A Week in Writing #542 - *(@-$%?!!!

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. And hey, Happy New Year!

I've read elsewhere that somewhere between Christmas and New Years, you start to forget which day you're in. While that really didn't happen for me, I do think I enjoy post-Christmas as much as pre-Christmas. There are a lot of pressures that are off and you do things like go to movies, play board games, minature golf and even a puzzle.

I did have a less than fun experience this past week, when I became the victim of fraud. A check that I had sent to pay off my credit card bill was pulled out of the mailbox, scrubbed, the payee changed and the amount changed and cashed. Another check I sent to pay for a home improvement project was also apparently waylaided and apparently hasn't arrived and hasn't been cashed. So, now I'm deliquent on two payments. I tried to pay online, but they have to do test deposits, etc., so that's not a quick answer to my problem. Had to change bank accounts, but the money hasn't yet been returned to my account. More fun to come and I'm sure a hit to my credit rating. Enough about my personal life.

Looking ahead to 2025, Paul and I did a podcast about that for Powers Squared. OAPS #277 - Powers Squared 2025 Preview. We talk about the books that are coming out, including The Blade of Miracles (TBOM), and four issues of Powers Squared, as well as our attendance at WonderCon in March. You can listen to that now here, or watch it on Wednesday on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at 2:30 pm on Wednesday, here.

Our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl went out today. I'd invite you, as I do once a month, to subscribe here. It's free and you get a free issue of Powers Squared as a reward. And the content is not the same as this post.

Progress made this week on the books, with the main line work done on the pencils for Issue 28, pages 9-16, and final cover art for Issue #27. 

Played the Copyright dance this weekend for the two complete issues of Powers Squared, #24 and 25, as well as 12 issues of TBOM.

Reviews don't take a holiday on Trophy Unlocked. The year ended on Tuesday with separate lists from Paul (EHeroFlareNeos), Trevor (Tetris_King) and myself (lionsroar). You'll notice a lot of the same films, since we see most of them together. I did a review of A Complete Unknown for News Year's Day. and my review of review of Mystery House went up as the Saturday Morning Review.

I also completed a couple of reviews, one for A Night at the Opera, which we watched on New Year's Eve, and The Lodger (1927), which we watched on Saturday night. Not sure when either will go up.

My goal was to finish the rewrite to Skylar by the end of the year. I'm about 40 pages short. Wasn't able to work on it as much as I wanted, but I also came to a point where I needed to write an additional chapter. I'm now just above 80,000 words, so that's good.

I want to finish the rewrites before going back to doing queries. I need to pick the book, have a synopsis ready and a letter, so there's even more work to be done to get there.

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

A Week in Writing #488 - Merry Christmas

Hope everyone is staying safe, and, of course, writing. And hope you have a Merry Christmas if you celebrate.

As we get close to the end of the year, it always sees like it's time to look back at the year. That's what we did on Friday's On the Air with Powers Squared podcast. Our artist wasn't able to make it, but we had colorist Jen Moreno and letterer, and co-creator, Trevor Hankins came on the show to take a look back at the 4 issues we released and the 60 videos we put out on our YouTube Channel. We are nothing, if not consistent.

The most views we had on a video this year, unaided, was OAPS 213 Eyeshield 21 21th Anniversary with 71. We did 8 book clubs with the one with the most views was OAPS 192 Comic Book Club #7 - Made in Abyss with 41 views. We had three guest interviews on the show with OAPS 204 A Conversation with David Petersen getting the most views with 40.

Powers Squared released four issues this year: Issue #16: "Mocha and Raven Part 1" on March 15; Issue #17: "Mocha and Raven Part 2" on June 14; Issue #18: "Mocha and Raven Part 3" on Sept 6; and Issue #19: "Kamaitachi" released on December 6. All are available in digital and print through The Campus Store.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we finished work on Issue #23 and saw the first pages come into their own for Issue #26.

For Trophy Unlocked, the Saturday Morning Review was our last for the holiday season, my review of  Lady on a Train. This week, I also wrote two future reviews for the blog. One, Hell's Heroes (1929), which I watched on my laptop, will probably wait until next Christmas and the other, Wonka (2023), which I watched in a theater, will be coming out next week.

My big hope this week was to work more on Skylar. On that, I failed to get much done. I did decide to remove a section from this book and add it to the next one I've already started. If it makes sense, the situation in the next book, still unnamed, fits better. Well, that's no excuse, but it does show I'm at least thinking about it.

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

A Week in Writing #436 - So This is Christmas

Hope everyone is safe, and, of course, writing. And, while we're at it, Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays, if you prefer).

I don't know if it shows dedication or stupidity, but here I am writing out this post on Christmas evening. All the presents have been unwrapped, a couple of returns, and we're waiting on dinner but for the most part, the "fun" part of the holiday is over. If you're curious, the big gift for me this year was the Remastered Revolver set, which I held back on until Christmas. Items like that with a healthy price tag seem better suited to Christmas. But enough about me, well, the personal me, well, the really personal me; I mean this blog is pretty much about me, isn't it?

Writing, as it always does, tends to be harder, somehow, during the holidays. I think it has to do with the routine being thrown out the window. Big chunks of time and so many other things to do. As an example, I spent three hours getting a tire replaced this past week. While I really enjoyed walking around to shops and a bookstore, I had planned on doing something else during that time.

So, what have I done so far this week? Well, I did complete a 3000+ word review for Trophy Unlocked for the film O. Henry Full House. I've seen bits and pieces of the film for years and one night it was on, so I watched it. And when I watch, I review. As always, not sure when it will appear, but it's another one under the belt, so to speak.

There was a review from each one of us this week on the blog. Trevor started things off with his Wednesday (Game Day) review of Little Inferno: Ho Ho Holiday (DLC). My review of the short Star in the Night (1945) went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Christmas Eve. Today, Paul posted a review of  the TV Special Adult Swim Yule Log. I'm pretty sure you caught on to a general theme surrounding the reviews.

By the end of the year, or later this week, I have to write my Year End Wrap Up. All three of us write about the highlights of the year. I'm sort of limited to films, but Paul and Trevor can write about games as well. That's a little out of my wheelhouse. Didn't really see all that many new films this year and I'm pretty sure we've avoided most of what will be nominated for Academy Awards, though not on purpose. Ironically, one of the best films we did see in a theater was It's A Wonderful Life, but that film is 76 years old, so I don't think it will count.

Did a little bit of writing on fka Skylar. Again, nothing to write home about and it's getting about as much mention as it deserves here.

More work on Powers Squared, though not all of it writing. As I believe I've mentioned once or twice, our artist, Rachel Wells, is leaving us at the end of the year and we're "auditioning" Julia Canon, our current colorist, for the gig. We had a productive conversation with her about some character designs. I have high hopes that it will work out. Should get revisions this week.

Wrote my premise for the pilot we've been toying around with rewriting and Paul did his own. I don't think we mesh exactly, but we'll have to work it through.

I also started working on an idea for a spin-off story, Billy and Raven, characters from an upcoming story arc. I'm just in the beginning stages of it now. Don't want to give too much away since the books they're from haven't come out yet.

We were used recently in a promotional video for Artithmeric. I tried to post it here but it didn't seem to work. We're just one of the books highlighted. It's nice to be recognized. You can watch it here, if you're interested in seeing it.

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

A Week in Writing #385 - Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year's celebration and that, of course, you've been writing.

Tell me if this has ever happened to you. A couple of days ago, I was lying in bed in that half-awake state and a bunch of dialogue for the book I'm writing came to me. It sounded so good to me at the time and gave the story a different slant. Too bad, I didn't have a chance to get up right then and there and write it out. I guess I thought it would stay with me. Well, tonight, I finally had the opportunity to put it down and it's not quite as good as I remembered it being. I figured it's better than it was and hopefully, I can make it better when I get to edit. I don't think I'm alone on this.

I've been able to do some writing during the holidays but it's also been a time to hang with family so sometimes other things have taken priority and some nights, I didn't do much.

That doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. I've been trying to do some work on the upcoming Kickstarter, trying out some ideas for title and credits pages. Still a work in progress. In addition, had a conversation with our colorist on some chibis I've asked her to do. Again, still a work in progress.

It sort of seems that Powers Squared has taken a holiday break as, besides four colored pages and a cover, there hasn't been anything new to look at for a while. I'm sure things will get back on track in the new year.

Trophy Unlocked celebrated a milestone this past Saturday, as Paul's review of  The 25th Ward: The Silver Case was the 1300th one on the blog. Quite an accomplishment when you think about it. On New Year's Eve, we posted our end-of-the-year lists, with each of us, Paul, Trevor, and myself doing our own lists. Theirs also include video games which I don't have time to play. Even though it's the holiday season, Wednesday is still game day on Trophy Unlocked, with Paul's review of Octodad: Dadliest Catch.

I did complete a new review of To Be or Not to Be, the 1942 film starring Jack Benny and Carole Lombard in her final film. As with most of my reviews, I don't know when it will post. I also prepped some Christmas-themed reviews for the blog, which again, I don't know when they'll appear. I already think we have a backlog of Christmas/holiday films as it is. I've also been discovering that our drive-by definition for Christmas films (if it happens at the holiday it's a Christmas film), seems to be more common as TCM showed a lot of "Christmas" films this past month that had only a tangential connection to the holiday.

I'm not sure when but next month I'll be getting back to the joys of querying and I'll update you on that when it happens. I think the first week back to work probably isn't any better for agents than it is for me returning to work.

I guess I should say something about my goals for the new year, as this is the first post of 2022. Of course, I want to find an agent, a process I hate but it seems like the best way to get published. With Powers Squared more issues, a successful Kickstarter, and the chance to pitch the book as a series. I'm also hoping to continue to grow our mailing list and subscribers to our podcast OAPS. And, of course, keep writing this weekly missive with hopefully really cool news to report on all things above.

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

A Week in Writing #280 - Pretty Much Taking the Week Off

The holidays and writing aren't always complimentary. While I did do some writing, I didn't do as much as I thought I would have. Maybe not the best way to start the New Year but what are you going to do.

Let's start with what I did do. I did some rewrites on The Runaway but didn't really do anything on it after Monday. I believe I've gotten through all the changes I needed to make so far in the story. Making a change in a story is like throwing a rock in the water, it starts a ripple effect and there might be changes still to come as I continue the rewrite process.

On Saturday, a review I wrote last year about Treasure Island (1950) was published as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. Next week, we'll be featuring a review of a remake of sorts, Treasure Planet, which Trevor wrote as a companion piece. The blog is counting down to its 1000th review. Mine makes 995 so we're getting close. 

Before the year ended, all three of the writers on Trophy Unlocked published our highlight/lowlight lists for 2019. Mine is more film-centric than Paul's or Trevor's.

I also wrote a new one for Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, a film we watched as part of our annual post-Christmas movie day. We have more than one copy of the film in our library. The version we watched as a Criterion Blu-Ray of the 1969 re-release. The review ended up being about 2500 words. 

Work on Powers Squared continued. The comic book seems to be the one thing that we never take a break from, at least not a long break. Paul and I spent part of a day doing some business work, checking to see if we need any new copyrights, not yet; uploading a digital copy of Issue #8 onto the Comixology website and reviewing some candidates for the coloring opening we have.

During the past week, we also made our first attempt to line up a signing at a comic book store. I will admit I was a little surprised at the positive response to our overture but there is still more to do before I mention the who involved but it is one of our goals for the new year and I was happy  we at least got a start on it.

Later that day, I uploaded issues we have on Ka-Blam to their IndyPlanet website. IndyPlanet provides both digital and printed versions, so we're hoping that it will increase our readership and coffers.

I also paid for all the Kickstarter Rewards with our physical providers and updated the Kickstarter page with information from one of them. 

Paul and I continued to do our weekly On The Air with Powers Squared podcast and A Week in Powers Squared YouTube video. We are changing the newsletter from weekly to monthly. It's a real grind to do a full-blown weekly newsletter. We're still going to email our list throughout the month but make them more targeted. In fact, I imagine we'll be sending out more emails than before.

Seems like a busy week, though I always feel like there is more I could have done. But holidays are meant to be enjoyed. Next week, reality comes back with a vengeance. It will be back to a routine and I'm hoping there will be more time to write as a result.

In the meantime, keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #227

This is supposed to be one of those weeks when you take a look back at what you've done and look forward to what you want to get accomplished. I'm going to resist the temptation to look back at 52 weekly posts to come up with this year-end post.

Let's begin with Powers Squared. So much has happened and there is still so much to do. We began the year with a new creative team. Paul and I wanted to take the comic book in a new direction and we were happy to start working with Rachel Wells and Nina Gaillard on the comic book. Because of them, this has been a very productive year, which we will begin releasing in 2019. We've completed three issues and are about a month or so away from completing a fourth. (It previously took us two full years to get five done.)

The last three of the first five issues came out this year and despite some nice publicity, including an interview with FreakSugar, reviews in First Comic News, a nice write-up in Adventures in Poor Taste and an Ask Me Anything, I don't think we broke any sales records. In fact, I don't think we've sold enough to warrant getting paid by comiXology. (In fact, I think the lack of sales caused them to sort of turn their backs on us, so to speak.) It would be easy to give up, but I think the best stories are still to come.

I don't talk about the cost to produce the comic book (and I won't here, either) but let's just say it takes just about every extra penny we have and preventing us, as a family, from doing things like taking vacations, doing things to the house, to buying a new car. I'm hoping to change some of that by doing some crowdfunding in the coming year. I don't want you to cry for me Argentina, but we're hoping to get some help and, hopefully, more exposure for the comic.

We've tried to grow our social media presence with a website, a Facebook page, an Instagram account, Tumblr account, Twitter account, a YouTube Channel, and, lastly, a Pinterest account. That's not to say we've been successful on all fronts. You have to keep feeding these platforms and sometimes that's very difficult. I don't want to get too far ahead with revealing too much about future issues so that when they come out we have new images to share. At the same time, I wanted to promote the issues that came out last year, which sort of left our current Creative Team on the sidelines while we did that.

Now, we can concentrate on our new issues. I plan to submit Issues 6 and 7 early in the new year to comiXology but would also like to see if we can get some support from some of the media outlets that had supported us last time out.

Would also like to look into printing on demand. To that end, I spent some time this week coming up with back covers, both inside and out, for the issues. Now to get those reviewed and then we'll see where to go from there.

Work has already begun on Issue #10. We've submitted the script to Rachel, who has already begun to do some sketches for a new character we're introducing. She also seemed to really like the script which is a good thing as we're going to be living with this story arc for most of the coming year. This story arc is called What's in a Name? and will continue for three issues.

Trophy Unlocked celebrated its eighth anniversary and the 900th review post this past year. We're getting our end of the year posts ready and those will be out tomorrow, the 31st. This past week, we posted three new reviews. In addition to our usual Saturday Morning Review, What Price Hollywood?, we also published a review of Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which Trevor wrote. We also published one more from Paul for Ready Player One.

Every year, we spend the day after Christmas watching movies, which we call Movie Day (I know, really clever). As a result, we have a couple of reviews, including Ready Player One and one I wrote for Wonder Wheel. Not sure if we'll be writing reviews of the other films we watched that day or not. One of them, Incredibles 2, we've already written about.

While I wasn't sure last week about the rewrite for The Runaway, I did some work on Christmas Day and a couple of other days this past week. The stumbling block I thought I had sort of disappeared when I got back to it. So I'm about 12,000 words into that rewrite.

Still no word from my editor on Familiar Stranger. Despite his promises to the contrary, it has been radio-silence for most of this year. I did receive about 50 pages but that was literally months ago. I wish I didn't feel the pressure to get the work done but I do. And frankly, I have a hard time when other people don't feel the same urgency. But there isn't much I can do to light a fire under him.

I need to spend some time putting together a list of potential agents to try and sell Broken People. I've kept spreadsheets in the past but I think I'm going to start the process from scratch. There are a few agents from the Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conference that I'd like to query to as well.

So next year, I hope it's a breakout year for Powers Squared, with more eyes on Trophy Unlocked and I find an agent for my books. Tall order, but that's what dreams are made of.

A Week in Writing #175

This was sadly the week that almost wasn't for me. I can't blame this solely on the holidays, either. My wife and I both came down with what I assume was food-poisoning after our family ate out on Christmas Eve. It didn't really come on to me until late on Christmas Day and didn't let up for a couple of days. Things got pushed back, even Movie Day, which is our traditional day after Christmas day to veg and watch movies.

So basically, I lost about half of the week and really haven't gotten much done. Before I fell under the spell of sickness, I did finish the chapter I was working on in Familiar Stranger, but not much more I'm sad to say. The count and amount, if anyone besides me is keeping track, is 61,334 words and 328 pages. I had higher hopes.

No new reviews this week either. On Movie Day, we watched three films that I think will result in reviews from me for Trophy Unlocked: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934); Time Bandits and Beggars of Life. The latter film is the one I've begun working on. A silent film which stars Wallace Beery, my main interest is the lead actress Louise Brooks. I was given a book about the film for Christmas, Beggars of Life: A Companion to the 1928 Film which I've since read as part of research for the review. The book is surprisingly thin but does provide some depth I couldn't find anywhere else. It also pointed me to an essay Louise Brooks had written, On Location with Billy Wellman, which is also about her experience with the filming. I had read this essay before, but read it again as more research for the review.

In the meantime, worked on my end of the year list, which was published earlier today, along with those by the other two writers on Trophy Unlocked. See Paul's here and Trevor's here. With nothing new to show, published Twins as the blog's last Saturday Morning Review of the year. (Our 825th since the blog was founded.)

At the end of that review, I put a link to our own story about twins, Powers Squared (see what I did there?). To that end, my big accomplishment of the week with the comic book was to register Issues 3 through 5 for copyright and sending the script for the next two issues to the artist and the colorist. Funny how sometimes even small accomplishments can seem huge. But that was the week that almost wasn't.

Well, this is the time of the year when you're supposed to say I want to be sure to write more in the coming year, but that goes without saying; that's my goal every week.

So to everyone out there, Happy New Year and may 2018 be creative and productive for you.

A Week in Writing #123

Happy New Years! A time to look back and a time to look forward.

My hope is to become a published author with the goal of being able to make a living from writing. I know that's what they call in business a "stretch goal", but it is something that I try to work on everyday, though some days are better than others.

I started this year with high hopes and while I haven't reached any of my goals, I am, I think, getting closer. I wanted to work on two things this past year, my detective fiction and the comic book. Sadly, it has become a choice and more often than not, I've had to choose the comic book, PowerSquared (Powers Squared) because it was in the active progress of being drawn.

There always seems to be something that needs to happen with it, just as there is now. We're always nudging an artist to complete the task at hand; necessary, but never fun. It was only days ago that the artist finished the color and we're gearing up for the third issue. I really hope that it won't take as long.

I can't go into things at present, but we (Paul and I) are trying to take steps to ensure that it doesn't. It makes me mad that it's taken so long and I don't want to go another year like this one again. A learning experience, yes, but not always a pleasant one. 2017 will not be like that one. But while I want speed, I have to balance that with the expense. Self-funded means that I can't go as fast as I'd like, at least not with there being no money coming in for it. I hope that changes as well in the new year.

I really want to get back to the detective fiction in the worst way. There are two books that desperately need rewriting and agents to query for rejections. And I have other ideas that I want to put down on "paper", I may have to get better at segregating my time. Since I only have an hour or two each day, I might have to segregate my limited time between projects.

While I really wish I could have written more, the holidays are not necessarily the best time for it. There were other things to do and they all take time away from writing. Still, I managed to write three reviews this past week. One I published on Saturday, a 1200 word review of Good Ol' Freda (2013), a documentary about Brian Epstein's secretary who also ran The Beatles Fan Club from before they were The big "B" Beatles and until after they broke up. And about 900 words about the current film Passengers that was published today. I also wrote 3100 words about Shield For Murder (1954), which will be published later.

One thing about writing reviews is that they're usually easy to do and they don't take much time to do. Everything else takes weeks and months and endless rewrites, so I never get the same feeling of accomplishment as I do with a review.

Here's hoping that 2017 is a better year than 2016. That we all get what we want to accomplish done and new opportunities will open themselves up for continued growth.

A Week in Writing #122

Getting near the end of the year is always the time to be looking back on what you've accomplished and what still needs to be done. Maybe I'm a week early here, but that doesn't mean I won't be doing more soul-searching next week as well.

One thing 2016 has driven home is the frailty of existence. I won't try to name all of the artists who have died this past year, but it does make you want to get on with things. Waiting sucks, there is no other way to put it. And while you're waiting, another day, week or month that you could have been doing something gets ticked off, and like money you spend, you don't get it back.

The fact that it has taken more than a year and we're not even finished with the first two issues of PowerSquared makes me feel more impatient than ever. I don't really blame Paul or myself for the delays in getting the work done. We try to turn around our comments within a day or two of receiving work, which sometimes gets us into trouble as we have overlooked details that we've had to have fixed later when we might have seen if we weren't in so much of a hurry.

I might be satisfied if we were a few days or even weeks away from finishing, but we are not. So much has to be redone before the comic would be publishing worthy, that it's not really funny. We're going to have to shake up the creative team, probably before the new year, because things can not go on as they have been; we will never get it done if we don't. Even though it feels like a vanity project, that is not the intent. This has been a learning experience for me, as I now know better what not to do.

Well, that's enough about what's wrong with the comic book. When we make changes I'll be more forthcoming.

Did write a one-shot this week for it, showing how Marty and Eli meet Mocha. While we touch upon this moment in the second issue, I wanted to show it more from her point of view, which this one-shot would do. When I had the idea it didn't take more than a couple of nights this past week to get a good draft done. I'm sure there'll be more rewrites, especially if we get closer to doing it, but I think it tells what I want it to and with minimal dialogue. I know I'm wordy as a writer, but sometimes I try to write with minimal dialogue and this is one of those cases. Another one to put aside until the time is right.

Well, the time is right, I guess, to end this post. I'll be writing more next week as I look back on my year in writing. Until then, Happy Holidays to the dozen of you that read this. Thanks for your continued support.