A Week in Writing #615 - Blackmail (Second Draft) Done

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

Well, the headline is that I've finished a second draft of Blackmail. It's the latest in a series of unpublished novels I've written with main character J.D. Barrister, a Los Angeles based private detective. In this book, J.D. is recently married to Dr. Leanne Wilson, who is also two months pregnant. They attend a fundraiser for victims of the L.A. fires at the home of her ex-husband, actor Terry Wilson. Their marriage ended due to his infidelity. It is at the event that J.D. finds out that Terry, preying on her desire to make him happy, took a series of nude in public photographs of her before and during their marriage. He claims there are two volumes of photos and he offers to give one back each time J.D. does a job for him, rather than publish them, which would be embarrassing and bad publicity for her practice.

The first job is to find a woman that it turns out Terry had underage sex with a few years prior following a convention in Anaheim. J.D. manages to track her down to a small town in Michigan, where she's attending college. They meet and he finds out Terry has been paying for $20,000 a month to keep quiet about the incident. Making contact with her gives J.D. the first volume of photos, but to get the second one, Terry wants J.D. to kill her and record the killing.

I don't know how that sounds to anyone, but if you have comments, please feel free to leave them. It's currently, 88,451 words long and I'm going to give it another go through, as I've changed some actions and want to be sure they all line up.

But rather than start in on that right away, I picked up another story I had started. J.D. is hired to find a runaway who has been missing for 15 years. I was about 20,000 words into it before I decided to work on Blackmail. It doesn't have a title yet. I've started reading through it, finding a half started chapter in the middle of what I've written. I think I know what I was intending to do, but it's been several months.

We ended up having to watch our scheduled Friday night movie on Saturday night, Mortal Kombat, prior to seeing Mortal Kombat II, today. Not a good movie for me to review, so nothing new from me this week. I did finish my review of The Wind, if you're curious, but no date for release. The Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked this week is Paul's Second Opinion Toy Story. Hint: there's going to be more Toy Story content in the weeks to come on that blog.

Spent an evening resizing pages for the next two issues of Powers Squared. It's not work I like to have to do, but someone does. We still need to file for copyrights, perhaps next week, and then decide on a release date. We did hear back from the Copyright office about their turning down our months-old application, can we can simply register them separately. It made sense to us, but we had to ask.

Work continues on the next issue of the book, "Aroma Therapy, Part 1". Our artist is working on page 11, so I'm hoping her work wraps up in a couple of months and the issue will hopefully be finished two months after that. Our colorist is about a month behind the artist and the letterer a month after that.

Our podcast this week, was "(The Rest of) The Fourth Doctor". We had very recently finished watching Season 2 of the Tom Baker series, which was the only one we hadn't seen. This gave us a chance to finish off our discussion from before. You can listen to it on our website, watch it on our twitch.tv channel for the next few days, or wait and watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at 2:30 pm PDT on Wednesday. Our guest next week is comic book writer David Blake Lucarelli (Tinseltown, The Children's Vampire Hunting Brigade). We'll go live at 6 pm PDT next Friday at twitch.tv/powerssquared. Be there and Be Squared.

This is newsletter week, so a lot of my attention will be putting together The Hound Dogs' Howl. You can always subscribe, for FREE, at https://mailchi.mp/9b9f918f79af/m1hbvbxiyn. It comes out on the first Sunday of every month, and is different from this blog, if you've ever wondered.

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

A Week in Writing #614 - It's My Fault

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

Well, I won't keep you in suspense any longer. I finally did hear back from PaddyPost about the issues I ranted about last week. Apparently, with my issue with Linkedin, their instructions were to remove the links and try again. I did that and sent a sample text and it made it to Linkedin. Why it took weeks to get that advice, I don't know.

As far as my problem with losing the connection to BlueSky, they put that on BlueSky, which I guess is sort of finicky, so until BlueSky gets right, the losing connection is going to continue. Actually, I don't know if it's BlueSky or PaddyPost to blame, but it's a continuing problem. I reconnected today as a matter of fact, and it disconnected again while I was writing this.

My week sort of got waylaid by a trade I was prepping for the printers. When I got the proof back, all the pages seemed too close to the edge. This printer has a template that I violated, so I was going to redo all the pages and spent a couple of nights working on that before I realized that most of the pages could more easily redone to conform, so that went faster than I feared.

Attended a potluck over the weekend that included other comic book creators. And I discovered that I'm rather horrible at starting conversations. I had never met the host before and I managed to introduce myself, and my family, but until someone showed up that I knew, we huddled together. We did end up having a rather lengthy discussion with another writer at the party but only after he started the conversation. After that we made a hasty retreat.

My review of A Farewell to Arms (1932) went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. Paul's review of Super Mario Galaxy 2 was the Wednesday Game Day review. I'm currently working on a review of The Wind (1928). I seem to be stuck in the silent era lately. Not that I mind that really, as these are films I wanted to see.

Work on Powers Squared continues at a good pace. I did get some rather unexpected news from the U.S. Copyright Office. I had submitted registrations back in August of last year, for two publications that were being released, but because two different people were the writers, we couldn't submit them together. This, of course, dates back to August of last year and I just got that notification this past Thursday. What's 9+ months? I'm going to try to register them individually then, but I think that's a long time to take.

Our podcast this week was about Summer Movies. Paul and I went through the release schedule through the end of August and discussed films we were wanting to see. You can listen here, watch it for a few more days on our Twitch channel, or wait and watch in on YouTube after 2:30 pm on Wednesday.

My goal had been to work more, almost exclusively on Blackmail, however, things didn't go as planned. I'm still working through the changes but I'm behind where I wanted to be. So far, the book is a little shorter than it had been, 87,921 words, which is almost entirely due to the edits I'm working on.

Next week, I'm hoping to work more on Blackmail, but we'll see what the week has in store for me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #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 #374 - Almost Ready for Copyright

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

Thursday plays big this past week.

I was off from work that day, it was my wife's birthday but I was hoping to squeeze in registering Issues #13 and #14, The Imposter Parts 1 and 2. I hadn't actually made a .pdf out of the pages yet, which we would use to copyright them, and as it turns out, we hadn't done a final review of the issues. Found a couple of change that needed to be made. Mostly it was moving a speech balloon, but there was one that went back to the actual artwork in one panel on one page.

Long story short, the inks were changed this morning and now it's back to the colorist, who is aware of the issue. Speaking of Julia Canon, we had her as a guest on Friday night on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, to discuss her work on Issue #19, Kamaitachi. Paul and I went over the eight pages she had handed in earlier in the week and gave her live feedback. It's the first time we've done something like that and it went pretty well.

Feel like I got in some good work this week on Skylar, though I'm still thinking about changing the name. One of the things I enjoy is sometimes going back and planting something for use later and I had that opportunity this week. Something minor, like a photograph, but I think it adds a little detail to the story and that rings true as well.

No queries this week, again blame it on Thursday. For some reason, I have it in my head that Thursday night is query night and there were priorities on Thursday. A little preview, next Thursday doesn't look good either but for other reasons, which I'll get into next week.

I don't know about you, but there are times during work when I look forward to working on something. You can sort of taste it all day and when I finally get the opportunity to work on it, that's all I want to do. For me that week was the pitch packet for Powers Squared, which I did finish a draft of. (BTW, I never look forward to doing queries, too much like homework.) I know there will be changes but it felt good to bring it finally. I had been hoping we would have had this together months ago, but things kept getting in the way. It's all about balancing priorities.

I'm working on two reviews at present. Don't hold your breath for when they'll come out. One is Hocus Pocus, a Disney film from 1993. We sort of have this Halloween covered for reviews but it's good to be ready for next year. The other is Racket Busters (1937) from drain the DVR Saturdays. It's more of a programmer with Humphrey Bogart. I'm about three-quarters finished with both, but I couldn't get it done.

Speaking of Halloween, Trophy Unlocked blended that with GameDay Wednesday with Paul's review of The Evil Within. For the Saturday Morning Review, we took an anniversary over Halloween with Trevor's second look review of Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure + Adventure Packs.

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

A Week in Writing #331 - The Holidays are Upon Us

Hope everyone is well, enjoying the holidays and, of course, writing.

Well, the holidays are upon us, and all thoughts and time turn to family. The one thing that seems to go by the wayside, at least for me, is writing. Not that I didn't do any but writing was not the top priority.

As I wrote last week, I did manage to squeeze in that review of We're No Angels, a movie I've wanted to rewatch for a long time. This is one of those to be published in the future reviews, which may be next Christmas season. I look at Christmas/Holiday movies the same way I do Holiday music. Once December 25th rolls around, that day is done. Reviews are the same way.

On the subject of reviews, this past Wednesday Paul published a review of Bridge Constructor Portal, a video game for the Xbox One. On Saturday was our last holiday review, The Thin Man (1934), in which Christmas plays a prominent role. And while that might seem like plenty, Trophy Unlocked wasn't done. On Christmas Day, we watched Soul on Disney+ and Trevor's review, which includes Burrow, the short that accompanied it, went up on Sunday morning.

But that's not the end of it. The day after Christmas at our house is unofficially Movie Day. We watched several movies that day, including Wonder Woman 1984. Today, I reviewed the movie and it should go up tomorrow. If you don't catch it, there'll be a link in next week's post.

Later in the week, we will be posting an Actual End of the Decade list, looking back at films and videogames from 2011 to 2020, the official years of this decade. We're sticklers for that sort of stuff; this millennium didn't start until 2001 either.

Not much new on the Powers Squared front, though Paul and I did review some new coloring work from Julia sent earlier.

We did something new this week for our OAPS. Since Friday was Christmas we used an interview we had pre-recorded. Paul figured out how to use OBS to show it on Twitch. Apparently, Twitch likes things live and you have to be an affiliate to easily upload to the site. But if there's a will, there's a way. You can watch it here if you're curious, and I hope you are.

I'm still fiddling with a time-travel idea for the comic book, though it's not really coming together, at least, not yet.

To update on the Copyright issue, I received the paperwork ahead of schedule but it turns out it was for only one of the two issues. I have been writing to them that the issue I was having involved two issues of the comic book, not just the one. Not sure why both weren't included. Trust me I did write, when I got the registration, to the agent I had been working with there but with the holiday I'm not surprised I hadn't heard anything. And now that the government won't be shut down I'm hoping to hear back sooner than later but trust me, I'm not letting this go.

On other writing, I did find some time to work on my Skylar manuscript but, of course, never enough. I'm up to 28,760 words, so I'm not hitting the blog's 1000 words a day when it comes to that alone.

As I mentioned last week, no new queries and I'm playing Schrodinger's cat with the ones that I haven't heard back on yet. Until I look, they're still live and being considered. Reality can wait until the start of the new year when I promise I will be getting back to the queries.

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

A Week in Writing #330 - Trophy Unlocked Anniversary

 

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing. And, hey, if we don't talk before, let me wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This week, Trophy Unlocked, the review blog I write for, celebrated its 10th anniversary. Paul founded the blog in 2010 and since then there have been over 1100 reviews and 600,000+ views. To celebrate, Paul wrote a review of The Last of Us Part II.

We crossed streams and discussed the blog and his review on our weekly podcast for Powers Squared, On the Air with Powers Squared. I like to think of Trophy Unlocked as a sister project as all the creators of the comic book write for it as well. It's quite an accomplishment and as the father in all this, I'm very proud of Paul for sticking with it all these years. If you're curious, you can find links on our website: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. Check it out.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, on Wednesday, Trevor posted a review of the video game Lifeless Planet. On Saturday morning, we posted a special review hub for the adaptations we've reviewed of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. To add to it, I posted a review of an Edison-made version of the story from 1910.

For a future post, I wrote a review of Laurel and Hardy's Big Business (1929), one of their last silent comedies. We're also working collectively on an End of the Decade post so I have to finish my contributions on that.

Well, let's start with a bit of good news. I don't know if you remember but Paul and I had a little issue with the copyright for a couple of issues of Powers Squared. I don't know what we did wrong, which means I really have no clue about registering titles, but instead of receiving one for the two issues, we only received a copyright for the script. When we noticed the error, the copyright office told us how to fix it, only after we followed their advice we were told it was the wrong way to have done it and we'd be out the $200 charge.

When I queried about it, the agent I communicated with there seemed to be open to refunding the fee, since after all, we did as they instructed us to do. However, since then, and more inquiries on their side they decided that what we had done was right after all and I've been told they'd be sending us an amended copyright in a couple of months. Things move slowly with the government but a happy ending is a happy ending. And you got to take them where you can.

In other writing, I was able to make more progress on the Skylar manuscript. Right now I'm up to 28,202 words. Not sure how much more I'll be doing this next week though I'm hoping to keep writing on it when I can this coming week.

Work began this month on Powers Squared Issue #17, so there were pencils to review from Rachel.

With the holidays, it's always difficult to work in writing. I do want to squeeze in a review of We're No Angels, which I happened to see on TCM this weekend. Also, on Saturday we'll be having our annual Movie Day, so I'm sure there will be reviews that come from that.

Well, that's about it for now. Hope everyone continues writing, has a happy holiday and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #321 - One More Birthday!

Another week, another birthday at my house. This final one of the year belonging to my wife. No age or birth year, but if you've been paying attention, we're all Libras, which means decisions here are few and far between. Just thought I'd point that out because of the hole in the week.

Has this ever happened to you? I had sort of an interesting night of it on Thursday, the day after the B-day mentioned above. I basically live with insomnia always being a possibility. I may lay down my head on the pillow but if something is off in my routine, I stop reading too soon or turn off the TV too early, or whatever, I can lie awake for hours. What kept going through my head this night was that I hadn't really written anything that day. So to get over that, I got up at about 2 a.m., came out to my office, the end of the dining room table, and made myself write 1000 words on the Skylar story I believe I've mentioned here a few times. Now, what I wrote, I think I'm going to scrap, not because it's bad but because it doesn't fit in with the story I'm writing now. It does work for an idea I've been tossing around during those sleepless nights so I'll put it aside for now and get it back out when I start on that story.

Per my Fitbit, I got a 76 rated sleep, which is both surprising, given the shortness of time (3 hours and 22 minutes), and good for me in general. A great night of sleep for me is an 80 and that is sadly very rare; I'm usually in the mid to low 70s. I'm not writing to get sympathy, but sometimes the lack of sleep does play into the output of the next day. While I made it through work and OAPS with no real issues, I did fall asleep off and on during our Friday night movie. I hate it when that happens.

Speaking of movies, we played drain the DVR again on Saturday night and I wrote a review for Trophy Unlocked as a result; No Questions Asked (1951). Not sure when that will come out, though another one of mine went up on Saturday, The Curse of the Cat People (1944), as part of our October Spooktober series of horror films. This past Wednesday, videogame review day, Trevor's review of Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time.

Big News: This coming Wednesday, Trophy Unlocked will be celebrating a milestone 1100 reviews. I won't ruin the surprise, but there is a special review planned for that day, so please check back then for that review.

In Powers Squared news, Julia Canon, our colorist, joined us for our On the Air with Powers Squared twitch stream/podcast this Friday. She's always fun to listen to, so I hope you'll tune in somewhere it is available. See https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/media for where you can watch and/or listen to it.

This week, I submitted the Covid Cover for Issue #10 to both Ka-Blam and Artithmeric for proofs. We've never had an alternative cover before, so it's a big deal for us. Not sure we'll wait for them to come back before we submit to Comixology, which we still need to do. There's always something on the horizon that you've got to do.

I wanted to give you an update on our copyright issue. So you don't have to scroll back and look for it in a previous post, we had a slight issue with copyright for a couple of issues, i.e. the script got copyrighted but the artwork didn't. The copyright office told us to rectify this through a Supplementary registration, which didn't seem like it worked. I called the copyright office at the end of September and they couldn't tell me what we had submitted, which sort of scared me, since who else would know what the copyright office had besides the copyright office?

Well, it turns out that what we were trying to do might actually work after all. I got an email from the U.S. Copyright office during the week, asking me, in fact, what we were trying to do. Paul and I sat down today to read through their question and I sent a response to them. They gave me 45 days to respond, which might tell you how fast things move in that bureaucracy. Fingers crossed things will work out for us. I'm at least hopeful now.

On that upbeat note, I'll sign off for today. Keep writing, stay safe, and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #320 - Getting On Track and Off

 

Hope everyone is healthy and staying safe.

Sometimes I wish I kept track of things as the week went on. From a writing point of view, the week seemed to get off to a good start. But now as I sit here on Sunday evening, I'm having trouble remembering everything I did.

Monday, I worked on a couple of different things, including a script Paul had worked on for a future issue of Powers Squared. I had read it and made some comments that I put into the script. I think it's coming together.

I also worked on my Skylar manuscript. Completing 1000 words on Monday, hitting the goal for the first time in a while. During the week, I managed to get through a complete chapter when I finished working on it on Thursday. I think it's going well but some much more to go.

No queries this week. I know, I know, I'll never find an agent this way. I guess I'm avoiding it, though I know better. There always seems to be something else to work on. I know I need to and I will do it soon. Check back here for those updates.

A lot of work on Powers Squared. New thumbnails from Rachel for the next 8 pages for Issue 16 (Mocha and Raven) and colors from Julia for Issue 15 (How They Met). Trevor has also lettered the first 8 pages, as it were, for Issue 15. So things are moving forward there.

We received copyright registrations this week for Issues 10-12, which is good since we're getting ready to publish the first one of those soon. That only took 8 months. We've had them go much longer than that.

We posted a new Unboxing Video on Wednesday, related to Issue #10, print versions, and t-shirts. We've decided to change up our posting schedule from Sunday morning to Wednesday afternoons. There's supposed to be more people watching YouTube videos then.

We're still doing our Podcast on Friday nights and we had Rachel on as a guest. You can watch it on Twitch.tv. If you want to listen to it, go to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/join for where you can listen to it.

Two of my reviews up on Trophy Unlocked this week. On Friday, my review of Woody Allen's A Rainy Day in New York went up, the same day the title was finally being released on Vudu. On Saturday, to celebrate Spooktober, White Zombie was published.

But wait, that's not all for that blog this week. Paul's three reviews for Resident Evil 7 went up throughout the week: Resident Evil 7 Teaser Demo: Beginning Hour (+ Kitchen Demo); on Wednesday Resident Evil 7: Biohazard; and wrapping it up on Thursday Resident Evil 7: Biohazard DLC (Banned Footage Vol. 1 and 2 + Not A Hero + End of Zoe).

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

A Week in Writing #319 - More Birthdays and Frustrations

A new week and what did I do?

I hate to keep using this excuse but Birthdays played a part in this week as well. Yes, mine was Friday but my sons' were this past Monday. Not that that taints the whole week but that was another day I didn't really try to do too much. If you're new to this blog, Paul and Trevor are my sons but also the co-creators on Powers Squared, that comic book I keep writing about.

Then there was the Presidential Debate on Tuesday. I'm not getting political here but watching that and the follow-up coverage did sort of take a lot of time away from other pursuits like writing. I don't plan to watch any of the future Presidential ones, as it was a colossal waste of time, though I will watch the Vice-Presidential one on Wednesday, so don't expect a lot from me that day.

And while I had the promise of working on Thursday night, the breaking news sort of dominated me after that. So, that's the better part of three nights. And besides the podcast, I don't really try to "write" on Fridays, as that's pizza and movie night.

For the rest of the week, I felt a sort of general ennui which is not conducive to getting a lot done. I don't know if it was the odd, for us, schedule we'd been keeping or maybe just a bit of overload getting the best of me. I kind of felt like doing more of the menial rather than creative aspects of the writing. As an example, I spent a couple of nights updating Pinterest with the reviews that are either scheduled so far or will be having anniversaries this month. So that's gone now as an excuse for next week.

Did a little writing on Skylar and think I've finally finished the chapter I was working on. I already have some ideas for the next few, it's just a matter of putting the ideas down.

Getting back to Powers Squared, we had a good podcast on Friday. Seth Laderman, a former production exec at Lionsgate, was our guest. He's someone I've known for the past several years and he was a supporter of our Kickstarter. You can check it out on our YouTube Channel.

We also had some review work that Paul and I did on Thursday with pages from Rachel. Judging by Twitter and Twitch I think we're getting closer to finishing the coloring on Issue #15. There were some pending questions from the colorist that we've tried to answer but that's still unresolved for now.

Did some "editing" on a script Paul wrote for a future Powers Squared issue. Made some suggestions and am actually making some changes to present to him as a possible way for it to go. I made one pass and am reviewing that before I show it to him.

I did promise to fill you in on my conversation with the US Copyright Office. I spoke on the phone with one of their Information Specialists on Monday but I don't think I got the answer I was after. The woman was very nice and admitted that we had gotten bad advice from one of their own but there was no mention of stopping the process and refunding my money. And she couldn't tell me what had been submitted to them back in 2019, which seems odd for the repository of copyrighted IPs. I couldn't either, but I think we did submit everything, so there's still hope it will right itself in the end. I'm afraid I'm going to have to wait until next year to find out for sure, since that's how long these seem to take.

On Trophy Unlocked, my review of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) went up as the Saturday Morning Review, the kickoff of Horror month on the blog. There should be a new horror film review every Saturday through the end of the month. On Wednesday, Paul's review of Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner M∀RS for the PS4 was featured. We're getting frightfully close to the 1100th review on the blog, so that's pretty cool.

I did write a review of Smarty (1934), for future use. Another drain the DVR movies that have been on there since Joan Blondell was the featured star on TCM. I honestly don't know how long ago that's been but it's safe to say awhile.

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

A Week in Writing #316 - What I Have/Haven't Done This Week

 

It's that time of the week for rewards and blame for what I have or haven't done this past week.

Let's start with something out of my hands and work our way back. We're having a little trouble with the U.S. Copyright office. We had, inadvertently, copyrighted the script for a couple of issues (I'm not saying which) but not the actual issues themselves. I don't know what experience you might have with the Copyright office, but oftentimes you don't hear anything from them for literally months, like 6 to 8, so some mistake you made last year won't come to your attention until much later.

In this case, we asked what to do and the advice the Copyright office gave us cost about $200 but didn't really do anything. I won't go into details, but after an initial reply to my issue, there hasn't been any follow up on their part. I was hoping not to have to call and talk to someone but that might be unavoidable and there's no telling if anything positive will come of it. Just a word of warning for you creatives out there.

On the subject of Powers Squared, which we were just on, otherwise, things are going well. Rachel has started work on Issue #16. Paul is working on an idea he's had for an issue or two, which has encouraged me to dust off an old script to bring it up to "standards". It's an idea that dates back to 2013, so it's old, but I'd like to see us do it as well.

We're thinking of changing our posting of videos from Sunday to Wednesday afternoons based on a video by penguinz0, Revealing Youtube's Biggest Secrets, which states that's the best time to post. (I'm linking to it in case you're also producing YouTube content.) There are other changes afoot, like revamping parts of our website and the landing page when Issue #10 comes out.

Worked some more on Skylar, the latest P.I. book I'm currently writing. Got maybe another 1000 to 1500 words done. Sometimes this part of my writing week gets put at the bottom, but I keep hoping to move it forward.

Speaking of hoping to move it forward, I didn't do that with the querying. With the new online forms, you don't know what you need until you get started and they're looking for more marketing and audience targeting than your standard email query. This is not information I readily have at my fingertips. I honestly don't know what book, or books, Broken People is like. So that's more research I need to do, I guess.

Wrote another future review for Trophy Unlocked. This week, it was A Free Soul (1931), a Norma Shearer film, again part of the drain the DVR project we have going. Again, not sure when this one will see the light of day. This past week was the second half of Tony Hawk's Pro Fortnight on Trophy Unlocked with Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (PS2), Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (PS2), Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PS3), Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (PS3), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (PS4) and culminating with  Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (PS4) as the Saturday Morning Review.

So, this week, more writing and more research, and maybe a phone call to Washington D.C. I will report all here. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #253

It seems that no matter what the intentions might be, every week turns into a Powers Squared week.

Sunday night, after I had published my last blog, we received pages from Rachel. These were jpegs before the tiffs. Our last chance to make any comments. We had none on the artwork, but we did exchange emails about the depiction of one of the characters. I won't go into who since she has yet to appear in the book, but it was good to come to an agreement. We got tiffs later on Monday.

Monday got off to a start with information from the U.S. Copyright office. It seems like every time we file for copyright, there is something that we've done wrong. Now it takes something like half a year from the time we applied to when we hear if we've made a mistake. And when I asked for direction on how to avoid making the same mistake in the future, surprise, they didn't respond. However, we should get the paperwork shortly. This delay is something that people never tell you when they tell you to get something copyrighted. Now, I guess you could pay a lot extra to have it expedited, but that doesn't work for me. Just remember it takes about six months to get a copyright.

On Tuesday, I got an email from another creator asking me questions about our print on demand service. He had good questions and I tried to give him my positive, but realistic assessment. Of course, I invited him to learn more about Powers Squared and, of course, he made no commitment to check us out.

We also received four new pages from Nina, which we passed on to Trevor, however, I'm not expecting him to get right on them, since he had a fall on Monday and fractured his radius in his left arm near the elbow. He has his arm in a splint and a sling so he's slowed down, to say the least. The work can wait, of course.

I also spent part of the Tuesday night listening to another installment of the List Launch, the podcast series that's supposed to help us build up our list prior to launching a Kickstarter. This was the reason behind our wanting to name our "fan base." We asked readers last week and, well, the response was underwhelming, to say the least. Despite that, we did decide to call the group "The Hound Dogs" and rename our newsletter, the Hound Dogs' Howl, after the fictitious newspaper of the community college the Twins attend in the book.

The new image we're using on social media.

Listening to it this time made me decide to update our banner image on social media, which we did on Wednesday, changing out the old image for one that's more dynamic and more reflective of our current books.

Posting last week's Peek-of-the-Week on Instagram got more discussion than we normally get, which was nice. Hopefully, we can get that sort of interaction across other social media.

We did receive more pages from Nina later in the week, on Friday. Everything was good but we did ask for a couple of changes in some of the colors. It's funny how important some things seem, like the color of a character's eyes. As usual, she made the changes very quickly, so no complaints here.

I did manage to work on The Runaway, doing at least a chapter a day for the first four nights of the week. Any progress is good, though there is still plenty more to do.

As with every week recently, nothing new to report with queries or contacting the editor on Familiar Stranger. I'm going to have to call him and work out the best time to do that.

I did write a review this week for Yesterday, a film we watched on Friday afternoon and published as our Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked.

Well, that's about all for this week. So until next time, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #230

As I sit down to write this, I'm wondering how much writing I've done this week. This is the sort of thoughts I go through every week when I put together this blog. In some ways, it hasn't been my best week, though I do think I got some things done.

This week with Powers Squared, we did receive pencils for the first four pages of Issue #10. There's always the feeling that things are getting real when you start to see the image of what it will look like. Pretty good stuff, though we asked for a couple of minor fixes. The promise of the next four pages is hanging out there so it should be any day now.

No pages from the colorist so far but she has billed me which is usually a sign we're getting close. She's got a lot going on this month. Her own crowdfunding project to send out, a convention in March to prep for, her own Etsy store and our comic book, so I know she's busy. But right now, no pages means no pages for Trevor to letter and Issue 9 remains incomplete.

Now that we've registered Issues 5 and 6 for copyright, the next step is to submit them to comiXology in hopes someone will purchase them. I don' t know why this step is so hard, I mean with done it before but every time I get a little nervous and any excuse not to seems good enough. In looking at the pages for images to add to the website, I did find an error, similar to the one we found in Issue #10 but this time we missed it. I blame myself but you want it to be as perfect as it can be. I won't point it out here so if you find it let me know.

I did spend some time working on a couple of pet projects, trying to get the comic book ready for possible print on request and kickstarting or crowdfunding Issue #10. I worked on the back cover and on the various levels of contributions. I need to get feedback but trying to keep those moving forward as well.

Paul and I continue to do our weekly vlog A Week in Powers Squared on YouTube. It can be somewhat demeaning to have 0 views, which we've had for the past two weeks but I guess we're gluttons for futility as we keep doing them. If you take pity and actually watch one, let us know what you think about it, either here or in the comments on YouTube.

This week, no new review for me on Trophy Unlocked but there were two from the other writers. Trevor reviewed Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan (1993) and Paul reviewed the new film Dragon Ball Super: Broly which is out in theaters now. It seemed right that review should be our Saturday Morning Review.

I did work on one review this week, I'm about 2500 words into one for Cabin in the Sky (1943) for future publication. I've got more work to do on it but it should be ready soon.

On Runaway, my latest novel, I've written another chapter though I wish I had done more. I'm working my way through a new section so it is a little more than rewriting as simply writing. It's not that I have writer's block but more writer's weary. This past week had been filled with long commutes thanks to rain and that can really take it out of you.

Next week, there will be a slight hiccup, as we're all going to a concert on Tuesday night so that's one day lost for sure. With writing, it's always something.

A Week in Writing #229

This week I continued my work on what I'll need for sending out queries, the most important of which is the actual query letter for Broken People. Of course, there's a template and I don't think I'll be breaking much new ground here: the hook, the book, and the cook. These mean take a paragraph to tell them why they should read it, two paragraphs to tell them what they would be reading (i.e. a brief synopsis, as well as genre and word count) and a paragraph to tell them about yourself. There are, of course, variations on this last part. Some just want to know who you are, others want to know what qualifies you to write this book and, still, others want you to use your marketing degree (you do have one, don't you?) to tell them what you would do to market your book. (This latter bit really scares me, since I, oops, don't have a marketing degree.)

I've made a couple of versions so far but I know I'm not through trying to come up with the final version. Then there are the extra add-ons which seem to vary from the first 500 words up to the first 25 pages, depending on the agent/agency. This is where you need to look at the agency's website before you query them (again, I'm not breaking new ground here but it might help to read it again.) Some even want you to write a complete, though short synopsis of your book before you query them, so I've got that to look forward to as well.

I don't mean to burst your bubble if you think you just write a novel and then send it out to an agent but this is what it takes and after all that, it is still a crap shoot. Keep writing.

As a result, I didn't get all that much done on The Runaway, sorry to say. Remember the goal is 1000 Words a Day, it is not always the reality.

I did write two reviews this week for Trophy Unlocked, one for the Laurel and Hardy short, Tit for Tat (1935) and, staying in the 1930s, a review for Smart Money (1931). These will appear later. This week on the blog, our Saturday review was Stan & Ollie, which is in theaters now. This was a film we saw last week and wanted to share how much we liked it.

This week in Powers Squared was surprisingly slow. Last Sunday, Paul and I went through the thumbnails Rachel sent us for the first eight pages of Issue #10. Usually, we hear back from her in a few days with a compilation of what they would look like but so far no word. This is becoming more of the norm so we're not too worried about it.

Our colorist asked us if there would be more issues after #9, which she is still working on. We did receive pages 13-16 from her and she should have the rest of the pages and the cover for us by the end of the month, so she's back on schedule. We hadn't sent her the script, which we did this week and as long as we can work around her other projects, we should be good to go.

Still wanting to Kickstart Issue #10. Part of that is figuring out what to give away to donators. Since we're a digital comic, there really isn't anything physical to give away, which makes it easy but does limit what we can do. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks, we can come up with a plan.

Did get some feedback on the back cover (inside and out) for actually doing a publish-on-demand version of the book. There is still some work to do to pull that together but the good news is that there was progress.

This weekend, Paul and I sent in the registration to copyright Issues #6 and 7. The progress is pretty easy though we ran into a hiccup when trying to upload the second issue. Not sure what the issue was or how exactly I got around it but I managed to do it. The time frame to hear back is literally months and I don't know what effect the government shutdown will have on that.

Paul and I did our weekly vlog on YouTube, which we would really hope you'll watch and while you're there subscribe to our channel. This week, we touch on a couple of the things I do here, but we also talk about a couple of new characters, villains, Dr. Brubaker and Dr. Reynolds. You'll need to watch the video and/or read the book to know who we're talking out. Please check it out.

And later this week, Paul and I will go through the process of uploading them on comiXology so that we can get those published. Hope you'll buy them when they are. To quote John Lennon, "It'll be the usual rubbish, but it won't cost much."

Will update here next week.

A Week in Writing #202

Now that the dust has settled and I can take a step back, I realize that some of the stories that were published about Powers Squared at the time contained some factual errors, mostly revolving around the colorist on issues #3-5. For some reason, the colorist on Issues 1-2, Lisa Richards, is given credit in a couple of places as the colorist on the more recent issues. This isn't information that we provided and I want to go on record here with my apologies to Paige Cambern for being overlooked in those articles. Everyone deserves credit for their own work. In the euphoria of the moment, I didn't notice this error.

Another "ugly" reality is that you don't control the press. Besides the errors above, which I assume were innocent mistakes, the reviews that we were waiting for came with comments about the lettering being cut off on a couple of issues. This was shocking to hear as we believe the review was based on .pdfs that we sent, not what was on comiXology's website. However, hearing that sort of comment might keep someone curious from buying it. comiXology did confirm that there were no issues with the comic on their site and Paul and I confirmed that there was no issue with the .pdfs. Fortunately, the PR firm contacted the publisher and he took down the comment on one review. I contacted him, in between painting a bathroom, and he took the comment off the other review. Hopefully, not too much damage was done. I really wonder what happened.

While we're still publicizing Issues 1-5, work continues on Issue #8. Spent part of Tuesday night looking over thumbnails for the first 8 pages. Our artist sends us two versions and Paul and I select some panels from one version and some panels from another, sort of like ordering on a Chinese restaurant menu. Instead of moo goo gai pan and shrimp toast, its panel 1 from the A version and panel 2 through 5 from B. Later in the week, she sent us the rough layouts based on our panel choices.

She also provided us with a final character study of our newest villain, Professor Theorem, so it's interesting to see things taking shape.

A little note about copyrights, which are a very good thing but also quite slow. Last summer, June 11, 2017, as a matter of fact, we applied for copyrights on the first two issue of Powers Squared, both script and visuals. (The script had already been copyrighted.) Well, it took until this past week to get the notices from the Copyright Office. That's a little over a year. There was an issue about the work-for-hire but that, I believe, was in the original application. Just wanted to let you know that the wheels of government can turn very slowly.

I was approached this week to do an AMAfeed about Powers Squared. Didn't want to miss out on the exposure, so I agreed to do it. Sort of threw it up on their site sort of quickly and it shows. The headline I wrote contains the word anything after AMA. They also wanted a proof photo and at the time I was painting a bathroom and hadn't shaven in a couple of days; let's just say, not a pretty picture. I used a photo I had around but when it was displayed on their site, it really looks blurry. (Tip, headlines and photos are two things you can't go back and change. I know because I tried.)

The AMA went live on Friday and so far we've had about 20 questions. If you have a question about Powers Squared, then please ask away here. It'll be open through next Friday, June 13th. We've also invited our artists to submit answers as well. I'll write more about this experience next week.

On Saturday, thanks to Paul's editing, we posted a new video of me with my sons, the first time we've all sat down together on camera. We were answering the questions given to us by FreakSugar for their interview. You can view it on our YouTube channel here. You can also read the actual  FreakSugar interview here. It was our first interview and we wanted to commemorate the occasion.

Related to the comic-book, this week the program schedule for San Diego Comic-Con was released and we went through them looking for both educational as well as entertaining panels to attend. The trip will be discussed in greater detail in the post Report from the Front, the following Monday.

Also wrote a short review for Ant-Man and the Wasp for Trophy Unlocked. Thanks to the holiday we were able to see the film on Friday morning and put up a review that evening. It's rare we get one up the day a film is released. The Saturday Morning Review was Paul's about Bayonetta 2, as last week's was about Bayonetta.

I did call my editor about Familiar Stranger. The main thing is he's still alive and well. This is not unusual to have long gaps between hearing from him. Not that I like it, but it's not unusual. He's doing me a favor and I understand that. But it was good to talk to him and get an update.

I'm still working on finishing the rewrite for Paperback Detective. I'm into the final main chapter, trying to preserve as much as I can from the original but changing the location where it takes place from a car in a downtown parking garage to the house where a murder took place. I always knew I needed to change that and I think it will work a lot better.

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 #145

First of all, I want to say thank you for all the concern about my step-father. He's still in the hospital and weak. He was out of Intensive Care for most of the week, but he's gone back in. The news does not sound good.

Something I'd like to pass on from my sudden trip last weekend is that writing and airplane travel don't mix very well. I had taken along my laptop hoping I could get some writing done while in flight. It has been a long time since I had flown and found that there was no longer enough room on that little folding tray to even open the laptop up. When the entertainment system didn't work on the return trip I was helpless to sit there bored out of my wits. Note to self, always take a book or pages to edit.

Most of the week was spent on the comic book and writing reviews and once again not on Familiar Stranger. I can't seem to get to it anymore, which frustrates me greatly. I have done some thinking about it and have played with dialogue in my head but while that's a part of the writing process, it really isn't writing in the truest sense.

Did manage to complete a new review that I was planning to publish on Trophy Unlocked as the Saturday Morning Review, but I changed my mind. We went to see Wonder Woman on Friday afternoon so I wrote a review of that film. Decided it was best to publish that and not try and double-dip with the planned review of Dance, Fools, Dance (1931); that can keep for another day. I also finished a review of San Francisco (1936), another Clark Gable film and yes I did sort of watch the recent Star-of-the-Month salute to him on TCM. I'm also going to review Red Dust and possibly Journey Into Fear, an Orson Welles film of sorts from 1942.

Powers Squared continued to pre-occupy most of my "writing" time this week. The artist is working on four pages, which takes a lot of time to review through the steps. And the letterer is also making good progress. Despite the work, it is good to see things moving forward.

Then there is the business of the comic book, the copyrights, the submissions, the website, etc., all of which also take time.

There are a few comic book companies that publish creator-owned titles, so we're starting that process as well. While on the surface writing a one-page synopsis doesn't seem that hard, it is still something that takes time and rewriting to get it right.

So, last week was a little truncated, but I still got some things done. The problem with planning too much for next week is I'm not sure what the future holds as to my step-father and his health. Some things are more important than others; it's all a balancing act.

A Week in Writing #90

Another week that seemed to be largely spent on the comic book, but with nothing really new to report as far as truly finished pages. Given the time difference between us and our artists, we will oftentimes receive pages after hours or during the workday, which means that we have to really wait until the evening to look at them. While it doesn't sound that hard, the review process is more complicated than it might seem.

Even if it's a layout, we have to compare it with the script and against other pages before. It's made a little more difficult when some of the pages have been out of order. We try to be thorough and then write back our comments in as clear a manner as we can. We're not always successful, but we're trying to get it right the first time.

The same is true with the colorist. We go through the preceding pages and try to make sure there is consistency between related panels and pages. And there are sometimes things we don't catch the first time. It helps that we have fairly easy to work with and understanding artists, but it still seems like a slow process.

One other note on the comic book, the copyright we applied for near the end of October for the script finally came back this past week. Seven months is actually a quick turnaround, even though it seemed like forever waiting for it to come through.

Did finally complete the short synopsis for Pubic and Private. One of the reasons I wanted to complete it is I'm trying to use a website called Author.me, but for some reason I think I'm missing a step somewhere along the way. It's not as user-friendly or as intuitive as I would have hoped. It took multiple tries before it finally accepted my first and last name. And then when I was ready to submit, it said it had already submitted to the agents and publishers I was connected with. When did that happen? My guess is that I'm going to be better off with the old-fashioned query method.

Got close to sending one out, but I'll admit that I got cold feet. I truly dread the process after two failed book efforts prior.

Did continue to update Trophy Unlocked, publishing two reviews this weekend. The Saturday review was for Laurel and Hardy's The Music Box (1932). On Sunday, published a short review for Keanu, an action comedy that is currently out in theaters. Honestly, neither has really been well viewed with only 8 pageviews a piece as I'm writing this. But blogging is a marathon, not a sprint, I guess.

Next week, hopefully, more progress on the comic book and I promise to actually send a query or two, but please remember, promises are made to be broken.

A Week in Writing #61

Another week that I feel like I'm floating in place, more than really getting anywhere with my writing.

Finished with the storyboard and now I'm revising the script for Part Two of the comic book's first adventure. I find this part interesting as I'm now forced to make changes that will still tell the story we're trying to tell, but at the same time fit in better with the spacial limitations of a page and panel. Sort of the rubber finally hitting the road, but I'm sure there will more changes when pencil hits paper. This whole process is really dominating my time for writing.

Finally submitted the copyright registration for Part One. Took a couple of tries, actually, but I got it done. My goal this week is to take the next step and begin the process to find an artist.

And finally made contact with my editor. I'm hoping we can get back to the rewrite, but I'm still not sure how things will play out. He's really made me a better writer and I'm anxious to continue that process.

Didn't have a review from last week to finish, but still the blog posted two reviews. One from Paul about Back to the Future Part II published to celebrate the day and time the movie was supposed to take place in. Also published a review for a real, though non-existent movie, London After Midnight (1927). The last known negative of the film burned in a fire years ago at MGM, but the film was sort of put together from production stills and a continuity script. Horror October will conclude next weekend, on Halloween, with a review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but that link will have to wait until next time.

A Week in Writing #60

This has been a particularly hard week for writing. There has been a bit of a time crunch, but I'm also sort of in a bit of limbo. I'd like to be further along with so many things and I really only have myself to blame for most, but not all of it.

No new queries and I'm guessing I'm not going to hear anything more back from the previous ones I've sent out. But I don't want to really spend the few hours I have a week on that, at least right now. I don't get the feeling I'm getting anywhere with those.

I would really like to get back to the mystery writing. As I've written before I have some ideas on the rewrite for Familiar Stranger. But I really want to square away the comic book, at least get it to a ready state, before I get back into those rewrites. I'm now drawing the storyboard for Part 2 of the first story. This is really what my writing had gotten down to, finding a few minutes here and there to scrawl out a few crude notions of what is visually going on. When that's done, I still need to sync it up with the script and then I'm going to call it ready for now.

Reached out, over the weekend, to my editor on Public and Private (remember me writing about him?). It's been about five months since we've communicated or rather since I've heard from him. I had planned to wait until the middle of September to try him again and that sort of drifted into the middle of October, but I finally did. Hoping to hear back and get some work done on that manuscript as well.

Still fooling around with copyrights. Again, my fault for dragging my feet. I keep thinking the process will take a long time. It really doesn't or shouldn't. My problem has been when I go to the step of paying, there seems to be a network error and when I go back to my case, as they call it, what I've entered is gone and I have to start over. Frustrating to say the least. Will try that again this week. Want to get that process started before we try to find a new artist.

Did do a bit of writing, for the blog; another future review for How I Won the War (1967). We watched it on Lennon's birthday (10/9), which was last week, but I didn't get a chance to finish the review until this past week.

Posted a new review for Mad Love (1935), as part of Trophy Unlocked's Horror October. Please read it here. Also check out our ever-growing horror review post here. As always, comments are always welcomed.