powers Squared on IndyPlanet. It consisted of adding preview pages. Earlier I had a question about the page count and I still have a question about whether or not one of the covers (we have two this time) can be print only; IndyPlanet offers both print and digital. That question is still outstanding. We're good either way but it would be good to know.

I then made the edits on the next script for Powers Squared, a sort of Metal Gear homage, tentatively called Mission: Istanistan. I was making updates Paul had suggested and I also moved one panel to the previous page. Again, nothing too hard.

I then worked out some talking points for our OAPS podcast. We had Kathryn Calamia on. She currently has a Kickstarter going for her comic book Like Father, Like Daughter. I had met her through a Facebook post in which she was looking for indie comics to use as tier rewards. I thought letting her use Issue #1 of Powers Squared might find us some new readers. I asked her to be on our show but I wanted us to prep for her. The actual interview took place the next evening and you can watch or listen to the show through links you can find here. I think the show went pretty well.

Next, I sent a query letter out for Broken People, trying to keep to my one-a-week goal. I had found this particular agent on QueryTracker as someone "new" that week. It was a bit of a gamble. QueryTracker shows she represents Crime Fiction, which is what I'm hawking, but the agency's website stated True Crime, but I thought it was worth a chance and a new assistant agent might be wanting to build a list.

Well, I was wrong. I sent the query at about 9:40 pm on Thursday and by 1:30 in the afternoon, I was rejected. "Thank you for your query, but unfortunately, I don't think this is a fit for me. I appreciate your getting in touch, though, and wish you the best with this project." Not the most informative of rejections but they rarely are. I don't think it has anything to do with the actual writing, since I didn't send any samples. The instructions on the agency's websites only asked for a query letter.

I'll give the agent credit for being quick. The rejection was sort of like ripping off a bandage. Painful, as always, but quick and over with. So if you're keeping track at home, that's four sent and one rejection. And now I need to send out two more.

I finished that night off with some writing and updates on Skylar, the most recent manuscript I'm working on. I'm reimagining some of what I had written to get to the action quicker and to introduce characters more judiciously.

Not a typical day but you sort of get a sense of what I'm up to; divided in all sorts of ways.

I would be remiss not to mention my Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, Scene of the Crime; part of our Noirvember celebration. This was also My Little Pony week on Trophy Unlocked with five reviews featuring My Little Pony: Equestria Girls; My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Rainbow Rocks; My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Friendship Games; My Little Pony: Equestria Girls - Legend of Everfree; and My Little Pony: The Movie (2017). Those reviews were written by Paul and Trevor, so check them out, too.

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

A Week in Writing #322 - Missteps

 

Hope everyone reading this is staying safe and wearing your mask.

So, this week, let's start with Powers Squared. We finally took the last step in publishing Issue #10, submitting to comiXology but we didn't get past the first step. I'm not blaming comiXology but somewhere along the way, two series were set up for Powers Squared. We found this out the hard way when we published one issue and it ended up being listed separately from the other issues. Not sure how that happened and the digital publisher did fix it right away. They also told us that they had removed the second series so we wouldn't have the same issue the next time.

Well, when Paul and I sat down to submit, guess what we saw:

They're not the same number, so we're not seeing double but we didn't know which one to choose. We tried to search for something on the website that would point us to the right one but that's not available or at least we couldn't find it. This Series number is a background thing but we didn't want to go down the slippery slope and pick the wrong one, so we stopped the process and emailed support to sort it out.

Did some work on the Pitch Packet. Trying to get more current images into the deck, as the current visuals are closer to what we want to present. There are only a couple that we can't seem to replace. I'd really like to get this behind us. As with everything doing with Powers Squared, we're sort of learning as we go.

In other writing, I completed another review for Trophy Unlocked. As per the usual, we watched a film on our DVR so we could delete it. This week, it was Our Betters (1933), a film I believe I came across by accident but was interested in based on the pre-film discussion on TCM. They were discussing an actor who didn't appear until the last five minutes and his importance to LGBT depiction in films in pre-code Hollywood. Curious, I recorded it and really forgot about the why until we watched it. What did I think will have to wait.

In the meantime, my review of Abbott and Costello Meets Frankenstein was the Saturday Morning Review. But earlier in the week, Trophy Unlocked celebrated its 1100th review with one Paul wrote for P.T., a playable teaser for a video game that was never made. The game, Silent Hills, was to be a horror game designed by Hideo Kojima and Gullermo del Toro, and also fit in with our Spooktober theme for the month.

To further mix the streams, Paul played the teaser on our Powers Squared Twitch channel. Streaming a video game was something Paul has been wanting to do but this was the first time. He asked me to sit with him for support, so if you watch it, you'll see me reacting and asking the occasional question.

As far as my other writing goes, I did some more work on Skylar, though never enough. I believe I got through another couple of chapters and moved the story forward, so that's good.

On the subject of querying, I did some more prep work on that this weekend. I researched if there were any new agents and deleted one from my list as their definition of mystery is cozy. I also realized that I have a little more to do based on the first online query I started. Not only do I need to decide who would want to read my book, but also provide a one-line Pitch. I know, excuses, but they're all I have.

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

A Week in Writing #262 - Fifth Anniversary Post

Not really sure if this is worth a celebration but this is the Fifth Anniversary of this blog. Five years ago to the day, I published my First Post on this blog site and I've been doing one every week since. While this has never had a huge following, I'm doing it as much for myself as anyone else. I certainly hope there are life lessons and writing lessons included here, I started doing this to keep myself honest. 

A lot of people call themselves writers but don't always actually practice the craft. I wanted to show myself, and the world, that I was actually writing. I've sat down here every Sunday since to re-examine myself and to think about what I have or have not accomplished in the past seven days.

I'm still pretty much working on the same three projects that I was five years ago: writing mystery novels, writing film reviews and trying to get a comic book off the ground. Let's begin with writing mystery novels, which I had hoped would be, at some point, my main focus. I've worked on several in the past five years and I've gone through spats of querying as well as writing and editing. 

At present, I have six queries out for Broken People, a novel I've rewritten while doing this blog. As I've written before, I don't want to have already hit up every agent I could find as I like to prolong the torture, I guess. Querying is perhaps my least favorite part of the writing process. I'm not someone who likes to wait and that's pretty much all you do after sending your query letter is wait, oftentimes in vain. Most of the time, you're supposed to realize on your own that a particular agent isn't interested as they provide no guidelines on getting back to you. I'm using six weeks unless otherwise noted, as the cut-off. The drag is you oftentimes never know why the agent rejected you. Is it the story? The query letter? Did they even get to it? I mean you want to improve but without feedback, it's hard to know your deficiencies. 

Working on my rewrite for The Runaway, though I didn't get much done this past week. Other projects and a bit of ennui. I have been thinking about it and I will work on the next chapter this week.

Still waiting to hear back from the editor on Familiar Stranger. We made a connection and I was led to believe he would be actually editing it or parts of it in August. I promised to refrain from bugging him until September, which is now! Hopefully, my patience will be rewarded.

Trophy Unlocked, Paul's review blog that I write for, is coming up on nine years and 1000 reviews, though it will be sometime next year before the latter milestone will be achieved. Most weeks, I work on a review with this week being no exception. In addition to publishing one this week, The African Queen, I wrote another one for another Humphrey Bogart film, All Through the Night (1942). Not sure when that one will see the light of day but its always better to have ones in reserve rather than trying to pump one out every week.

And, of course, there is still Powers Squared, which has so far released seven issues. Issues 8 and 9, as well as 10 and 11, are done but we're wanting to do a Kickstarter to hopefully alleviate costs and grow interest. We keep pushing it off trying to get all the pieces together and set but we should get it going next month. 

While there is not that much actual writing week to week with Powers Squared, it certainly has kept me busy. Over the past year, in addition to looking at every page that comes from artist, colorist, and letterer, I've also developed a website, started a weekly newsletter, doing a weekly video on YouTube and this past Friday did the first On the Air with Powers Squared Podcast with Paul for PodBean.com. You can't say we're not trying.

Five years have been fun and I hope the next five are both fun and profitable. Keep writing.

Each week in the past five years has been different and I hope others who read this either appreciate the struggle and are learning from reading these posts. 

A Week in Writing #261

This week, I'm going to build this post as the week goes, rather than try to recollect the week on Sunday, since I'm going to be in transit for most of the day. Since this usually covers Sunday through Saturday, we should be good.

The week got underway with new pages from Nina. There turned out to be an issue that we had to address, which is pretty rare when it comes to the coloring. Even though Paul and I look at everything during every step in the process, there are still things that we occasionally miss and this is what jumped out at us with one of the pages. A character was drawn similar to another character, which meant that they were also colored to match that character as well. We also had a special coloring built into the script, but there didn't seem to be a place for it in the panels on the page. To make a long story short, with some back and forth amongst all of us, including Rachel, we came up with a solution.

I did some more writing on Sunday on The Runaway. Still reworking the story, trying to save as much as I can from a previous version while still making changes. I want to make it better, but I don't want to write when I don't have to. I wrote just shy of 1200 words on Sunday.

Also, on Sunday, Paul and I did our video, A Week in Powers Squared, and sent our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl. Something we still need to work on is building up our audience for both. We're a few weeks short of our 52nd weekly video and would like to get to 25 subscribers. For the newsletter, we're at about 80 and need to get it to 100 as soon as we can. If you're interested, the YouTube channel is here and the sign up for the newsletter is here. Every subscription counts.

Monday was a pretty light day writing-wise. Worked some more on The Runaway. I'm in one of those situations where I've sort of written myself into a corner with the new prose bumping up against the old. I hate to waste what I've written and despite the idea of keeping it for another time, that rarely works out the way it's supposed to. I'm sure as time goes on, the two storylines will diverge again and I'll have several thousand words of useless plot.

I've made the decision to stop posting this blog on Medium since I haven't got any hits in months. It doesn't take all that long to post it there, but with one follower and no reads it's time to cut my losses so to speak. I don't think anyone will really notice it's gone, so this will serve as my announcement. Medium will be just one more social media platform that never took off for me or Powers Squared.

Tuesday was spent on trying to get the word out about Powers Squared's landing page. Made posts on the usual social media (Facebook and Twitter) and even created, using MailChimp, an Email Signup tab on the Powers Squared Facebook page. Using MailChimp has some advantages, but it is not very self-explanatory. I was trying to follow their instructions to link our campaign to Facebook but came across what appeared to be a dead-end. I wasn't getting the dropdown the instructions told me to use. I had to do a separate Google search to find a solution. Got it to work but it took longer than it should have; it always does for me when I'm trying to do something.

Sent out a couple of query letters on Tuesday as well. I don't mind the process, though I have a  certain apprehension when doing them. I'm never sure, based on the instructions on the various agent's websites, if I'm sending the right thing to the right person in the right way. If you're like me and use Query Tracker, you need to be sure to check the websites. While I find the site very helpful, there are sometimes subtleties that get lost. If an agent is shown, as an example, to handle Young Adult and Mysteries, oftentimes, they handle Young Adult Mysteries. Always check the websites and even then it can be a crap-shoot.

I don't like to have too many queries out there at one time. On the oft chance I get feedback from an agent, it might help me to change up the query letter, which is already something I do anyway. Right now I have six out there. I try to give agents time to reply but when it's "only if interested" I'm not sure what that means time-wise. If they're really behind that could be three months, I don't know. But six seems like enough for the moment.

The final page from Issue #11 came in with a slight redesign from Rachel and within about 2 hours and 15 minutes, the coloring was updated and the pages are now on their way to Trevor for lettering. I've said it before but I still mean it, I really like working with everyone on this project. They really seem to rally when it counts and I appreciate that.

On Wednesday, spent some time working on Powers Squared's website. I've been trying to regularly put up a poll question on the site, with varying degrees of success. I thought that it might be related to the fact that the website is the link for them and when you go to the site you actually have to scroll down to find the question. Decided to try to set up a page dedicated to the poll question, which would then provide more of a direct link.

I'm not sure if GoDaddy supports polls, but someone there set it up for me on my home page some time back. I've been using PollDaddy, now CrowdSignal, to create the polls and from there I've been copying the code onto my home page. I discovered that you could duplicate and move a section, which I managed to do successfully today. So now all polls will point to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/poll. There is probably one there now if you want to vote.

Paul did some work with OBS, YouTube and our new Stream Deck to make it work, so we're set for new videos. There is a fairly significant latency period using this method and the videos take longer to process on YouTube but I'm hoping we can not only make the videos more entertaining but also more closely link the information in the newsletter to the info in the videos. They'll still be different but now they can be more closely related.

Late on Wednesday night, finished a review on There's Always a Woman (1938) for Trophy Unlocked. The film was one that I saw recently on TCM and wanted to see since it paired Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas. You'll have to wait a while to read it, but I'm glad I got it done.

On Thursday, I made an effort to reach out to people I knew on Linkedin to ask them to join the Powers Squared mailing list. Six or seven people. Only heard back from one and even then I'm not sure he'll actually sign up, even though he wanted to get together with me. I don't know why it's so hard to get people to sign up.

More writing on The Runaway, finishing off the chapter I was working on. Being a pantser, I'm sometimes curious where the story will go from here. I know how I want the story to end and it's the getting there that's the fun.

Friday will be my last writing day of the week. It got off with a bang, too, a rejection from one of my queries. It appears to me to be one of those form letters that's meant to look personal: "Thanks for sending me Broken People.  I wish I could represent every book I enjoy.  Because my resources are limited, I can only devote my energy to projects that I feel passionate about, and I'm sorry to say that your book isn't right for me."

Notice how she doesn't say she enjoyed my book, only that she wished she could represent all the books she enjoyed. Sort of encouraging but very unspecific at the same time. And I guess it goes without saying that we don't share the passion for Broken People. So I'm down to five.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I found another agent on my list to query. This one doesn't provide any guidelines about what he's looking for in a query letter. In fact, the agent's website is almost non-existent. But he's listed many other places, so it's always worth a shot. Sent him a similar query to one I had already sent: the first two chapters and a synopsis. It's a little like shooting in the dark since I don't know any preferences he might have. And, of course, there is no timeframe for when to expect or not expect a response from him.

Received the news on Friday that our long-time colorist, Nina Gaillard, has decided to leave Powers Squared after issue #12, which will be her seventh one to color. She's decided to seek other opportunities and projects and while we are very sorry to see her go, we wish her great success in the future.

Sort of a sad way to end this week in writing.

Saturday, before leaving for a weekend trip, posted Trevor's review of Atlantis: The Lost Empire for our Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked.

So, that about wraps things up for this week. More next. In the meantime, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #240 - Report from the Front - WonderCon

Well, let's start with some news from the other writing I do, the sort of stuff that ends up on the bottom of this blog, you know, shake things up. To begin with, no new queries, though I did hear back from one of the agents I wrote about representing Broken People.

On Wednesday morning, at my day job, a response from one of the three agents I have queried popped up in my personal emails. If you're like me, the dream is to someday be able to walk away from your job because you've finally made that as a writer. Like a lot of you, I still think that starts with getting representation, so my day was looking up. Each email from an agent holds within it the potential of that dream. I think you can see where this is going. "Not for us, thanks," didn't kill that dream but did defer it for another time and another agent to help make it come true.

The point of this blog isn't to call people out, at least not by name, but to provide a public record of what I'm doing or, at least, trying to do with my writing every week. So I'm not going to call the agent out by name but rather to state how defeating such a summary rejection can be to me or to anyone. While one query letter may seem a lot like the next one, these terse rejections do hurt a little. Now, I'll admit I had little hope this particular agent would take me, I only queried her because I hadn't anyone in quite a while and I had the necessary information about her (yes, the agent is a woman) and her requirements weren't all that different from previous agents, okay two, that I had already sent out. But there was no salutation at the start, no sincerely at the end, just "Not for us, thanks." I mean, I get more friendly form emails from junk mail. You have every right to reject me or any writer, you just might want to up your game a little. You never know what might happen in the future.

I did reach out to the editor on Familiar Stranger twice this past week, once on the phone and once a PM on Facebook. And, wait for it, neither got a response. The thing with cell phone numbers, and why I don't always give them out (yes I still have a landline for that reason), is that you know the owner of the phone has to have it close by and probably, in fact, saw it ringing, saw my name attached to the number and didn't answer. A home number you can assume the person isn't home but a cell phone means they made a conscious decision not to pick up or listen to the voicemail you left. Ouch!

So, enough about rejection for a while (at least until the next one arrives).

Nothing new from the artists on Powers Squared this week, though that doesn't mean nothing happened with the comic book. In fact, some really big news for us. We're a little over a month away from our first comic book store appearance (and signing). I won't go into many details now but it's our local store on Free Comic Book Day, so it should provide us with some good local exposure.

That also means there is a lot of legwork we're going to have to do in April to prepare. Still, it is an exciting opportunity. And if you read this, and you live in the Los Angeles area, we would love to see you come by. In addition to selling copies of Powers Squared, we'll be signing issues if someone wants us to as well as hopefully adding to our mailing list. If you're reading this and want to be apart of the mailing list, please go to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/ and join the mailing list. It's on the front page, you can't miss it. We would really appreciate the support.

Paul and I ended up spending most of this past Tuesday night watching what turned out to be a two-hour infomercial for ComixLaunch.com about the need for a mailing list before starting something like a Kickstarter project. I'm thinking next month we'll start using some of this text, enhanced of course, as part of a weekly email to people on the list to let them know what's going on with the book. I'll still do this blog and Paul and I will still do the weekly vlog, we'll just be making sure more people know about A Week in Powers Squared and how to buy the comic and, hopefully, join in on the conversation.

Paul and David talk about WonderCon amongst other topics on this week's vlog.

Paul, Trevor and I did attend this past weekend's WonderCon in Anaheim. Usually, I'll do a report from the Front with notes from the various panels and people that we meet, etc. I'm not a really big one on taking photos of cosplayers, there are better people at that than I, so if you're looking for that than this is not the place.

For anyone who has never been, WonderCon is sort of a baby-sized version of San Diego Comic Con. It is in some ways a dry-run for that larger event. A lot of the reason for going is to learn and to network with people you've met at previous cons or have met through other walks of life. So it was more a learning experience than anything else. I did wear a Powers Squared t-shirt, but I also wore a jean jacket which covered up most of it.

We only attended a couple of panels: How to Get Press Coverage and Forging Careers in Fandom. We had attended the first one last year as well. Led by Rik Offenberg from First Comic News, the panel discusses what has worked for them in the past and how they encourage you to write press releases to send to media outlets, including theirs.

When sending a press release you should always have a pitch. Offenberg mentioned that he had received an email that morning asking him to cover his Kickstarter but gave no details beyond that. That's the kind of email that will get deleted along with the spam. It's always a good idea to follow the website and engage them on social media before sending them your press release.

Also, a good idea is to supply links and images that the writer can use to write their story; the idea is to make it as easy on them as possible. The suggestion was also made to have an A story and a B story in the release that both come together in the end.

Sitting there listening to them, I thought about what sort of press release we could write to publicize our book signing and who we could send it to.

They also talked about doing podcasts, which I took to mean other people's podcasts and conventions. The Long Beach Comic Con, which unfortunately has already happened, was mentioned. The idea is to start small and work your way up. The rule on Podcasts is to choose one with 30 or more episodes since a lot of people stop and start them. Thirty shows a certain commitment.

Forging Careers in Fandom wasn't really aimed at me, though it was an interesting panel to attend. They talked about their jobs which for the most part are freelance and don't always pay a living wage. The panelists did stress sticking with it as part of their success. They do a lot of jobs from event planning to Community Manager for Dungeons and Dragons to Disney Bounding, which is not the sort of work that I would see myself doing, though it does show that you can if you persist, you can find work doing something you enjoy.

To round off the week, no new reviews written but I did publish one on Saturday on Trophy Unlocked: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. We had seen the film in the theater and as I recall we really liked it. But does it hold up after 14 years? Find out and read the review.

So next week well be a shortened one. We're taking a family trip out of town for several days which I'm sure will keep me from doing much writing. I would hope that I could do some on the plane rides but last time we flew I couldn't even open the laptop on the tray, the seats were that close together. But I will, of course, report all here next Sunday. Keep writing until then.

A Week in Writing # 174

With the holiday coming quickly, I wanted to take a few minutes to play catch up with this week in writing. Things begin to slow down towards the end of the year and while I try not to let that happen to me I know that there are times when I don't take advantage as much as I should.

Finally did deliver the next three issues of Powers Squared to our editor at ComiXology, where issues #1 and #2 are still available for purchase. Hopefully, things will go well and there will be some sort of push prior to it getting published.

I also did make some updates to powerssquaredcomicbook.com adding in the cover, credits, and logline for Issue #3 and some other minor edits. Webdesigner is not a skillset that I brag about and every time I make a change I always have to ask myself, "How did I do this last time?" But I did promise I would make updates, so I felt I had to keep my word.

No new reviews were written this past week, but I did publish our last Christmas review of the season, Miracle on 34th Street, on Trophy Unlocked. There will be opportunities later in the week, as we spend the day after Christmas watching movies, so hopefully, something will shake out. I also still have to write an end of the year in review piece, so there will be more work to be done on Trophy Unlocked.

Trophy Unlocked celebrated its 7th birthday on Monday with a review of The Last Jedi on Monday. We celebrated the 80th Anniversary of Disney's release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with a review hub devoted to Disney's Animated Features and their live-action remakes. On Friday, we posted our fourth of four reviews of the classic video game series Ty the Tasmanian Tiger with a review of Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 4.

As far as the rewrites on Familiar Stranger, I'm happy to say I have made some progress. I'm currently working on page 322, but I'm up just over 60,000 words. I've done some original work on a couple of chapters and as I'm going I'm making changes which, as always, I hope are making it better. I'm just about to the same spot that has given me issues in previous rewrites of the book, but I've done some rethinking on this stretch, so I'm hoping with some time during the week I should be able to get past it but that will be fodder for next week.

I'm not going to try to set any goals for the week, or at least not ones I'm going to cop to this week. But in the meantime, I want to wish everyone who reads this blog a Happy Holidays.

A Week in Writing # 173

Well, we're getting down to the wire with the Christmas holidays fast approaching. All the cards have been sent and most, but not all, the presents bought. So thoughts turn to writing when I have the opportunity.

To keep with the spirit of the holiday, let's start with Trophy Unlocked's third Christmas review of the season: Scrooge (1935), an English film starring Sir Seymour Hicks, an actor who played the role on stage about 2000 times. Last year, we reviewed four other adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, so this is one that we hadn't reviewed. We also published a vintage video game review Ty, the Tasmanian Tiger 3: Night of the Quinkan on Friday.

Trophy Unlocked celebrates its 7th Anniversary tomorrow with a review of Star Wars The Last Jedi, a film which we saw on Sunday, in 3-D at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what Paul thought of the film.

Worked this week to finally finish the three-issue arc of Powers Squared. Lettering issues aside, I found a coloring error on one panel in the the third issue, something minor, but it took two days to correct. I used the colorist who had done the work since I thought it would be easier for her to make the correction.

I had wanted to submit the comic book to a short story contest and the deadline was Saturday at 11:59 pm. I had everything finally put together in a five-issue pdf with only a few minutes left and then I couldn't connect. I was getting an error on the second page of the process. I wrote to the contest with a screenshot showing the issue and, to their credit, they let me submit late but talk about cutting it close. Not sure what to expect, but I wanted to at least try to see how it might do.

Next up, I need to spend some time on the website, so look for those changes in the next week.

With Familiar Stranger, I managed to make some progress and actually got into some real writing on it. I'm working on a new chapter which I decided to add during this rewrite. I'm currently up to 48,000+ words, which is about 6,000 words further than I was last week. I'm hoping that with Powers Squared finally put to bed and now new reviews for Trophy Unlocked, I can concentrate my writing time, when available, to this work.

A Week in Writing #147

Surprise surprise, a fairly productive week on all projects: Familiar Stranger, Powers Squared, and Trophy Unlocked.

I tried this week to break up the writing by time. First thing in the morning, I try to post whatever tweets relate to anniversary reviews we have on Trophy Unlocked, this week including Raiders of the Lost Ark; Holiday; The Endless Summer; The Lion King; Psycho; and The Immigrant. Trying to keep page views coming on the blog.

When I got home after work, I worked on a review of Red Dust and Journey into Fear, the former which I also posted as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. I'm still working on the latter, but I should finish it this week.

After dinner, I worked on Powers Squared. We received four pages from the artist, including layouts and pencils, but we're still waiting for the inks. Our colorist is working on her pages and our letterer also did some pages this week as well. While we're firmly working on Issue #4, we still have some wrapping up to do on Issue #3. But progress is progress.

Additionally, started making notes for an idea for a future story. Have the premise, but I'm working on the details.

I tried this week to follow up on the publication dates for Issues #1 and #2, but nothing new to report. I'm not sure what publicity we'll have either, though our contact at ComiXology wants to meet at San Diego Comic Con to discuss. Will report more here as I know it.

Also, sent our submission to Image Comics to see if they might want to physically publish our books. Probably won't know anything for a few weeks, but I'm happy to have finally done it. Every time you put yourself out there, there is always the possibility of rejection, which is never fun. But you've got to put yourself out there. Fingers crossed. There are other publishers out there, but they have different requirements, so I'm working on those as well. Wrote a 1000+ word synopsis this weekend for issues #3 through 5, a story arc we refer to as With Great Powers Come Something, Something, Something.

As for Familiar Stranger, I was able to finally finish a chapter that had been sitting there for over a month and start on a new one. The goal is to keep moving the story and rewrite forward. I feel like I'm getting closer to the point where I have an ending already written. There is then another round of edits to go before it's ready for someone else to read.

That's one thing about writing, it's a process.

A Week in Writing #146

I had a pretty good week. Didn't accomplish everything I wanted, but I think I made progress on all fronts, including the oft put-to-the-side Familiar Stranger. Actually finished a chapter and started a new one. I think once I get past this part of the book it will go rather quickly, as it is this part of the book that has been the problem.

On the writing front, I just registered for the Writer's Digest Conference in Pasadena in October. I had considered only going on Saturday, but now I'm planning to go all three days. One of the added bonuses is that I get to attend with my son Paul.

Powers Squared took up its usual bulk of time, but wasn't as much this week as it has in the past. While our artist finished four pages, it still took about two weeks. Sometimes I feel like we focus in on one or two panels and that can really slow progress down. After a while, we get to the point where we feel it's as good as it is going to get and move on.

Our colorist was absent for a second week. We heard from her, but no pages. It is really not a big deal at this point. We know she's working on it. Our letterer, though, did come through with a couple of pages. We're getting close to being through with Issue #3, which is encouraging, even though we started it six months ago. I'm hopeful the next two can come together faster.

Speaking of the Issues #1 and #2, I registered for copyrights for them. Trying to get that out of the way ahead of publishing. No word on exactly when, but it's a bit of business that needed to be done.

I think I've finished the cover letter and synopsis for submission to Image, but I'm finding myself to be somewhat reluctant to send it in. Maybe it is the fear of rejection, but I'm hesistant. I'll have to get over it, but for now it's ready to go, just not sent. Next I need to work on the Dark Horse submission, which includes a lot of synopsii of different lengths.

Had an idea during the week for a future story for Powers Squared. I haven't done more than write it down. Involves Instructor Miller becoming Destructor Miller. We'll see if anything ever comes from it.

Finished my review of Red Dust, but I still have Journey Into Fear to go. Published Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) over the weekend, which was a hold over from last week's Saturday Morning Review.

So all in all, not a bad week in writing. Maybe I could have done more, but I'm pretty pleased to have been able to get in a little bit of everything.

A Week in Writing #144

Turned out to be a much different week and weekend than I had hoped for. With the three-day Memorial Day weekend, I had visions of getting some writing done on my book and finishing up a review I started for the film San Francisco. But Friday afternoon, all that changed when I received word that my step-father was near death and my wife and I flew back to Dallas to see him. So writing has been replaced with packing, travel, and family. I do hope to write on the plane, but I will probably be away when this gets published.

That all seems to temper the good news of the week, which is that our comic book Issues #1 and 2 have been accepted at ComiXology. Now the waiting begins anew as I don't really know what the next steps in their process are or what sort of buildup there will be before it is published. I guess it's in the realm of we'll see.

The submission process was more daunting than it should have been, but I put that down to exhaustion on our part after the push for the graduations. We messed up a couple of things that and even though they had us resubmit the first issue in a slightly different pdf format, we couldn't update it on our own. Funny, they didn't ask us to resubmit Issue #2, even though it had the same incorrect setting. Go figure.

Had hoped to spend part of the weekend working on further submissions, but that seems unlikely, though I do hope I can work on a cover letter and synopsis. There are really not that many outlets for creator-owned material, as most of the majors like to think they have the content covered. And I'm getting the feeling that I should be submitting before we got this far, while the comic was still in development, but hey we are what we are.

Also had wanted to put the website out there more, but I'm not sure if that will happen or not.

The artist seems more committed to four pages a week, but sometimes I think he would hope we weren't as picky as we are about some of the panels. We have a certain look that we're trying to maintain, even though we're not the artists. Communicating that can sometimes be problematic.

The colorist has been doing her usual good work on four pages a week and our letterer is somewhat keeping pace, though he is still somewhat behind her; but we do have a while before we need the next issue.

Getting the artist and the colorist to be both working on four pages a week is a blessing and a curse. Yes, it is moving us forward, which is good, but it costs more and the nightly review of work takes up a lot of time. I know that may sound like complaining, but as we all know time and money are always in short supply. Spending the evening looking at a drawing or a layout seems like it is work that is never done. We're committed through Issue #5, so we'll see how it is going when we get there.  I'd like to think this could be an ongoing series, in much the same way I'd like to be a best-selling author, but that's up to the comic buying public.

Did publish a new Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked: Night Nurse (1931). While the film stars Barbara Stanwyck, the draw was supposed to be that the film was an early Clark Gable role.

Not sure what the next couple of weeks are going to look like. I don't wish this, but I'm imagining there will be other family commitments ahead.