A Week in Writing #584 - New Issue of The Blade of Miracles

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

Well, it's not Powers Squared, but there will be a new issue of The Blade of Miracles, which will be released later this week. The eighth issue of a twelve-issue run is called "Mordred, Part 1" and, as they all have been, was written, drawn and lettered by Trevor and edited by Paul. The issue will be available in print and digital through The Campus Store on our website.

It should be no surprise that the release of "Mordred, Part 1" was the subject of our podcast on Friday, OAPS #322 - TBOM #8 Preview. If you missed it, you can stil catch it on twitch.tv/powerssquared for the next few days, listen to it here or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm.

To support the release, I've written a press release and a new The Bark, both of which are pending review.

Trevor has been busy, as he also had four reviews on Trophy Unlcoked this week, starting with Me & My Katamari on Monday followed by Second Look - Beautiful Katamari (+ DLC) on Tuesday, Katamari Forever; and Second Look - Touch My Katamari on Friday. My review of Frankenstein was the Saturday Morning Review. No new review this week from me.

We did watch the original Scream on Friday and Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc on Sunday morning, so I would be expecting reviews for them to be out in the near future.

We attended LightBox Expo on Saturday in Pasadena. Though the Con has panels, which are hard to get into, it is basically a giant artist alley. We walked the floor, talked to some artists, made a few invitations to appear on our podcast and spent a lot of money. Just me and the boys this time. Fun and tiring, but no report from the front for this one.

Some work this week on Blackmail. I'm now over 63,000 words, so there is progress. I've gone back through the book and made edits for the time being and I'm working on a new chapter. I'm still about 17,000 words short of my goal, but the important thing is to keep working on it.

This coming week is, once again, newsletter time, so I'll be working on that.

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

A Week in Writing #411 - Getting Ready

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

There is so much to get ready for in July. If you're not a subscriber to The Hound Dogs' Howl, the Powers Squared newsletter, then you may not know that our next issue, #13 The Imposter Part 1, is coming out on July 13th. That's a Wednesday for all those Triskaidekaphobians out there, so it shouldn't be unlucky. In the next week or so, I'm going to have to make sure all the preps have been made, including updating our Campus Store website, making sure the providers are ready as well, and getting out a news release and The Bark, our bulletin.

To that end, I was working on updates to our website and to Artithmeric's, our British on-demand publisher. In addition to the new issue, we're also premiering a new line of Chibi t-shirts designed by our colorist, Julia Canon, who will be making her Powers Squared debut with the issue, even though she's been working with us for a couple of years now.

We also have a video to premiere along with the issue about a new character we're introducing, Pedro. So much to do. This goes back to my last blog about the work of writing.

Our OAPS this week was with Kurt Zauer, an indie creator who reached out to us. That's always interesting. Apparently, he was told we have a good show, which is always nice to hear. He was on the floor of the Anime Midwest Con where he had a booth in Artist Alley. He also has a Kickstarter, which he also wanted to talk about. You can check out the audio here and on Wednesday, the video will be on our YouTube channel, if you want to check it out. It's always nice to meet other creators out there.

Alas, no new review from me this week. Our Drain the DVR Saturday hit a snag when the movie, Girl Crazy (1932) was out of synch, for some reason, and unwatchable. Hopefully, we'll see it some other time.

I did have a review published, today, as a matter of fact, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022); school's back in session. The Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for Lightyear (2022). And the Wednesday Gameday review was Paul's for TimeSplitters: Future Perfect played on an Xbox.

One new query this week for Broken People. I haven't heard back from any of the last several so far, even ones that other writers were reporting were not handling new clients. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I try to give agents a reasonable amount of time before DNRing them (Did Not Respond). I'm really happy with the rewrite of Chapter One, so I'm hopeful I'll catch someone's attention, at least to send more pages.

The big news is I've been able to work on fka Skylar. I still call it that, even though the character's name has changed. I don't have a good title for it yet. I'm going back through it, I know again, trying to add bits where I can. I had another idea that I'm sure will work better than the last one.

The other thing to get ready for is San Diego Comic-Con, which is rapidly approaching. We're just attendees again this year but there are still people to see and things to discuss. We're a little apprehensive about a large-scale in-person event but we're trying to be cautious in our approach. Whatever I find out, I will divulge in my Report from the Front, though it will be delayed a day, as I will be driving most of Sunday. Thanks in advance for understanding.

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

A Week in Writing #351 - Blame it on the Pizza

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

Usually, on Saturday nights, my family watches a movie that we've recorded on the DVR, okay I've recorded on the DVR. After we watch it, I delete it and write a review. Not this week, and I'm blaming it on the pizza. A national chain was having a 49% sale which I thought would be fun, as a change of pace. However, it went awry from there. I'll take responsibility for it but one of the local stores is partially to blame.

Occasionally, I'll select the wrong location online and, usually, I'll catch it before I leave home. However, last night, we went to the store we usually use and waited, you know with the emergency brake a-blazing. One of the workers came out to deliver to another customer and asked the name my order was under. I gave her my name and waited. She came back a few minutes later and told us that the order was still in the oven. All, I think, is right with the world.

Well, I get the indication on the app that the order is ready and we wait. After about five minutes and a couple of tries to get someone to talk at the door, another worker goes back and a few minutes later tells us that we don't have an order at that store.

We check the app and head to the right store. They were very attentive and they give us our order. However, by then, it had been over an hour and it was too late to watch a movie, so no movie and no review for me this week.

That is not to say that there was a dearth of reviews on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Trevor's review of Star Wars Racer Revenge went up, and on Saturday, Paul's review of  The Great Mouse Detective was the featured review. On Sunday, Trevor posted our MonsterVerse Review Hub, one place for all of the recent Godzilla-King Kong tetralogy of films.

This week, the blog will hit 1200 reviews on Saturday, so stay tuned.

On Thursday, I managed to send off a new query, again through an online form. If you've read this blog before, you know how little I like this part of the writing process. This one wasn't as bad as others, though I did have to come up with who might want to read Broken People and I was spared trying to think of marketing schemes for it. Of course, it's a wait-and-see process now. But I do have five out that can be considered active.

All of this is the background for what was the biggest item of the week. On Thursday, I was notified that ComiXology was going to publish our book on Wednesday, May 19th, or six days later. That put into process a lot of footwork on our part, including uploading issues to Kindle and GlobalComix, two of the platforms we publish on. I had already made the .mobi file I needed for Kindle but I hadn't uploaded it since I didn't know the date it was going to be released at the time. When we went to add the issue to GlobalComix, it was already there ready to go. I don't think either of us remembered uploading it but that made it go much faster than I expected.

We were lucky to have a review in the pipeline, and one that was particularly positive. You can read it here.

Paul and I also shot a commercial, which Paul edited, which we plan to post on the day it comes out. Additionally, we wrote and published our first Bark in quite a while. What had been a weekly newsletter is now to used for events like this. One will also be sent out on the day of publication.

Around that, we had a roundtable with the creative team on Friday and then a team-building exercise on Sunday afternoon, playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. We had some technical issues both times but Paul figured it out and both Rachel and Julia were very patient with things. I don't want to take up too much of their private time but I think we all had fun.

I would, of course, ask you to consider purchasing the new issue on one of the five platforms we publish on. These are available through our website at The Campus Store. The links will be live as soon as we know them but for now, you can read about the new issue and perhaps catch up on the back issues you haven't read yet. And, while you're there, you can enroll at San Romero Community College and join our mailing list. It's always FREE!

Commercial over, I'll wrap up with my current book, Skylar, which isn't getting all the love it deserves. Maybe when things calm down I'll be able to get back to it. It is not that I haven't been thinking about it, though. My plan is to add a murder in the mix sooner than later in the story. But that doesn't make up for the lack of actually writing on it.

Next week, Paul, Trevor and I will be getting our second COVID shot on Tuesday, which might make Wednesday interesting if I have any sort of bad reaction but we'll see. I would encourage anyone who hasn't gotten vaccinated to do so as soon as possible.

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

A Week in Writing #329 - Making Silly Mistakes

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

I hope that I'm not alone in this but this week, I kept making what I'll call silly mistakes. I'd like to put it down to being hurried but since this is a blog where I share the good and the bad, I thought I should share the silly as well.

On Friday nights, Paul and I host a live twitch show, On the Air with Powers Squared, that we call a behind the scenes look at our comic book, Powers Squared but in reality, we also interview not only our creative team but also other creatives as well. This past Friday, we lined up Josue F. Kure, the creator behind Reaper Rules. Josue and I had met through a list launch event and had kept up on Facebook and supported each other's Kickstarters but had not actually ever even spoken.

Well, Josue is a very interesting man with a lot of interests, talents and ambitions so it was a very interesting interview. My silly mistake here was in the lead-up. For every show, I post an image on Instagram, which feeds down to the comic book's Twitter account and Facebook page. Since I'm at work when I make this post, I try to do it as quickly as possible. The mistake here was that Josue uses a middle initial, which while I got right in the image I got wrong in the text. I was able to edit Instagram and Facebook posts, I wasn't able to change the Twitter one. As anyone who has Twitter knows, you can't edit tweets. I didn't have the time to fix it and it wasn't a big deal it still was sort of embarrassing.

On Sundays, I write the newsletter for Powers Squared, this week The Bark,  and while I think the text was good and the links worked I made two more mistakes. To start with, I didn't update the Message line so what went out, rather than saying Happy Holidays Hound Dogs made mention of the now over Black Friday Sale. Since I receive other people's emails, I know that I'm not alone in making mistakes, so I resent the newsletter with a correction. Problem solved.

But wait, no. One of the items every week is a Peek-of-the-Week, or an image from the comic book that is discussed in the newsletter but with a link, in the hopes of driving readers to the website. The nice thing is that while the image may change the link doesn't. And, all is well and good, as long as the website gets updated. But if you don't actually hit the button to publish the change no one will know there's a new image. It took me several hours to realize the image hadn't been updated. Don't know how many people, if any, checked for the new image but again, it was a silly mistake for me to make.

So with that confession behind me, let's move on to other writing and places where I didn't make missteps.

As I've written before, I've decided to wait until the New Year to take up querying again. I just don't want to get caught up in the end of the year desk cleaning that goes on in all professions. And, if you're still keeping track I've sent four and have been rejected once. I have a feeling I'm probably running into that "if you haven't heard back from us" clause, written and unwritten, that means they've passed but I'm not going to worry about it until when I start up again.

I've been working on Skylar most nights. My son Paul writes every night from 10 to 11 and I try to do the same. Some nights it's harder than others. I've had a couple where I start to fall asleep but I still try to make it through. I'm up to 25368 words and 140 pages.

I'm sort of leaving the best for last, I guess. I did write a new review this weekend, Repeat Performance (1947), a sort of mixed genre film that may, by design, not see the light of day until 1/1/2022. This past Saturday, on Trophy Unlocked, I did publish the first of my Christmas film reviews, this one a drive-by Christmas tale, The Last Picture Show (1971). To qualify as drive-by Christmas is either the backdrop or plays a role in an otherwise non-holiday tale.

During the week, Paul published his review of the videogame Injustice 2 Legendary Edition. And on Sunday, Trevor published a review of Onward, the pre-pandemic Pixar release that we watched this past Friday night on Disney +.

In other Trophy Unlocked news, the blog will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday. Not only will Paul publish a review on that date but we're also going to cross the streams and discuss the blog on our OAPS that evening. I promise not to make any silly mistakes when posting about that. I hope you'll take this as your invite to watch and ask questions. It is quite an accomplishment. We're live on twitch at 6pm PST, hope you'll watch.

Well, if I don't see you then, keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #318 - Hey, It Was My Birthday

Hope all is well.

Despite the headline, I'm not looking for belated birthday wishes from last Friday. I'm using it as an excuse for whatever didn't happen this past week that should have.

I guess the big accomplishment for me this week was that I did write three reviews for Trophy Unlocked. As always not sure when they all will appear, one is scheduled, but the important thing is that I did them. Every Friday night, we have homemade pizza and watch a movie but since it was my birthday and we were having something different, we had pizza on Thursday and watched A Rainy Day in New York, a 2018 Woody Allen film that had not, as of yet, been released in the US. I had purchased a blu-ray (yes I still buy discs) through Amazon UK and we watched that. As it turns out that film is supposed to get some sort of release on October 9th, so it's scheduled to run that morning.

On my birthday, we watched another blu-ray that I received for my birthday, Straight Shooting (1917), a silent western directed by John Ford and starring Harry Carey. So, that's review #2.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may also know that Saturday night has turned into drain the DVR day so we watched Downstairs (1932) a pre-code drama starring John Gilbert. Review #3.

I also had the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this week, with Captured! (1933), a film about World War I. I won't lie, I like to see my reviews get published. On Wednesday, it was another video game review, this time Zone of the Enders (PS2), that Paul wrote.

I've assigned myself the responsibility to post the reviews on Pinterest as well, and as I'm going through the anniversaries or adding new reviews, I'm trying to update the listing with some information about when it was released and if it's a film, who is in it, the director and the genre. I sometimes regret this, especially when a title ends up in more than one category, say Decade and special genres that we call out. It's possible that a title, say an animated Batman film, could end up in three categories. I'm almost through October. I hope that I'll get ahead of it sometime and it will be down to just new titles. I'm mentioning it here because I spent some time on it this week.

A lot of work this week on Powers Squared, with Rachel providing four inked pages for Issue 16, and Trevor finishing the lettering on Issue #14.

Not to leave Julia out of it, she did provide us with an updated website banner. Since at the top of the home page we say Stay Safe, Wear a Mask and Read Powers Squared, I thought we should show the main characters actually wearing a mask. It was an idea I had at the end of the week and it's already up on the website: powerssquaredcomicbook.com.

Other work continues on revamping the website, which we're hoping to introduce with the release of Issue #10.

We also did our weekly podcast/video, On the Air with Powers Squared, and this time our guest actually showed. Rorie Still, the creator of Flashbang, spent about 45 minutes with us on Friday night. You can, if you're so inclined, watch it here on YouTube. If you prefer to listen to it, please go to powerssquaredcomicbook.com/join and you can find about five outlets for the audio version.

But that wasn't the only video appearance for the book, because the next day, Paul appeared on Rorie's Instagram show, Artist Live. He was on her show for about an hour and you can watch that on her Instagram page here.

I'll throw this out, just in case you're interested, but we also put out a weekly newsletter and if you're at all curious, you can look at it here. This is our smaller version, which we call The Bark. Next week, it's the longer newsletter The Hound Dogs' Howl, in which we'll feature other creative twins and make a recommendation or two as well. I put it there just in case you want to, you know, be supportive.

I also did some more work on Skylar, the newest J.D. Barrister story I'm working on. I've got a real good idea for a future chapter, but I'm still slogging through the one I'm on. I think I only managed about 1000 or so words this week. Too much to do, too much cake to eat, you know the story.

Well, I think that about wraps it up for now. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #312 - Six Years On

Well, I don't want to break my arm patting myself on the back, but this is a bit of a milestone; six years ago today, I started writing this little weekly musing on my week in writing. I'm not sure if I should be happy that I've gone this far or a little sad that I don't have more to show for the years in between.

Before I go on any further, I would be remiss not to mention that my son Paul has been edting this blog for the past six years. I really appreciate his help and endurance in this endeavor. I'm sure it wouldn't be nearly as readable if it wasn't for him.

I think I've learned a few things along the way, but I really think I have some much more to learn and to, obviously, do to get where I want to get to, which is making a living at what I really want to do. I know the deck is stacked against me and that it is rare anyone nowadays makes a living just writing, but that's the sort of thing dreams are made of.

Well, no Literary Agent, at least not so far. I am working on this project at the moment; researching potential agents to query. It's a rather slow and boring process if you haven't undertaken it yourself. A couple of things I'm seeing: First, more and more agents are moving towards Online Query Forms. Yes, something even more impersonal than an email and no doubt easier to ignore. Response times are also getting pushed out, rather than four weeks, it seems more common to find six and even longer, that is if they respond at all. Many are now saying they'll get back to you in 12 weeks only if they are interested. So no more of those impersonal form letters/emails. Just if you don't hear from us that means "no".

That doesn't mean I haven't been writing. I think I've written one, rewritten two and started a fourth novel since I began this blog. So, when the day comes, and I get an agent, hopefully, I'll be ready. I will, of course, give you a blow by blow of the process once it gets going. I'm still trying to find 10 agents to query as a first wave. I'm still building my list, to borrow a phrase.

In the past six years, I'm going to guess I've written about 300 reviews of movies for Trophy Unlocked, not all of which (45) have yet to be published. As an example, this week, I wrote two, one for Morning Glory (1933), as part of our drain the DVR Saturday program; and one for Night Club Scandal (1937), a film I just happened to catch on TCM while working on something else.

One of mine did get published this past week, Kindergarten Cop (1990). I was outraged by the "controversy" surrounding the film when it was canceled from a drive-in program in Oregon and we decided to watch it. While I can see how some films, like Gone With The Wind or The Birth of a Nation, might be considered controversial, Kindergarten Cop didn't deserve to be thrown in with those titles. Well, as you can imagine, it rubbed me the wrong way and I had to say something about it.

In other Trophy Unlocked news, Trevor's review of Ghost of Tsushima went up on Wednesday, which seems to be the day for video game reviews.

Six years ago, we were still looking for an artist for Powers Squared, now we've published nine issues and are getting ready to publish our tenth, while number 15 is getting worked on. I think we've come a long way but, like most things, have a long way yet to go.

Even though this hasn't been the best seller I think we thought it would, it still has been fun. I like working with my sons on it. Paul and I work a lot together on podcasts and videos, which I do enjoy. I've also really enjoyed working with our artists, especially Rachel Wells and our colorists, shout outs to Julia Canon. Comic books are a collaborative art and I really like the idea of making it better.

And I've enjoyed most of the ancillary work, like the website, the podcast, the videos, the social media and the newsletters. I hope you've taken a moment to take a look at them at least once in the past six years. (Shameless plug: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/join)

There is a big difference, I think, between Issue #1 and Issue #10, not only in the art style but also in the storytelling. I'm anxious to see if we can take this further but I feel like COVID has kept us in neutral. We're still working on the engine and I think we'll be better placed when race day comes around again.

We'll enough with the metaphors. Keep writing and I'll see you back here again next week.

A Week in Writing #309 - Report from the Home Front

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll no doubt remember that when I attend a con, I try to give you a report detailing what I've learned, as a Report from the Front. With COVID-19 spreading, San Diego Comic-Con went virtual this year, so while I attended, I never did leave my couch.

Usually, I make an effort to attend as many how-to programs and panels, but this year there were far fewer of those types and even fewer that really interested me. So my report this time will be somewhat limited. We, as a family, attended several panels via YouTube, which was the only way for the Comic-Con sponsored ones. (Adult Swim, as an example, had their own panels via Twitch). I would say that we spent a lot of time attending panels that were sponsored by Warner Bros, either the Archive or HBO Max, the latter of which seems to be where all the new Cartoon Network-produced programming is going. We have a lot of favorites, such as Summer Camp Island and Adventure Time, which were part of several panels, including one about Storyboarding, which was very interesting.

There was also a Phineas and Ferb panel, this one from Disney+ about the Candace Against the Universe movie that is coming out on that streaming service later in the summer. We've been watching the series pretty much every weekday at lunch, and I think we're all looking forward to the movie, even though we currently don't subscribe to the streaming service.

Warner Bros sponsored two panels, one about the 80th Anniversary of Bugs Bunny, which was a long infomercial for a set they're releasing later this year. And Warner Archives sponsored one about the Secret Origin of Saturday Morning Cartoons, even though the secret is that the original cartoons were reruns of theatrically released cartoons. Both were interesting but not really how-to presentations.

Even though we have a colorist, Paul and I were interested in How To Color a Comic Book, sponsored by Hi-Fi, a coloring service that walked through their process and gave some tips on what they do versus what others do. Fairly informative though I'm still happy with the colorist we have and the work she does.

There were a couple of panels about the Narrative in Videogames, which I think Paul understood better than the rest of us. I've always thought there is a videogame in Powers Squared and watching the panel did get me to thinking about story branches and alternative endings, though I profess not to know a thing about scripting one. It is interesting to hear terms like "Bark", "Cinematic" and "V.O." being used.

We did watch a panel that promised to discuss the science behind Back to the Future, but which really discussed science in comic books and science fiction. This is one of the issues with panels is that they sometimes don't get to point they were supposed to. I was hoping to hear something about hoverboards and instead saw a brief demonstration of a robotic skirt that one of the panelists designed.

Watched a panel about networking. These panels are never really about how-to but more the benefits of having done so in nature. There was a panelist who does marketing for comic books, so I did contact her after the panel. Too soon to have heard back and I don't want to get ahead of myself and commit to hiring her, though I would like to hear what she could do for us and Issue #10, which is coming out soon. I will, of course, let you know if anything comes of this.

Two more panels on Sunday had some useful information. There was a panel on The Writer's Journey: Developing a Producer's Mentality. This was more about working on your own IPs rather than someone else's. And while you may have to be willing to make some changes to get it published or produced, there has to be a line that you're not willing to cross; and if you walk away, you have to really walk away.

The other panel, and our last one of the Con, The Grind NEVER Stops, not even during a quarantine led by Bryan "Kaiser" Tillman. He led another panel that we attended last year and is really a very inspirational speaker. His point was that creatives should use the time during a pandemic to get things done, rather than play videogames and watching Netflix. His advice was 1) Time Management: Plan out your day and then you'll see how much time you actually have; 2) Study: Look at the work of others and see why it is effective; 3) Practice: Work on the areas that you need to improve; 4) Development: The first draft is not going to be your best. You need to work on it to make it better; and, 5) Network: Find groups of like people on social media and share with them and comment on their work as well. While I think Kaiser's intended audience is artists, much of what he said is applicable to writers as well.

Since all the panels were pre-recorded and available on YouTube, it's probably not too late to watch them. You can go to https://www.comic-con.org/cciathome/2020/programming-schedule and see what you might have missed.

I did manage to get some writing done this week and during the downtimes between "Panels". One of the advantages of Comic-Con@Home is that you're not trapped there and can do other things while you wait.

This week, I finished the pencil and paper editing on The Runaway and began to type up those changes. I think I was hoping that the edits would not only make the book better but might have a few more words. I think I was hoping for at least 1000, but I've only added a couple of 100 words and I'm about 25% of the way through the book this time around, or version 9 if you're keeping track.

I also finished the two reviews I started last weekend, The Bribe and Top Gun. They'll be coming out sometime in the future. This week, we continued the trend of publishing a videogame review on Wednesdays with Trevor's review of Spec Ops: The Line for PS3. In keeping with the spirit of Comic-Con, my review of Batman: The Killing Joke went up on Saturday. A bit of coincidence that was also the 4th anniversary of its release in theaters.

We even managed to review some inks from Rachel for Powers Squared and work a little bit on getting a Discord group up and running. Our colorist, Julia Canon, is the spearhead behind that and it promises to make the communication and sharing easier.

We also had the time to write and send the latest newsletter on Powers Squared, The Bark, which you can subscribe to here.

So, to wrap this up, while I enjoyed the extra time and extra money that Comic-Con@Home provided me, I really missed the actual event itself. With all the hassles and people, there is really nothing like it and missing it for a year makes me more excited about going next year.

Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #286 - Under the Weather but Still Writing

Being under the weather and writing don't go hand-in-hand, or at least you really can't be one and do much with the other. I'm mentioning this because I've been a touch under the weather for the past few days. Nothing serious, not even really a cold or the terrible Coronavirus. Just a little dry throat, running nose and weak in the knees. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling better but this isn't how I wanted to spend the day off I took on Friday nor the upcoming President's Day holiday. But what is it they say, life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. I'm sure I've used that before to describe a week of writing that has not gone as planned.

Let's start with Trophy Unlocked this time to reveal how little I've done this week. No new reviews from me, though the blog has been busy. Seven reviews were posted in seven days, a rare feat for the site. 6 of them were related to Sonic Week, five reviews of games and a Japanese OVA leading to the release of Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) and that review, which was posted today. The Saturday Morning Review was Kingdom Hearts III Re Mind + Concert Video (DLC). None of these seven reviews were written by me, which is fine. Sonic is not really in my wheelhouse.

I did have an idea for a review but when I sat down to work on it I couldn't concentrate enough on it to make any headway. The review would be for next Valentine's Day, The Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), which I happened to have seen the next day on TV in its entirety and without commercial interruption. It seems fitting for next year. I just have to write it.

Did some work on The Runaway. There was another unrelated news story that I was able to weave into the story, or at least I'd like to think I was able to. All the same, not really all that much progress was made overall on the story.

This leaves us with Powers Squared, and it is once again here that I think I spent most of my time. This week, Paul and I each, separately, went over the last three issues of the book, 10-13, What's in a Name? looking at the lettering. For the most part, there weren't any issues, just a couple of run together words and some misplaced punctuations. Paul did edit down some dialogue and had Trevor, who does the lettering, move a speech bubble. This led to our weekly podcast, On The Air With Powers Squared, inviting Trevor on as a guest and talking about the importance of lettering as the topic.

Finishing them off allowed us to send out the last of the Kickstarter rewards. So, we're finally finished with that project.

During the week, I managed to nail down our signing at Golden Apple, a very important comic book store here in Los Angeles. We're scheduled for two hours on the afternoon of March 14th. I spoke to one of the owners by phone on Monday so I guess it's as official as it will get. I've ordered issues to sell and we've designed a special trading card for the occasion. We're hoping to make the most of the event as we can.

Paul and I, despite being under the weather, did our weekly video A Week in Powers Squared and sent out the latest edition of our mini newsletter, The Bark. As they say in the theater, the show must go on.

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

A Week in Writing #281 - Rough Week

Okay, funny story (I'll let you be the judge of this) I was so prepared for this to be a rough week that for the first time since I've been doing this blog I unintentionally did not post this on a Sunday. I didn't realize my mistake until Monday morning when I checked to see if anyone had read the post. First time in five and a half years. Hopefully, I won't make that mistake again.

Rough week going back to work after two weeks off. Wasn't really as bad as I had feared. It helped that everyone was pretty much feeling the same way. But it was tough getting up before the sun again. At the same time, it was good to get back to a routine of some kind. Not only had I not been exercising as much as I should during the break. I'm not sure I did more writing either.

This week it was back to everything. I did some writing on The Runaway. I had been and still am rewriting based on a change I had made in the rewrite if that makes sense. I'm trying to work on it every chance I get. I even did some work on the book this morning.

Work, as always, continues on Powers Squared. New penciled pages from our artist, the continuing search for a new colorist and the launch of a new email. We had been doing a weekly newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, the name of the college newspaper in the comic book. While the act of putting one together wasn't arduous it is time-consuming. We decided with the start of the new year to make that a monthly email. However, things happen every week and we wanted a way of communicating weekly.

We bounced around a few names but settled on Paul's suggestion, The Bark, which fits in well with The Howl. It's a much shorter email to put together and with the exception of the URL for our weekly video, it is more just a matter of writing a few lines of text. Fun and informative. You can subscribe to the newsletters, and everything else Powers Squared here.

Paul and I continued our assault on all media this week, with a Podcast on Friday, On The Air With Powers Squared and our weekly video A Week in Powers Squared. In the podcast, we discussed what worked and didn't work for us during our recent Kickstarter. It was one of our longer podcasts, running for about 28 minutes. Usually, we do five to ten minutes. Hopefully, it will help someone, if they listen.

Our AWPS video was more casual, as we introduced The Bark, talked about the work this week and put in a plea for Australian Fire Relief.

As far as reviews go, wrote one for 1917 after watching it on Saturday morning. We're trying to space out our reviews and hit 1000 by the end of the month, so I think it will be coming out later this week. In the meantime, the Saturday Morning Review was Trevor's review of Treasure Planet, a Disney animated remake.

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