A Week in Writing #195

Time this week, like the last few weeks, was mostly spent working on Powers Squared with time for a future review for Trophy Unlocked.

Most of the writing was working on Part 2 of a future story arc and the beginnings of combining Parts 3 and 4 into one for the same story arc, What's in a Name? While it's not the final draft, I feel I got it to at least draft worthy of sharing for feedback. I'm about halfway through with the scripts for the next three story arcs that we've planned out after we finish with Kirby Good and Evil.

On that front, our artist submitted pencils for pages 9 through 12 for Issue #7, the colorist sent the first four pages for the same issue and our letterer, Trevor, submitted 8 lettered pages for Issue #6. Paul and I ran out of time today to review everything, so my apologies if any of our creative team is waiting for us. We'll get to them tomorrow, I promise.

This afternoon got away from us. We went as a family to see Deadpool 2 and after that, the boys shot interviews to be edited down for a future video(s) on Google. Time just got away from us for anything else.

Over the weekend, added some images of locations from various issues of the comic book, including future ones. You can see them at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/places and they will be distributed on Instagram in the days ahead.

We also heard back this week from Comixology and we'll be talking to them again the first week in June about the publication of the next batch of comic books. After I finish the next script, I'm going to work on a press release since I'm not sure what to expect. The problem will be after writing it, who to send it to, but that's getting ahead of ourselves.

The review I wrote was for Seven Chances and that will appear soon, but this past week was given to the other writers on Trophy Unlocked. Trevor wrote a review for Shrek, which we published on the anniversary of its release this past Friday. Paul wrote what became our Saturday Morning Review of Shrek 2, which was also published on its anniversary.

This next week, I hope to finish the script I'm working on, start work on the Press Release, review all artwork submitted in a timely manner, contact my editor about Familiar Stranger, post the first of the Powers Squared videos on YouTube; and start working on a review for Crime Wave, a film noir I watched on Saturday night.

A Week in Writing #194

Another week working on the next scripts for Powers Squared and writing reviews for Trophy Unlocked. I've put the mystery writing on hold until I get through the comic book scripts. At that point, we should be good for a year or more and I can get back to more in the series I've been writing. If my editor sends back revisions, I'll address those, but in the meantime, that series is on hold for new material.

Spent Saturday night at the Soraya at CSUN listening to one of the more successful writers, David Sedaris, perform. I think that's the right word for it. He read pretty much new things, ones written after he submitted his manuscript for his new book Calypso as well as a commencement speech he's giving at Oberlin College and Conservatory. He also read some excerpts from his current book, Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) and the follow-up diary book due out in 2020, I believe.

One of the nice things about his "concerts" is that he signs books before and after. I've heard that the after sessions can go on until 1 am, which is frankly later than I would want to stay unless there were refreshments. We were earlier enough to meet him before, which allowed time to autograph the six books I had brought. My favorite of his is "Thanks for making me rich." Am I the only one he wrote that to?

He sort of drove the conversation, asking me if I had any doctors in my family. I happen to have two brothers who are surgeons, which prompted him to ask me if I thought I could operate on someone. "No," was my answer which prompted his question, "What if it was someone you hated?" "If I wanted to kill them."

He did get around to asking about the people I was with, and I introduced my sons and my wife. He asked them what they did and when Paul told him he was working at UCLA Extension's Writing Program, he offered the advice, through the question, "Do you write every day?" to which the answer should be "Yes", which is my roundabout way of sharing this advice with you. During a Q & A session at the end, mostly with the house lights down, someone asked him about writer's block. His advice here was that he had never found a writer who had writer's block and that there was always something to work on, even if it didn't pan out in the end. He said he never thought that it would ever be easy and mentioned that he rewrites some of his essays many times, so don't think you're alone in that process.

As far as my writing goes, I've spent a good deal of time working on the first twenty pages of the next Powers Squared story arc, What's In a Name? Originally this was mapped out at 4 issues so there will be some slogging ahead. After that, is another story arc, The Imposter, so I'll be at this for the foreseeable future.

Our artist delivered pencils for the second set of 8 pages for Issue #7, but we haven't heard anything from her for a few days.

In related news, we finished editing the third of the interview videos I did for Powers Squared, though I'd like to have a release from the interviewer before we put them out, as well as get on with interviewing the boys. Scheduling is always hard with him so hopefully, we can get to it next week. Again, I think I've threatened to let you know when these finally start popping up on YouTube.

Finished the review of Sky High and am about 2800 words into a review of Seven Chances (1925), a Buster Keaton silent comedy, for Trophy Unlocked. On Mother's Day, we went to see Sunset Boulevard (1950) and used that as an excuse to watch Seven Chances, as Keaton does have a small bit in the film, on Friday night. Both reviews should be up in the next few weeks, but this weekend the Saturday Morning Review went to a review of the latest God of War video game. Check it out!

So, the following week is pretty well set, more on What's in a Name? and finishing my review for Seven Chances. Maybe more videos as well. At least that's the plan.

A Week in Writing #57

After a couple of weeks of drawing and redrawing, I finally finished my thumbnail storyboard for the comic book. Still have some work to do on it, but at least that part is over with for the time being. I need to go back and mark them up to show what the crude renderings are supposed to be relating and update the script to show the divide between page and panels. The whole experience has reinforced my respect for artists and how much they do.

As far as actual writing, that is words on paper, I did complete one of the reviews I set out to complete for the blog; The Picture of Dorian Gray. After a month of Shakespeare film reviews, what I called Shakespeare September, I'm moving on to horror films in October. There are five Saturdays, so I'm putting the final touches on the five reviews I plan to post. Still need to complete the one for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which will be the goal for the coming week, while I'm finishing the work on the comic book script/storyboard.

Besides posting the review for Hamlet, I did write 1000 words on A Hard Day's Night for the occasional series, Stubs Goes Blu(-ray), in which I re-examine a favorite film with an enhanced release. A Hard Day's Night had been the first film I wrote about for Trophy Unlocked and I finally watched the Blu-ray release this past Friday, which was also my birthday.

Birthdays are a great time to double down on your priorities and I'm hoping to get back to actual writing pretty soon; you know the whole writing, rewriting, querying and rejection process that has been my writing world for the past few years.

A Week in Writing #19

Slow start to the week. Spent most of Monday night renting a dehumidifier and fan to try and dry out the walls after the leak. Only really did some editing on a future review for Trophy Unlocked, nothing major.

DNR'd another query, since it expired at the end of last year. Again, I hope to hear something, a Did Not Respond is sort of a maybe in my book. I don't like the trend with the query/feedback process, where no response means a pass. There are so many factors that can happen in between sending the email and six weeks to three months later, that agents ask you to give them. Maybe for some reason it didn't go through? Maybe they're swamped and haven't gotten back to your query? Maybe a sentient dog came into their office, sat down at their computer and deleted everything in their in-box? I mean, there are so many reasonable explanations. The only thing worse is the form rejection "not right for my list" or "the publishing business is very subjective ..." And don't say good luck unless you really mean it.

But I digress.

Sent out four more queries, two each for A Killer Blog and Past Present. Still waiting to hear back from the agent with the manuscript to A Killer Blog. Not sure what to make about having to wait, but frankly, I don't think it's a good sign that I haven't heard back yet; so I keep querying.

Pulled back from querying the screenplays. Need to write some synopsis first, which again is time consuming. So much creative time is taken up with trying to get representation. I can't really say I enjoy this part of the process, but I look at it as a necessary evil.

Did some more edits on Familiar Stranger, but not as much as I wanted to do, too many distractions from life, but I like where it's going at last.

Published a review of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) on Trophy Unlocked: http://trophyunlocked.blogspot.com/2015/01/stubs-mr-blandings-builds-his-dream.html and wrote a future one for A Submarine Pirate (1915), about 1800 words on a 25 minute short. Have to keep that up, too.

After Paul's comments and input on the comic book script, I made a couple of rewrites this week.

I find that I have to do some writing every day even if it isn't 1000 words, or else I can't sleep at night.

A Week in Writing #18

The old saying is that "Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans." While the holidays had been a pleasant diversion from writing, I had hoped to get some more work done this week and weekend. I didn't count on a water leak inside one of the walls, which became a real distraction getting fixed. Note: Try not to have an emergency plumbing problem late on a Friday afternoon right after a holiday. It took about five hours of calling and waiting to get someone to stop the leak and then re-arranging the next day to be sure to be home so they can finish the repair. Now it's repairing the wall and moving everything back in. But hey, what are you going to do?

Trying to get set for the new year, so I updated the query list I keep on an excel spreadsheet. I hadn't looked at it during the holidays, so I thought I'd play a little catch up. 7 DNRs; not a great stat to end the year on. It's possible that I might hear something from one of these agents later, as they, too, may be caught up in the end of the year/holiday rush, but for now their stated reply time has run out, so I have to move on. That leaves me with only four active queries, including the agent who has the complete manuscript. I plan to send more queries, but not until the week after the New Year's.

I also took some time to research agents for screenplays. This must be a very mercurial profession as I went down several recent internet lists and found more than half appeared to be out of business. Some have websites that tell you nothing or seem to be perpetually in a state of construction. I was able to whittle it down to a list of 21 that seemed to be legitimate and still in business. I thought I didn't have enough rejections in my writing life that I might as well shop around a couple of screenplays. Check back here to see how that goes.

Did get some real writing done as well, not just research for disappointment:

Made some real progress on the rewrite for Familiar Stranger. Having gotten past the roadblock, now it's updating it from taking place on water to taking place on land, so it's not quite, pardon the pun, smooth sailing just yet.

Wrote another installment for the someday happening comic book, When we pitched our idea at the Comic Creators Connection at last year's Comic-Con, one of the artists seemed disappointed that we didn't have our heroes in costumes. I finally wrote a story based on the premise. It was good to get back to the story and I'm hoping to get some good feedback from my co-writer/editor on the project.

Posted a review on Trophy Unlocked on this past Saturday, which is my usual day to post. Starting the year off with a comedy, His Girl Friday (1940). Find it here:  http://trophyunlocked.blogspot.com/2015/01/stubs-his-girl-friday.html

2014 had been the the 50th Anniversary of The Beatles coming to America, the 75th Anniversary for Hollywood's Golden Year, 1939, and the 100th anniversary of feature film-making in Hollywood, three things we celebrated on Trophy Unlocked. Of course, there are other anniversaries in 2015, including the 100th for The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith's most controversial and successful film. Watched the movie and wrote a 4700-plus word essay about the film. Will be posting that later in the year.

So that's about it for this week. I have high hopes for 2015 and will tell all on this blog, so please keep checking back. And as always, comments are welcomed.

A Week in Writing #12

Some weeks seem to be less satisfying than others. I finished a second go at the screenplay, adding in enough to make the story work. The screenplay at this point is 161 pages, which is probably long, but I've seen other screenplays that are about that long for movies that aren't 161 minutes long. But I'll have to keep working on it.

I'd like to get back to the novels though. Haven't gotten any notes from my editor lately, so I'm going to go back to Familiar Stranger. I had reached an impasse on the book that I think I've been able to think through so I'm anxious to get back. I'm not trying to make excuses in advance, but the coming week isn't going to be writing friendly, what with driving and eating related to Thanksgiving.

Submitted two queries this week and two others expired from no response. It's hard to know if they actually looked at your query and passed or are so overloaded they didn't have a chance to look at it. Even though I've put them into the Did Not Respond pile, I've had them come back after the fact and ask to see more or to remind me they had rejected me. Still waiting until after December 7th to follow up with the agent who has my full manuscript.

Wrote three reviews this weekend and posted two on Trophy Unlocked. Wrote and posted a review (1000 words) of Birdman  (or The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) after seeing a screening on Friday night. Posted another one for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), as we continue to look at films from Hollywood's Golden Year. Wrote a future December review of Remember The Night (1940), 3125 words, and a Blu-ray update on Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), 327 words; so it's been a busy weekend of writing.

Hope you have a safe, happy and creative Thanksgiving.

A Week in Writing #11

Last week, I wrote that I wanted to finish my screenplay adaptation on this past Monday. Pleased to say I did and started the arduous task of editing it down. I had read somewhere that a screenplay should be about 75 to 90 pages long and mine clocked in at about 170 pages, which is about twice too long. However, when I looked at some screenplays online, I found that most are much longer than the 75 to 90 page limit I'd heard about. I've decided the best route for me is to write the screenplay I want, tighten it as much as I can and go from there. So the editing down makes it hard to keep a thousand word a day pace.

As far as the search for representation goes, I got one form rejection from an agent this week and I found three more I could send out query letters to. I'm still biding time until I can nudge the agent with my full manuscript. I've read on a blog associated with Query Tracker that you're supposed to give them three months with a partial and six with a full, which is like forever in writer years. The first week in December will mark about seven months since I started the query process with her. She asked for a partial (145 pages) after a month and then a full after three more months and after a nudge from me.

One thing I've learned is that writers support one another, to that end, I went to Palm Springs on Saturday for a book signing for a friend of mine that had written a history of one of that town's social institutions. Quite impressive with a city proclamation and everything. I will admit I was a bit jealous. Even though it was not the kind of book I want to write, he had at least made the move from writer to publish and paid writer. That seems to loom so far in the future for me.

In the meantime, posted a review on Trophy Unlocked: Stagecoach (1939). You can read it here: http://trophyunlocked.blogspot.com/2014/11/stubs-stagecoach.html.  I also wrote a review for a future post, 2300+ words about the cult film Office Space. One of the things I like about writing for the blog is planning out the reviews. Have the ones I want to post for November ready to go, which means I can start to work on Christmas soon.

Next week, it's back to the screenplay and sending out some new queries. Always have to keep the eyes on the goal and have to keep writing.

A Week in Writing #10

Last week, I mentioned that I hadn't gotten any response to my queries. Well, that changed this week, but not necessarily for the better. I did receive two responses, both rejections. While this is frustrating, I hate to say it, but I'm no longer shocked by it or even depressed. I don't like it, but I have to think there is an agent out there that will give me a chance, I just haven't found that person yet.

The first draft of my screenplay adaptation of A Killer Blog is almost done. I have a long way to go after that, as I imagine that it is probably twice as long as it should be. I hope to finish it on Monday and then it's rewrites and slashing. I added another 6000 words to the effort, but starting next week I'll be subtracting I guess. Maybe I should change the blog to -1000 Words a Day. 

Got feedback from my editor, notes on about 100 pages of Public and Private. Good stuff. It's interesting to see what he has problems with in the book, outside of grammar. There have been some things that he's let stay in that I assumed would be problems. Now when I say let stay in, I know the final decision is mine, but I also know that the goal is to make it better and I think his suggestions are trying to make it better as well and I take them seriously.

For the blog, I did post one review, Mary Poppins, available here: http://trophyunlocked.blogspot.com/2014/11/stubs-mary-poppins.html

I will admit I was quite excited to see someone post a comment about the review on the blog. I think it's been nearly 2 years since someone has actually done that to one of my reviews on Trophy Unlocked, going back to my review on The Artist (2012). I know it's a little thing, but it's always nice to know you're not writing for the void. Comments are always welcomed (HINT!).

I also wrote another future post for Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954). I know we had already watched a lot of horror films recently, so this one may wait for quite awhile before it gets posted. But the opportunity was there to watch it, so I took advantage to write the review, almost 2500 words this time. 

Mapping out the reviews to post for the rest of the year. I wanted to do more on 1939, since this is the 75th anniversary of Hollywood's Golden Year. And after that we're headed into Christmas and we've traditionally written reviews about holiday films, though we've been pretty loose as to what qualifies as a Christmas movie, including a tribute a few years back to Bruce Willis films, since several take place on or around the holiday season. (Think Die Hards 1 and 2 and RED.) We've also done more traditional titles as well. 

Time for a book plug. During the week I finally finished reading Epic Win!, which I picked up at last year's Comic Con. I had already recommended it to a writer friend from work a few weeks back and now that I've finished it, I wanted to plug it here. Douglas Neff, with Corey Rothermel, has put together a common sense guide to help people pursue their dream of creating something, whether it be a comic book or a movie or something else. The principles can be applied to any creative endeavor. The book deals with the process of creation and gives some good tips on what you need such as a support team in your creative life's epic journey. I'm sure if you're attending the SDCC 2015, Doug will have a booth, but it might be quicker and cheaper to buy it on Amazon. But if you're wanting to write and need a push to get you going, this is a good guide. The chapters are short and to the point so there's no excuse not to buy it and read it.

Next week, I hope to report on finishing my screenplay and the process of editing that down to hopefully something sellable. In the meantime, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #9

For the first time since I started this blog, and for as long as I can remember, I didn't write for one day this past week. Friday was Halloween and circumstances between work and the trick or treaters didn't allow me an opportunity. As we enter the holiday season, there are going to be days where writing is going to take a backseat to travel, eating and shopping.

Writing is sort of like dieting, When you fall off the wagon and eat something high in calories, you don't stop watching what you eat. You forgive yourself and get back to dieting. So Saturday I got back to it.

It's not that I didn't write at all. I added a little over 6,000 words to the screenplay of A Killer Blog, which I already know is too long. I've got about another 100 pages to adapt and then I'm going back through it with a sharp knife and cut it down. I've already eliminated one character entirely and I don't think I can really eliminate any more without changing the story more than I want to.

I did a couple of more reviews for Trophy Unlocked over the weekend: London After Midnight (1927) and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). 2300 and 3000 words respectively. Writing these posts for the blog is a little like comfort food. I enjoy watching the movies, researching them and writing about them.

I know I'm avoiding fixing Familiar Stranger. I think I know what I need to do, but for some reason I don't have the desire to get into the work. I'm concerned about how much work I'll have to do. I know I have to do it and I will, but right now it seems daunting.

Speaking of rewrites, I'm expecting more feedback from my editor on Public and Private any day now.

I also sent out five more queries and so far no response on them or the other nineteen queries that are out there. No news is not necessarily good news when it comes to submissions. Writing takes a great deal of patience. You wait for an agent to read your query, you wait after you send pages and you wait even longer after you've sent the entire manuscript. I've been down this path several times in the past three years, but it doesn't get any easier.

What I'm taking away from this week in writing is that the work is important, but sometimes there will be times that I'll need to do other things. And that's okay, as long as I get back to it as soon as I can.

A Week in Writing #8

Last week, I was bemoaning about writing and not finding an audience. This week the posts on the blogs, with the exception of this one, had more hits. Maybe it was the subject matter I was writing about, but it was nice to see more views and actually get a comment on the TCM blog for my review of The Mummy (1932).

The commenter wasn't happy with me and disagreed with my opinion, but it was nice to see I wasn't writing into a vacuum. The whole idea about writing about movies is to hopefully start a conversation with people that have like interests. Hopefully, they do that at Trophy Unlocked, but the important thing is the conversation.

Had a lot of free time, so I was able to send out more queries and do some more writing. Honestly, I wrote around dealing with Familiar Stranger. I've had an issue with what I was revising. What I had written before didn't seem to be working for me, but fixing it was a little harder than I thought. I did think about it, but I didn't write through it.

 

Instead, I continued working on the screenplay adapted from A Killer Blog. I've pushed the screenplay to 81 pages and about 12,000 words. It's interesting work. In order to cut down on the time without cutting down on the plot, I've eliminated a character all together. While I think it works in the book, the screenplay is a different thing all together. My plan is to write it out and then worry about length and formatting. I'm a little less than halfway through the book. I don't think it's working out to be a page a minute, though. I'm shooting for a screenplay that's between 90 minutes and 2 hours in length.

Doing this work really makes me appreciate the screenplays that had to be churned out back in the 30's and 40's when the studios were pushing a film a week out their front gates. The writers wrote complete stories that ran about 90 minutes or less. They weren't perfect necessarily, but being able to tell a story in about 75 minutes is quite a feat.

Speaking of older films, wrote four reviews this week, including The Story of Temple Drake (2243 words), Goldfinger (3605 words), Casino Royale (3141 words), and Mad Love (2019 words). All are ones I plan to post at some point in the future. I like having some in the bank just in case.

I even did some edits on the Mathmagical script for the comic book. Nothing too major, just some edits and a bit of action Paul recommended. He's better at the grammar than I am, but he also has some good ideas, too. The dream of the comic book hasn't died, but I need to be sure of a few things before I decide I can afford to pay for an artist, or artists, to draw it.

All said, I wrote about 19,200 words this week, sort of equally divided between fiction and non-fiction. Big week.

Read something sober today on an agent's website. After they agree to represent you (which they say is less than 1% chance), it will still be 2 to 3 years before the book is published. That was really scary to read. Maybe that was another reason I sent out so many queries; twelve this week. Torn between wanting to get them all out, which I would hope would increase my chances of finding representation, and the fear that they will all come back rejected. Two of the twelve I sent out have already been rejected. I'm sure one of them actually read my submission, since they seemed to get it, but they claimed they didn't have the time to take anyone new on. Disappointing.

But the point is to keep at it. Keep writing, keep posting, keep submitting and to keep trying to make the dream come true.