A Week in Writing #418 - Is it a rejection if they don't say "no"?

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

Well, let's start with the bad news, another rejection, or was it? I finally heard back from a query I sent on June 23, so it's been a little shy of 2 months.

"Thanks for writing to me about this book, but the _______ Agency is not accepting submissions from new authors for the foreseeable future."

So, is that really a rejection? Trust me I check the websites before I send out queries and I don't recall such a declaration on _________ Agency's website. But why did it take nearly 2 months? You'd think such an across-the-board decision would have generated an automatic response when I sent it, sort of like an out-of-office email.

I did send in another query this week; no telling when I'll hear back, or if I will. I have a couple out that are getting close to expiration. I'm reluctant to DNR them since, as we've seen, there is no strict deadline for rejection.

No new reviews this week for me. We didn't do our normal Saturday night and watch a movie. Rather, we did something we don't do very often of late and went out for dinner. Instead of a movie, we watched episodes of Primal when we got home. I don't really watch a lot of new TV shows. Yes, I know it's the new Golden Age, but I really don't have time to invest in too much television.

I do read, however, which is a segue to the latest episode of On the Air with Powers Squared, in which Paul and I discuss our summer reads. I've read sort of a mixture of books, in the last few months, including some graphic novels, one a version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and Blacksad, which I'm reading for the Powers Squared Book Club, which we'll shoot in September. I'm also reading the new Woody Allen collection of essays, Zero Gravity, and David Sedaris's Happy-Go-Lucky. These last two are ones you can read on from time to time as they don't really tell a linear story.

In protest of HBO Max's taking down of so many animated shows, we put up Paul's review of The Emperor's New Groove, which, is, of course, animated. Wednesday's GameDay review was Trevor's review of Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (PS5). I'm sure one of mine will be back up there someday soon, though I think we're getting close to our Batman salute in September, which will include three of mine.

Work continues on fka Skylar. I'm getting better at mixing the two storylines together, so I'm happy with that. I'll give you a word count next week.

Well, that's about all from me. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #405 - Hitting a Wall

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

Monday started off with a rejection, a query I made back at the end of March, so I was figuring it was about out of code anyway. Decided to take the opportunity to DNR the three previous ones I hadn't heard from that pre-dated that query. One had a day to go before their two-month lead time. Was I too hasty? Somehow I doubt it; just taking care of the inevitable early. So, is the going rate 1 in 4 actually send rejections? Down now to just three "live" ones.

Make that four, as I did squeeze out a new query on Thursday night. I think I'm selling myself short and I might, dare I say it, try to query another book simultaneously. I'm also thinking that maybe I need to rewrite the first chapter since maybe it comes off too soft for a thriller. I don't know, really, I'm floundering here. I don't know what agents are necessarily looking for or I would have one by now. But the rewrite has some merit as I need to get into the story right away; previous advice from an agent who didn't sign me regarding another book.

I've been hitting a wall recently with my writing and I'm not talking about being bereft of ideas, it's time. I've been crashing, physically, at about ten or ten-thirty and I have to force myself to get back to work. Doing that, of course, throws off my sleep and I end up crashing the next night as a result. Vicious circle.

That's been cutting into my writing time quite a bit of late. I don't know about you but sleep for me is a sometimes thing and there are times when everything is running smoothly and then there are times when it's not and it throws everything else off. My problem to deal with.

Spent some time working on a script idea for a one-off about Jennifer Perry. Trying to give her some more background and make her a more interesting character. This is based, in part, on some feedback we received on our Pitch Packet a while back.

Writing that and my review of The Killer is Loose were just about all I got through this week. My review of Our Town was the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. We decided to go one and two with that and Paul's review of Wonder for obvious reasons if you've seen that movie. Trevor's review of Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 was the Wednesday Game Day Review.

No new review from me this week. We went to Amoeba Records in Hollywood on Saturday and purchased a copy of MST3K Season 11. Ended up watching the first episode of that instead of draining the DVR (good thing we don't review TV). To make up for it, I posted, as a draft, a review I had done for Chaplin. You gotta do something, right?

Sadly, nothing new on fka Skylar. Blame the lack of sleep and the script.

Speaking of, Trevor wrote one for Powers Squared that's pretty good with the Eli character fighting a Gashadokuro. Paul and I need to write a companion piece for Marty. We're thinking of sliding it in after our next story arc.

I'm also reading Paul's fourth draft of his book; so much writing going on. I'm a little more than three chapters in. I reserve critique for him when I'm done. And no, I won't give away any of the plot.

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

A Week in Writing #402 - Not Quite Done

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

While I'm done hyping the Kickstarter, I wasn't free from it this past week. While I was pretty sure I had sent all the pages for the Graphic Novel months ago, they apparently didn't have them at Artithmeric. I found this out when I was sent the Graphic Novel to give an artist approval. Problem. The version they sent me was the 2019 version and not the remastered version we had worked on last year.

So, I had to reassemble the pages for both the graphic novel and for the five issues that make it up, which we had also remastered and had added our SRCC bug to. I wanted to be sure they had everything. So I assembled about 225 pages in six different folders and sent the files to them in two We Transfers. Well, that was too easy, as even though they had the .tif files and could manipulate .pdfs, they couldn't or wouldn't for whatever reason make the files into .pdfs.

Night two, made the .pdfs, which was really easy since I had made sure the files were sorted. Feels like busywork rather than anything creative. Sent those back overnight only to receive the artist proofs the next morning, with the pages resized, something I told them I wasn't going to do (talk about the busywork that would be).

So, night three did a precursory look at the pages. If they used the same ones I had sent them and kept them in order, they should be good to go. I checked and even asked Paul to check them as well. So, the thing I wanted to avoid came true, having a crush of work at the end of the Kickstarter. Now, it is in Artithmeric's hands. Since I didn't back it, I'm not sure what the updates are for it.

I do know there's one more thing for me to do connected to it. One of the tier rewards was signed prints, which we'll have to sign. Sorry if you wanted the artist to sign them but he's in Indonesia, so I don't see that happening.

So, three of my nights were sort of compromised with lingering duties for the Kickstarter. However, that wasn't the only thing I worked on.

Finished another version of the pilot script, yes Powers Squared. Edits and punctuations. Actually, made a second set of corrections based on Paul's editing this weekend. Now I'm starting in on the Pitch Packet. A lot of updates to be made before we're done with that.

It's funny how dates sort of sneak up on you. On Saturday, I had started working on a brief essay for our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, when I realized that Sunday, today, was May 1st and we publish the first Sunday of the month. Thankfully, the newsletters sort of write themselves but it still has to be written, reviewed and edited. Made it out before 10:30 am, which is sort of the goal.

No new reviews this week, though I did put up an older review I had written, All Through the Night (1942), Bogart's follow up to The Maltese Falcon. I wrote the review back in August 2019 and just now got around to putting it up on the blog, though not published. Fun to look at the photos I had collected over two years ago and put them into the review. Talk about a bit of a brain teaser. I've got a lot more of these to get through during any downtime.

Only one new review this week on Trophy Unlocked. The Saturday morning review was Paul's of The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, a version that had been released only days before. Next week promises to be a busy one, as Paul and Trevor have a new crop of reviews and Second Looks regarding Star Wars films and games.

Worked a lot, that being a relative term, on fka Skylar this week. I really enjoyed getting past that chapter and now it's back to the other story in the book.

And one new query this week, which I squeezed in on Thursday, unofficially Query Night. So, while I added one new one, I also DNRed two others that were past their expiration dates and no communication about them.

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

A Week in Writing #392 - First Rejection of the New Year

Hope everyone is feeling well, keeping safe, and, of course, writing.

I don't know about you, but I'm not quite ready to get back out there. While rates are dropping there are still a lot of people getting sick and dying, too many for me to feel like everything is back to normal. I'm not saying if you want to go out into public you shouldn't, as long as you follow all the guidelines, but I'm not in a hurry to test fate.

Case in point, even though we do a review blog, Trophy Unlocked, which includes movies, we haven't yet gone back to the theaters, something I love to do. I'm sorry but there is no movie worth getting sick for and with my luck the guy coughing behind me would be someone who isn't vaccinated. This plays out in reviews, so we're a little behind. As an example, I just wrote a review for Ghostbusters: Aftermath, which came to theaters last November but to blu-ray more recently. Not sure when it will post but I'm sure it will be soon, so keep an eye out for it. I also completed my review for Batman: Under the Red Hood but no publication date to report.

On the subject of the blog, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, a film I have not seen. Wednesday's Game Day review was Trevor's for Vexx, which he played on Xbox.

No query on Thursday as I was trying to work on a couple of other things, including a script for a Kickstarter video and reviewing eight pages of thumbnails for Issue 21 from our artist. That doesn't mean we won't discuss queries because on Friday morning I did hear back from the first agent I had queried this year, and if you're keeping track, using the old query letter:

"David:  I'm afraid this won't work for us. Today, publishers typically make business (rather than artistic / creative) decisions; only taking on what their sales and marketing departments say is a sure thing. And, unfortunately, I don't believe this is sure to break out of a very crowded marketplace. Others might feel differently however, so obviously don't take my response as the final word."

This is, of course, based on the query letter and the first ten pages, so I'm not crushed by the comment, though I can't say it made my day. I'm not saying who sent it or changing the punctuation, in what has to be a form letter. Not sure how my book would need to be changed, if it can, that would make it a "sure thing," which sounds like a rather ephemeral standard.

I did continue my vetting for possible agents to query, opening my net to include agents who represent General Fiction, rather than just Crime. I used QueryTracker to put together the list this time. This is a two-part process, the first part, which I've completed, is to get their names, agency, and type of query on my spreadsheet. Part two is more research, like do they not take crime or don't mention the genre in their actual website profile. And then there are the details they want in and with the query, how long do they say they'll take to get back to you, etc., all of which I'll note and record.

Currently, my list of agents numbers 491, of which 63 are highlighted Red, which means they either don't handle my genre, I don't want to query them, or they have already rejected me, like that agent on Friday morning. I have, if you're curious, 82 that are yellow, which means they aren't accepting queries, the last time I checked or are in an agency that I've pegged another agent to query. Since we're breaking it down, I have 71 that I think are possibilities to query and a whopping 275 that I have yet to vet beyond step one. A lot of hope and research is still to be done and these distinctions will change over time.

On Friday, Paul and I recorded our Kickstarter video as part of our show On the Air with Powers Squared. In reality, we recorded bits and pieces of it, not a single take, which Paul will edit down and send to Artithmeric for them to come up with the final video. I would talk more about the Kickstarter, but I don't know much more since the last time we wrote, not that I haven't tried to follow up. You can listen to it through the link above, or watch it on twitch.tv/powerssquared for the next two weeks, or you can wait until Wednesday at 2:30pm PT and watch it on YouTube. Comments are welcomed.

On the subject of Powers Squared, Paul and I finally got around to applying for copyrights to the three issues we plan to release this year. You may remember that I started and aborted that process back in October. Well, a whole bunch of things happened and we just got back to it today. For some reason, the process went way smoothly. We've had some issues with our submissions before but we answered all their questions truthfully and accurately, so we hope everything will work out.

Sadly, no work was done on fka Skylar though I have been thinking about it, which I know doesn't really count. We're all about word count and there hasn't been any to mention in the last week.

Well, on that cheery note, I think that's about all from me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here next week.

A Week in Writing #390 - Not Wanting to Crush the Dream

Hope everyone is well, boosted, and, of course, writing.

We got political for I think the first time on our podcast this past week. I'm sure by now you've heard that Art Spiegelman's Maus graphic novel was removed from some classrooms in Tennessee. The excuse was pretty picky, nudity (a female mouse), and curse words (they said "damn" several times) but on the heels of the Krause list in Texas, that wants 850 books removed from library shelves, we had to say something. Rachel Wells, our artist, who had also read Maus, joined our podcast, along with Trevor, to discuss. Next week, we'll get back to the comic book, but sometimes you have to speak up. You're invited to listen to it and would welcome your thoughts.

While we're on the subject of Powers Squared, we did receive work on the final pages of Issue #20, while we're still waiting to release Issue #13. Part of our hold-up is the coming Kickstarter, which is now scheduled for March 24th. We don't want to put out too much too close together. So, we're going to wait for that to complete and then start putting out new books. More details as they become available. I would appreciate it if you at least give it a hard look.

We're supposed to have a meeting this week about our Pitch Deck. We haven't pitched it yet but we're hoping to get some feedback on it from someone in the industry familiar with these kinds of shows. I will admit I'm a little nervous about it. I really don't want to crush the dream just yet. Maybe I'm fearing the worst but I'm pretty sure there are ways we can make it better.

I'm still feeling my way through the Pilot script. I think I know what to do but there are some things to do with formatting that I can't seem to get right. It's a learning experience for me.

No new reviews for me this week, blame the Olympics. We spent Saturday night fast-forwarding through the opening ceremonies, so there wasn't time for a movie afterward. I get the feeling it might be a couple of weeks before we get back to that. The Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was Trevor's review of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, a film we had fairly recently re-watched. The Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's of Shantae and the Seven Sirens for the PS4.

I spent a good deal of time on Thursday night on queries. After I sent out my fourth query this year, the third with the new format I wrote about a couple of posts back, I researched another 30 agents from my list and the results were not all that encouraging. Of the 30, only 4 seemed to handle Crime Fiction and were accepting queries. Four were closed to Queries at this time and one was closed permanently. A good chunk didn't show they handle crime fiction on their websites, even though they had shown up in a prior search. I still have about 172 more agents to research. As I find out more, I'll share it here.

That brings me to fka Skylar on which progress is slow. I spent my time on the book this week sort of circling the drain. By that, I went through the last bit of work and rethought some of it. The actual word count didn't really change all that much; 25,878 is the current count for what it's worth.

Well, on that lackluster stat, I'll bring this week's post to a close. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #389 - Meeting Other Creatives

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

One of my favorite things about doing our weekly podcast is when we can engage other comic book creators and share stories and ideas. We had that opportunity this past Friday, when we interviewed Don Nguyen, a comic book artist and creator that we had met several years ago. I think it was through Instagram but he was pretty sure that it was as far back as one of the Comic Creator Connections we had attended at San Diego Comic-Con before finding our first artist. You, of course, are invited to give the show a listen at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

While we're on the subject of Powers Squared, still in the dark on some things regarding our pending Kickstarter. It's supposed to be at the end of February but I'm not sure what exactly we need to deliver as part of it. As I learn more, I will, of course, relate it here.

We did receive thumbnails for the final pages and the cover of  Issue #20 this week from our artist this week but that's about the extent of the activity of the actual book. These things come in waves, so there's nothing out of the ordinary.

I did do some work on the pilot script for Powers Squared, finally using the correct format in Final Draft. Making progress, but it is sort of slow going for me as this is sort of uncharted territory for my writing. I did take scriptwriting in college and grad school but it isn't something I've done for quite a while. When I did study it, there was nothing like Final Draft out there, just tabs on the typewriter.

Wrote a new review this week for Trophy Unlocked, The Egg and I (1947). As always, not sure when it will appear. This past Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of Encanto and the short film that accompanied it, Far From the Tree. Our Game Day review was also Paul's Shantae: Half-Genie Hero.

With my new query letter, I was able to more easily send a new one out this past week. So now I have three out there this year with the clock, of course, running on them. I'll keep at it and will let you know if anything ever pops.

Writing on fka Skylar continues, though it seems like it's more like a thousand words a week, as the count is currently up to 25,814 with this draft. I know I need to do better.

Well, that seems to be about all from me. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week.

A Week in Writing #388 - More on Query Letters

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

I spent a good part of yesterday afternoon working on my least favorite writing activity, the query. It was prompted by an email from someone I had connected with, I believe, through one of the Writer's Digest Novel Writing Conferences (see, those do pay off). The email provided a fairly easy template for what should be in a query letter.

Since I try to educate where I can, and since it was sent free of charge to me, I'll pass on the magic:

• Query letters are read by interns who are trained to delete most of the hundreds of queries they get a day. Only if nothing stops them do they take the time to think about asking for a closer look at your book.
• Your query letter must be SHORT, at most 350 words. Your query is only to whet the appetite and get your book’s actual pages into the agent’s hands.
• Copy this format! Don’t reinvent the wheel.
• 1st paragraph – if you don’t have a STRONG connection with the agent (we met in New Orleans when we shared a cab to the airport), don’t bother buttering her up with what clients she represents that you like. It’s not necessary, and they don’t care that you like their other clients. Your first sentence should include genre, title and length. Allow the intern to delete it right away if she knows you’re not selling what the agent is looking for.
• Second paragraph: Short blurb.
• Third paragraph: Bio – don’t add more than what is strictly relevant to this agent. They don’t care that you have an MBA unless that directly relates to this book, or that you’re on any special committees. They do care about relevant degrees, relevant awards, and any publishing credit (be judicious about self-publishing credit. Unless you’ve sold a hell of a lot of books on your own, best to leave it out and bring it up later, when they’re dying to represent your book).
• Don’t pitch more than one book, even if this one is in a series. Instead, if it is a series, simply say at the end of the first paragraph, “This is a standalone novel with series potential.”
• Do use the closing verbiage word for word. Their time is valuable, and “All best,” is a little secret handshake that shows you know the business. (Never “All the best” – no one knows why.)
• If you’re not getting at least a 5-10% request rate (partial or full), something is probably wrong with your query letter. Get a second opinion.

I rewrote mine based on this but I have not trotted it out so to speak. I will be doing that later this week.

In the email, the suggestion was to visit AgentQuery.com to look for possible agents. I did this and found 99 agents who say, or who at least the website interprets, to handle the genre. Of those, about 40% were duplicates of ones that I had previously found using Querytracker and MSWL. That left me with 61 new agents to add, which sounds pretty good. But, wait, the number is a little lower as about a third of those (17 to be exact) say they are not open to queries at this time. Still, I'm 44 names up on agents to try, so I would say it was a productive afternoon.

On the subject of queries, I did send one out on Thursday, which makes two for this year. And, no, no response so far.

Since we're on the subject of my nascent Crime fiction writing career, I did do some more work on fka Skylar. I'm up to 24,564 words, and, yes I know that's not 1000 words a day, which is a goal, not a reality.

Changing the subject, our artist on Powers Squared came down with COVID recently and appears to be making a full recovery, so that's good news. She still managed, even though I stressed she didn't need to, sent up inks for pages 13-16 for Issue #20.

My son Trevor was our guest on our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. It's a relatively short podcast this week, as there isn't all that much difference between lettering Issue #19 and the other 18. I just wanted to complete the circle and talk to all of the creatives involved with the issue, of which he is an important one.

I worked on a new review this weekend, You Can't Get Away with Murder (1939), a B-film that the lead, Humphrey Bogart, wasn't able to raise above middling fair. You'll have to wait to read my review, again, I don't know when.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, this past Wednesday, the review was Paul's for the video game Shantae and the Pirate's Curse for the Switch. Saturday morning, was his review of Lupin III: The Castle of Cagliostro, a sort of companion piece to my review last week of Arsene Lupin.

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

A Week in Writing #387 - So Much to Do

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

Drum roll. Wait for it. Yes, I did send a new query this week, my first of the year. I've stopped waiting for the others, so I'm 1 for the year and no rejections. I rewrote the query letter to meet the qualifications of what the agent was looking for, and, of course, no way to know if I met that bar or not. But the important thing I did it.

I also tried to widen my net by looking for agents on a different website than just using QueryTracker, though nothing against that one in particular. I used MSWL since some agents didn't have websites. While I did find some, including the agent I queried, I would say a high percentage of agents who were not open to queries. Maybe that's why they weren't on Query Tracker.

Had a meeting on Saturday about the Kickstarter. We hired a consultant to help with things and it was our first opportunity to talk with her and Artithermic. I think it went well but there's still so much more to do, hence the subtitle.

Our colorist finished the chibis I commissioned and I'm thinking they would make either cute t-shirts or posters, we'll see how Artithmeric feels about them. It is their Kickstarter, after all.

I need to come up with bios on the creative team and so far, only the second colorist has been radio silent. I've reached out to her through email and Linkedin and no response, at least not so far.

There are other things we've talked about like page layout, etc. which will be a little outside of my control, but I think the meeting was good.

Worked some more on the Pilot outline, though I believe there is still work to do on it. This is more of an exercise so I can be ready.

Work continues on the current issues as well, with new pages from our artist and new pages from our colorist. We had Julia on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, to discuss her work on Issue #19, Kamaitachi. Always enjoy speaking with our creative team.

Did some work on fka Skylar this week, though it never seems to be enough. Word count is up to 23,416, though it should be higher. I had a really good idea though that I'm looking forward to using. It really has more to do with the subplot but it is something I heard about on the news that I think will work. Looking forward to getting to it.

My review of Arsène Lupin (1932) was Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. A live-action film, based on the same story that would be the source of the Lupin III manga and anime shows. Not sure when I wrote it, but it was recently. On Wednesday, GameDay, it was Paul's review of Shantae: Risky's Revenge - Director's Cut for the Switch.  I started a new review for Mata Hari (1931) but I'm still working on it.

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

A Week in Writing #386 - One Week at a Time

Hope everyone is staying safe, has been boosted, and is, of course, writing.

Welcome to the working week, at least for me. With the holidays over, it was back to the 8 to 5 world, and writing gets put on the back burner, that is in the wee hours after dinner and before going to bed. Oh, how I wish the 8 to 5 was spent on writing.

I get a little mad at myself when I don't use all the hours I can to write. Sometimes, like today, there is a feeling of ennui and you look up and most of the afternoon has gone. Oh, I got some things done in the morning, posting a film's anniversary post on Twitter for Trophy Unlocked; picking and posting a new peek-of-the-week for Powers Squared; uploading the next video to YouTube, and setting up some social media posts to run next week, but then not much. But all of this, I look at as the business side of writing, not actual writing itself.

So, what did I do this week?

I continued working on Skylar (no longer the name) finishing a couple of chapters. I like ending chapters on a page-turner, or at least a question that needs to be answered, and I managed that on both of the chapters I finished during the week. We should probably log my word count, currently, this version is up to 22,646. Please don't apply the 1000 words a day and I think I'll be at near 30,000 next week. That would be great, but the 1000 words covers a lot of sins, so to speak.

As an example, after watching The Cat's Meow, I wrote nearly 3000 words on it for Trophy Unlocked. We watched the movie in honor of the director Peter Bogdanovich's passing. It seems this year has gotten off to a bumpy start with so many Hollywood players dying recently. As always, I'm not sure when this will run but I like having gotten it done within 24 hours of watching the film.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, the blog is starting a salute to the Shantae game series, with Paul's review of the first game appearing on Wednesday. The Saturday morning review was Paul's of Puella Magi Madoka Magica the Movie: Rebellion, a rather odd bit of anime (my opinion) that we watched recently.

I also worked this week on an outline for a pilot episode for our proposed Powers Squared animated series. Paul is the family expert in writing animation and I'm trying to learn from him. I finished a version on Thursday night but I'd like to take another look at it before showing it to him.

On the subject of Powers Squared, we made our first podcast of the year with a team meeting, including the creatives we work with; Rachel Wells, Julia Canon, and Trevor joining Paul and me on the show. I really enjoy talking with Rachel and Julia since otherwise the communication is limited to emails, text messages, and DMs on Discord. We also got the skinny on another project Rachel is working on which is currently on Indiegogo, Commander in Chef. She's been rather hush-hush about it up until now. (You are under no obligation to fund it, please wait instead for our Kickstarter coming in a couple of months.) And yes, I will be hyping it here, so no need to worry that you've missed it or anything.

So, for next week it promises to be more of the same. I'll finish my version of the outline, continue to work on fka Skylar and, yes, wait for it, send out the first query of the year. And who knows, maybe one of them will write back this time.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep on writing and I'll see you back here 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 #383 - It's Almost Christmas!

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

I know that the whole world seems to be in a hurry to resume "normal" life but I think we have a long way to go. I don't know about you but I'm feeling lucky to have avoided COVID so far and I hope my luck continues. The novel I'm working on takes place post-COVID or at least, in a presumed post-COVD Los Angeles.

The protagonist of the story is a private detective, J.D. Barrister, trying to restart his business after COVID had all but shut him down. I won't go into the story so far but after-COVID seems to be a moving and elusive target. I originally had this starting this past summer, but I may move it to Spring 2022. I'm incorporating things like masks and social distancing and it might be interesting to incorporate whatever is next with the pandemic as part of the story. I can't imagine any novel taking place during this day and age that can avoid the pandemic's influence on characters' lives.

One place it hasn't affected is the make-believe world in the comic book I work on, Powers Squared. As much as I wanted to incorporate it in the novel, it doesn't belong in this fantasy, not that it hasn't had an effect on the book itself. I won't go into a year-end look until next time but COVID has touched everything.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we're currently working on thumbnails and pencils for Issue 20, coloring and lettering for Issue 19, and a Kickstarter for a graphic novel of the first five issues. Our colorist is doing some chibis of characters we want to use as a tier. I don't have much to say so far on the Kickstarter but we're having a meeting this coming Monday about it, so I might have more to tell next time. I really want this to be a success and the last time we have to look at the first five issues again.

We had a team meeting with the creatives on the book, which you're welcome to listen to at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. We try to get together once a month to both check-in with everyone, but also to build a sense of team. I also want the creatives to be more involved with selling the book they're working on.

Just wrapped up a review hopefully for next December, Star in the Night, a short from 1945 that retells the nativity. I know it sounds like I'm really planning ahead but it sort of makes sense with holidays and Halloween films to write reviews when those sorts of films are easily available to watch and you're in the mood to watch them.

Speaking of Christmas, my review of Little Women (1933) was a Sunday morning review, since Saturday morning was dedicated to the 11th anniversary of Trophy Unlocked and founder Paul's review of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. I have to give Paul credit, the blog has grown over the years and currently has over 1400 reviews and has been read by nearly 700,000 people.

Other reviews this week were three by Trevor as Trophy Unlocked's salute to the EyeToy wrapped with reviews of EyeToy: Play 2 on Monday, EyeToy: Operation Spy on Wednesday; and EyeToy: Kinetic on Friday.

Well, that about does it for me. I hope everyone reading this has a Merry and Safe Christmas if you celebrate. Keep writing and I'll see you again next week.

A Week in Writing #382 - Getting Really Personal

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

Not to get overly personal but on Friday I had a colonoscopy, which I encourage anyone of the age to get. The prep is not really too bad anymore, but you do sort of lose a day after being sedated, which I did. But that is a small price to pay for peace of mind. End of public service message and on to what I did or didn't do this past week, which is the point of this post.

No queries this week, partly due to prep for the above. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be doing any more for the rest of the year. I'm not seeing the point in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Agents, I assume, have families and lives and may, like all of us, be looking forward to time off at the end of the year. I'd hate to be something they either ignore or give quick treatment to in order to clear their desks.

Busy week with Powers Squared. We've been showing our pitch packet around and the comments have been positive and helpful so far, as we'll continue to tweak it before trying to sell the idea. I won't give away names but I do appreciate the feedback we've received so far.

More thumbnails from our artist, for pages for issue 20. It's interesting to see what you've written being, for lack of a better word, storyboarded. You see things that you didn't expect and sometimes seeing it drawn out leads you to want to make changes, which was the case this week with one of the pages we received. It's not the artist's fault but seeing it makes you rethink it sometimes.

The process of putting together a comic book, if you're not the writer/artist, is one of teamwork and compromise. Sometimes you don't get everything you want and sometimes you get more than you expected. The latter has been our experience for the most part. Our artist makes changes when she thinks the work is better than how we wrote it but we also get the final say.

More reviews this week. One new one for Fitzwilly, a Christmas heist movie from 1967. Look for it next year when we get back to holiday films. On Saturday morning, it was my review of The Holly and the Ivy, a British drama from 1952. Before I get too far into Trophy Unlocked, I did want to say the blog is about to celebrate its 11th anniversary. In honor of that, this past week's On the Air with Powers Squared was about the blog and holiday films, as well as a little bit about L.A. Comic-Con, for those who don't read this blog. Enough of crossing the streams.

Back to Trophy Unlocked, this past week has been devoted to the EyeToy with Trevor's reviews of  EyeToy: Play, EyeToy: Groove, Nicktoons Movin', Sega Superstars, and EyeToy: AntiGrav. If you're saying to yourself, there are more EyeToy games than that, well there are and there will be more reviews next week. In addition, Saturday morning will be Paul's 11th-anniversary review. I'll let that be a surprise. Anyway, please check it out.

I worked on Skylar for the first few days of the week, but the rest of the week was sort of taken up with what I noted in the first paragraph of this post. Enough said on that. But I do think I'm making progress on this version.

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

A Week in Writing #380 - Holidayus Interruptus

 

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Thanksgiving, and, of course, did some writing as well.

That was me over the long holiday weekend, sneaking it in where I could. Now, part of the reason I didn't get as much writing done this holiday wasn't so much about Thanksgiving, though that did take most of the day in and of itself. I spent nearly eight hours watching The Beatles: Get Back on Disney+. It definitely took a big chunk out of three days. If you're curious what I really thought of it, hit the link above and read my review on Trophy Unlocked.

Speaking of that blog, there's been a lot of activity trying to map out the rest of the year and Paul is considering what to review for the blog's 11th anniversary, December 18th. But there will still be the mix of games and movies, with an emphasis on that other holiday, Christmas. We already started the holiday season with Trevor's Saturday Morning Review of 8-Bit Christmas, a new-to-streaming movie. There will be more coming, some traditional and some not, as the month progresses.

So far, this week, besides my review and Trevor's Saturday review, was his Wednesday's (Game Day) review of Smashing Drive on the GameCube. There will be lots more game reviews in the coming few weeks, so check it out.

Such was the holiday that we didn't attempt to do a new On the Air with Powers Squared, but instead replayed an edited version of the session we had a while back with the rest of the creatives playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which was a team-building exercise. I'm sure it makes for great radio if you just playback the audio.

Did have a thought over the break about changing one of the future scripts for Powers Squared to give us a "holiday" issue. I'd written a script in which the boys' parents come for a visit. I had used the old idea of a parents' day at colleges but decided to make it so they're coming for a visit on Christmas. I'm working on that revision presently and hope to have it done this week.

I want instead to concentrate more on the coming Kickstarter, as in February. I just want to be done with my deliverables as soon as I can. Must write to Artithmeric to get guidance on what they want.

No queries this week, again the excuse is Thanksgiving. I will endeavor to send one next week. New letter old start pages; we'll see if that makes a diff.

Did manage to get some work in on Skylar, though the character's name has changed in the meantime. Still holding on to the idea of the tontine but who is involved is changing. I don't like to write too much about what I'm writing but I'm hoping the changes will make it better.

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

A Week in Writing #379 - Back to Where I Started

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

Well, so much for the new query letter for Broken People. The first one I sent was rejected four days later. Well, at least it was quick:

Thank you for sending me your query.

This isn’t something I can take on.

Please don’t think of that as

a negative assessment of your writing

or your book.

Agents are all looking for different things

and what’s not a fit for me can be exactly what

someone else is looking for.

Please don’t think of this as rejection

so much as redirection to an agent who will be a better match.

I hope you’ll query widely.

Warm wishes,

I know the agent said not to think of this as rejection but it still does because it is. Of course, this is a form letter but I'll give them points for trying to be nice about it. On the plus side, at least, I got a response. You have to wonder sometimes if anyone ever receives your emails.

Now, I'm wondering if it's the first five pages. When I sent a new query on Thursday, I did revert back to an old set of pages, this one wanted the first 20, so we'll see how it goes.

On the subject of my "other" writing, I've begun the rewrite on Skylar and things are a-changing. I'm moving away from what I've written so far, though I'm keeping the idea of a tontine, I'm changing who is involved, etc. Kind of looking forward to getting more into it.

Switching to Powers Squared, made some progress on pulling together more original art for the Kickstarter next year. Our colorist, Julia Canon, had drawn an image of one of our characters, Mocha, and we're going to have her draw more like that as part of a tier reward. We have some panels from the issues and character designs that our artist Rachel Wells had done for another project that we'll be using as well.

We had our monthly team meeting this past Friday on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. I really like getting together with everyone involved in the book. Hit the link if you'd like to listen in.

Had a sort of brain freeze on Saturday with the morning review on Trophy Unlocked; I forgot to post about the review or any of the anniversary posts. I don't know what happened and I didn't realize it until I was prepping for Sunday morning. I'm cutting myself some slack, as I only occasionally miss what is my morning routine.

My review of Beauty and the Boss was the Saturday review I forgot to promote, so I guess I only let myself down. We watched Clifford The Big Red Dog, mostly because it was new and free and would give us a new film to review, not because we thought it would be any good. You can read Paul's review through the link. Wednesday was Game Day and featured Trevor's review of Crazy Taxi, an old PS2 game. The blog is coming up on its 11th anniversary next month. I did manage to write a new review of Seasoned Greetings, a short from 1933 starring Lita Grey Chaplin and Sammy Davis, Jr., but you're going to have to wait to read it.

Well, I think that about covers it. Hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #378 - Making Changes, Making Plans

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

For some reason, this year's daylight savings switchback didn't wipe me out like I was expecting it to do. Hope it's been smooth for you as well.

Well, I updated my query letter and did send one out this past Thursday. No way of knowing if it will make a difference. I hope so, anyway. Hard to know. I've never heard back from any agent saying "good letter." In fact, I can't remember when I last heard back from an agent on a query. It's been mostly radio silence, which I think is the new normal unless they're interested. You know, if I do hear back from anyone, either way, you'll know.

Paul and I had a meeting this week with our on-demand publisher Artithmeric to discuss the long-discussed yet-to-be-scheduled Kickstarter. The goal of the Kickstarter is to fund a French translation of Powers Squared for that market, which apparently is a larger market for comics than in the US. We had to talk them down from starting it after Thanksgiving, based on our own experience. Now, it's scheduled for February. There is still some work to be done, but it's nice to have a goal in mind.

On the subject of Powers Squared, we're working on Issue #20 with our artist Rachel Wells. Things are going pretty well, as Paul and I reviewed pencils for the first four pages this morning.

This past Friday, we hosted another creative, Steve Lafler, on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. He had to reschedule from a couple of weeks ago when he had an active Kickstarter for his book Movie Star: 1956. It's always fun to meet and chat with other creatives. Lafler has been in the game, so to speak, for a lot longer than we have been. You can listen to the podcast at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. If you want to see it, you can watch it now on twitch.tv/powerssquared now or later, like Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT on our YouTube channel at https://youtu.be/lJKAWJaPDlo.

Busy week on Trophy Unlocked, actually it was Prince of Persia week. All Paul from Monday through Saturday with Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Game), Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands (PS3), Second Look - Assassin's Creed , and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Film). If you think Assassin's Creed might seem out of place, in reality, the game started out as another Prince of Persia video game.

On Friday, we finally watched No Time to Die when it started its streaming window. My review went up this morning and you can read it here.

I did start working on my review of How to Watch Football, but it is only 8 minutes long and I'm not able to find much about it or any images. The review was turning into a bio on Robert Benchley, which is interesting but it needs more. I decided to include How to Be a Detective, which I haven't seen yet. I did start work on a review of Christopher Strong, Katharine Hepburn's first starring role in her long career.

One thing that got squeezed out of the week was Skylar. It's not that I'm not thinking about the book, it's just that I'm not loving the story so far. Changes they are a-coming. Stay tuned for just what.

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

A Week in Writing #377 - Ready for the Time Change?

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

I don't know about you but I sort of dread the coming week. Twice a year, the time shifts, today we fell back an hour, which sort of throws me off. I've made no secret that I have trouble sleeping anyway and this shift doesn't help. I'm not hoping for trouble, and I hope I don't but I just want to go on record now if I get nothing done next week. You were forewarned.

I'll start this off by admitting I didn't send out a new query this week. I decided instead to try and rewrite my query letter. What do they say about insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? Well, sending the same letter over and over expecting a different result seemed to qualify as that for me. Of all the ones I've sent so far, nary a bite so I thought I'd change it up before sending out more.

We started a new issue of Powers Squared this week, which means a lot of thumbnails, with changes, Paul and I were reviewing over three nights, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Though the time diminished each night, it's still something we had to do. It's a familiar pattern for us and I'm pretty sure common for comic book creators.

While we're on the subject of Powers Squared, we did an On the Air with Powers Squared this week about the depiction of twins in popular culture, since our book is about twins. Trevor joined us and I think it was a good discussion. You can listen here and it will be up on our YouTube channel on Wednesday.

The first Sunday of the month also means a new newsletter, which went out this morning. We're always looking for people to enroll at San Romero, so here comes the plea. It's free! You get a free issue and the more of you who sign up the less I'm going to have to mention it here, so it's a win-win.

My review for Dune went up as the Saturday Morning Review. Wednesday's review, Paul's, might sound like a good one for this blog, The Novelist.

No new review this week from me. We opted to watch the first part of the Transformers: Cyberverse finale on YouTube. I did finish the one I was working on, Arsène Lupin, and I'm thinking about doing one for the short How to Watch Football but I haven't started it yet.

This brings me back to Skylar. I've been working on it all week but I'm not really happy with where it is going. I'm thinking, once again, about revamping it. I had the idea of having a murder right off the bat, spoiler alert, it's crime fiction, and had backed off that idea. Now, I'm thinking it needs a spark so someone might have to die. Writing it hasn't been hard and I think I can write dialogue until the cows come home, but it's not advancing the plot.

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

A Week in Writing #376 - Getting Back on Track?

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

I had big plans this week to write a sort of day-by-day diary of my writing this week. However, that didn't get past Monday night. Oh, the best-laid plans...

My goal was to show what I was doing every night but that didn't pan out. I got the idea because after writing this blog last Sunday, I also reviewed pages for Powers Squared and wrote a review of Dune for Trophy Unlocked, and also worked on Skylar.

This is sort of typical for me. Sometimes I work on one project but usually, my writing time gets divided up between different projects, or different aspects of the same one. Like on Monday, there was one page to review for Issue #19 of Powers Squared and then I worked on an updated version of a character description that we want a friend of the book to read. After that, back to Skylar. While progress seems to be slow on that, I am working on it most days.

After that, I lost track, so let's go back to basics.

I'm currently working on a review of Arsène Lupin (1932) for Trophy Unlocked. I'm about halfway through, so I'm hoping to wrap it up today or tomorrow. We watched it as part of our drain the DVR Saturdays. I recorded it recently when I saw that TCM was going to show it. The story that the film is based on has been made many times and was the inspiration for the Lupin III manga and anime, which was part of the attraction in the first place.

While we're on the subject of Trophy Unlocked we were celebrating Halloween in our own way this week, starting with Paul's review of Call of Cthulhu, a horror video game. Our Saturday review was Trevor's review of the animated movie Monster House, and we added a special review today with Paul's review of Batman: The Long Halloween Part 1 and 2, which we watched over two nights. I understand my review of Dune will appear next Saturday.

We had a bit of a hiccup this week with On The Air with Powers Squared. Our guest had to cancel at the last minute, actually, the night before. We had to audible and switch up topics. We had talked about doing a Halloween twitch and talk about horror films. Now that we had to come up with a show, we decided to move it up to Friday. When we got to talking about horror films, we decided we like more psychological horror and decided on aspects of Frankenstein that we liked, so that became our topic. That's how the sausage gets made sometimes. You can listen to our discussion, which included Trevor, on our website at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

I did send out a new query on Thursday night (virtual pat on the back). I have one that has been out there almost to expiration but until it does, I'm still counting it, so I have three out. My goal is to send another on Thursday and I trust you'll hold me to it.

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

A Week in Writing #375 - One Last Distraction

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

I believe I mentioned this in last week's post, but this week was sort of bifurcated by one more event, which sort of threw things into slight disarray. And I know when I say what it was it's not going to seem like much of anything or at least nothing bad. On Thursday, we went to Disneyland.

What that means to my week in writing is that I didn't send out any new queries, nor did I check on any in the pipeline. As I wrote previously, Thursday night is my night for queries. I know, I'm being bad about this, and I know it's something I need to work on next week for sure.

If you're wondering, Disneyland was exhausting. Fun but exhausting. Between the tram not running and walking to the Rise of the Resistance attraction several times to check on it, which broke down during the day, we ended up walking about 12 miles. I don't know about you but that's about 6 more than I usually do in a day on average. We took Friday off to recuperate, so there's another day gone, so to speak.

No new reviews for me this week, as we watched Part 1 of Batman: The Long Halloween on Friday night and Part 2 on Saturday, rather than our usual drain the DVR. Paul ended up writing the review for the 3-hours+ Batman animated film.

I did finish my two reviews this week, Hocus Pocus and Racket Busters, no TBA for either, though I would imagine Hocus Pocus is a good year off from being published.

On the topic of reviews, mine for The Return of Doctor X appeared as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Paul's review of The Evil Within 2, sort of mixed GameDay with our October Halloween theme.

Next week, besides sending a much-needed query, I'm going to write a review for the new Dune, which we watched on Sunday afternoon/evening.

More pages to review from both our artist, Rachel Wells, and our colorist, Julia Canon. Last week, we had Julia on last week's On the Air with Powers Squared as we reviewed her last batch of pages. She made the updates over the weekend and placed them in our Dropbox. We also got inks for the last four pages and the cover for Issue #19 Kamaitachi also over the weekend.

We had the entire creative team on the show this past week for our monthly staff meeting. You can listen to it here if you're interested. Short show, only about 15 minutes.

Next week, we're having a guest, Steve Lafler, an illustrator and cartoonist. We had put out the word on various Facebook pages that we were looking for guests and he reached out to us. Going to be interesting, since we've never met. He also has a Kickstarter that we'll discuss as well. Always fun to meet new people.

While we're still talking Powers Squared, our on-demand printer Artithmeric featured us on their social media on Friday with Meet the Creator. We can always use some extra publicity. I'll have more about that in our newsletter.

I did work pretty consistently this week on Skylar, so I am making good progress there. I need to keep up that momentum.

Well, that's about all for me. Keep writing and I'll be back 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 #373 - Virtual Pat on the Back

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

I'm giving myself a virtual pat on the back this week. When there wasn't a movie to review this weekend, more on that later, I used the time to do what I should be doing, and that's query Broken People. I know, about time you say, but I knew this was an opportunity and didn't waste it. I wonder how many queries arrive in agents' mailboxes at odd hours of the day and week. I know I've been rejected at odd times during the day, so I imagine the same is true in reverse. Are there more out there like me?

I know there are rarely any comments on this blog and that's not by my choice. This would be an opportunity to start a conversation about when you query. And do you have a favorite means? It's down to between email and forms. I prefer emails. What about you? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this.

If you're keeping track, I've got three active ones, but the clock is running out on another one, so there are really only three active ones with another about to DNR officially any day now.

This past Saturday, we did our usual clean the DVR, but we watched a documentary about Buster Keaton, The Great Buster: A Celebration. I didn't feel that a review was necessary since it should really be the movies and shorts themselves that get reviewed rather than a documentary about them.

Busy week on the blog for me, as I had four reviews up this week, as Trophy Unlocked celebrated James Bond week leading up to the release of No Time to Die. Monday was Casino Royale (1954), followed by Goldfinger on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we reverted back to Game Day with Paul's review of Death Stranding Director's Cut. We got back on the Bond bandwagon on Thursday with Tomorrow Never Dies and the week ended with Casino Royale (2006) I know the idea would be to do a review of the new movie as a follow up to the week, but that would require going into a theater and that's a bridge too far right now for us. Our Saturday Morning Review got us back to the Halloween theme with my review of The Mystery of the Wax Museum.

Not much happened this week on Powers Squared, which of late has been dominating my weeks. I did do some work on our Pitch Packet, working with Paul on a three- to five-page version. Once that's settled, we'll work on a full version. Trying to be prepared for what they would be looking for. Sort of like having to have a short version of your book's synopsis as well as a full-length one.

We did review some inks for Issue #19, but that was about all we did. Once we get the tiffs for those, we can turn our attention to Issue #20.

Did some good work this week on Skylar. Now I've caught up with most of the edits and am starting again on new pages. I've been enjoying having the time to work on it.

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