A Week in Writing #458 - Another Setback

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

What's a week without a setback?

I can't confirm it, but I think the panel I proposed for San Diego Comic-Con is a no-go. I don't know that for sure but all signs seem to point to it. I was basically proposing the same panel that I did at Los Angeles Comic-Con, but I'm guessing there is more competition with SDCC. The reason I don't know for sure is that it appears you only hear back if they accept your proposal and people have started to hear back last Thursday and Friday.

Speaking of not hearing back (see the seque there), I had to DNR a query that I sent on February 9th, as the 90 day window to hear back from the agent had expired. I spent a little time last week looking up other possible agents on my list and I found a new one to query.

I overslept today and spent the morning playing catch-up. On Sundays, I post a new peek-of-the-week and upload the video from Friday night, update the website, schedule a couple of posts for later in the week, and update Pinterest as well. Well, today, I had two videos to upload (our Friday OAPS for Wednesday and our third taste-testing video; Cherry sodas from Galcos) and, in addition, a new post on Trophy Unlocked to promote (we'll get to that in a minute) and then some anniversary posts for Twitter for movies and games released today. Normally, I get through those in about an hour but this morning it took like three. That's what you get for sleeping in, which is something I rarely do.

I need to work on a review this week for Gold Dust Gertie, a film we watched on Saturday night. This morning's new post on the blog was Trevor's second look at the Super Mario Bros. movie to coincide with it's 30 anniversary. Speaking of movies based on games, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of the original Dungeon & Dragons movie.

The news on Powers Squared is that we had our May Team Meeting on Friday night, with the big news that we're looking to hire a new colorist. Their first work will appear on Issue 24, "Gashadokuro", which Trevor wrote and is also Julia's first as artist.

Later that night, Paul and I did an unboxing video of the three new issues; the earliest of which, Issue 17, "Mocha and Raven, Part 2", drops on June 14th. This prompted us to change the cover on the Ka-Blam versions. I had added a border which didn't seem to look as good as the ones without one. Not sure if that's going to complicate the release on their platform, Indy Planet, or not. I'm hopeful but cautious.

As always, did some work this week on Skylar but, as usual, not enough to share.

This coming week, I also need to work on the next newsletter, which will go out next Sunday. Never too late to sign up; enroll today at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc.

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

A Week in Writing #395 - Your Audience is Growing

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

I chose the headline not to be egotistical but because I received an email today from Medium informing me that my audience is growing. Since I haven't posted on the site for several years, I was naturally curious. I used to post this blog on there as well, in hopes of growing my audience but when that wasn't happening and it was extra work, I decided to stop. Well, as it turns out the number of followers I had on Medium peaked at 2 and my audience hadn't grown in two years. I'm surprised it hasn't dropped to zero. Not sure why they sent me that email but I thought it might be appropriate nonetheless.

Big week for me and reviews, I wrote two this week, one which went up today for Turning Red, the Pixar animated coming-of-age fantasy. We watched it on Friday night and I was chosen to review it, which I didn't mind. We finally got back to drain the DVR Saturdays, and we watched and I reviewed A Family Affair (1937), which was the forerunner to the Andy Hardy series of films, starring Mickey Rooney. Not sure when it will post but it was fun to get back to that part of my writing.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, in addition to my review today, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of The Mitchells vs. The Machines, which happened to just win the Annie Award. On Wednesday, Game Day, we posted Paul's review of Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage, a PS1 platform videogame.

Turning away from reviews, I think we finally ended up in a good place with our Kickstarter. I know I was very down on things last week but for some reason, I think I got practically everything I wanted. Now, it all depends on the execution. I hope you will consider backing it when it comes up later this month. As soon as I have a link, I will, of course, share it here.

Had a nice team meeting on Friday night with Rachel Wells, Julia Canon, Trevor, and Paul. We try to have these once a month as they are a pretty interesting and fun group, and we need content. It goes up later in the week on our YouTube channel or you can listen to it now through our website.

I don't know if I mention this enough here or not but we also do a peek-of-the-week of images from upcoming issues. For the last few weeks and for the next several, we're looking at the evolution of our front and back graphic novel covers. End plug.

This had turned into a busy week, with new pages from Rachel to review and the Kickstarter to look over, but I did manage to do two things, send a new query for Broken People, and work more on fka Skylar, which under the right context might make a good title.

This week, no new rejections but we know that doesn't mean they haven't already passed on it. I keep tweaking things ever so slightly with the query letter, even after my major rewrite of it. I'm still avoiding agents who want an online form and who want a 1-2 page synopsis. The former because they always ask you to compare your work to other works, etc., and the latter because I should probably rewrite mine. I'm also thinking crazy here that I might try to query another book. It's not that I really love punishment and disappointment but I feel a sense of urgency with things these days. Let's get on with it, good or bad.

With fka Skylar, I managed to move to a new chapter and I'm on the cusp of getting to one that I've been thinking about for a long time. I won't get into counts and amounts as they are definitely not impressive.

Well, I think that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you back here 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 #365 - A Little Bit of Everything

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

It was a busy week, with a little of everything going on. I'd like to say everything was humming along on all cylinders, but that's not really the case (I'll get to the details later).

Let's start with querying. I managed, on Thursday, to send out my second one in a row. I know that's nothing remarkable, but it's something I hate doing. I'm pretty sure I'm not good at it, considering the results I've been getting with this round of queries, which is none. But I try to be positive and hopeful. I'm not sure if that's a sign of insanity or not.

I'm still going with agents who want email queries, which is this one. For those keeping score, I have two live queries out there now. There was a third, but it's been 12 weeks, which is what the website said was when I'd hear back if they were interested. If I hear something later from them, I'll consider it a bonus, though the last time I heard late from an agent it was to just reaffirm the rejection.

I did work on Skylar again this week, though I haven't worked on it since Wednesday.

When it comes right down to it, I'm only writing 5 to 6 nights a week, including query Thursday night. If you're curious as to my schedule, Friday nights after we do OAPS, more on that later, we eat pizza and watch a movie, so no new actual writing gets done. It's not like I'm not working, but the actual writing is rare on that night.

Speaking of Friday, we did our 101st On the Air with Powers Squared with our creative team on the show for our monthly roundtable. I'll admit I was in a bit of a bad mood going into the show. Maybe I'm being impatient, but sometimes it doesn't seem like the artwork (plain and colored) are coming in fast enough. I know I'm not the only sole support for either artist, but I thought we had agreed to a certain number of pages a month and that's not always happening. I think I made the issue clear and we managed to have a good show, especially when we got off topic and started talking about bird stories.

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, the second anniversary of our first signing at the local comic book store. We decided to do reviews on next week's show about the comic books we pick up, so we did a "What's in My Bag?" video, ala Amoeba records. While they have celebrities tell you what they purchased, or what they're trying to hype at the moment, we discussed the five comic books we picked up, as a preview for next week's OAPS. You can watch the video (it's short) here.

One of my unofficial positions on the podcast is playing producer, so I'm in contact with the next people we plan to have on the show. Now it seems their appearance may be shifting since it's supposed to be when their Artithmeric Kickstarter starts and we have been told different dates, so we'll see.

We're still working on ours. Trevor is about done with the remastering work he's been doing on the lettering and our artist just finished, at least inks of, the cover and some thumbnails for the back. I had hoped we'd be done by the end of the month but I fear it will go into September, which is why I set the deadline early to cover that contingency.

Wrote a new review this weekend, Private Detective 62 (1933), publishing date unknown. However, my review of Yankee Doodle in Berlin (1919) went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. Wednesday's review was Paul's about Papers, Please, a puzzle simulation video game from 2013 for Microsoft Windows and OS X.

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

A Week in Writing #315 - That Frustrated Feeling

Hope everyone is staying safe and continuing to write.

Before I sat down to write this entry, I was feeling pretty frustrated as everything I've tried to do today hasn't worked or at least worked easily. I was hoping to spend part of the weekend working on things Powers Squared and even though the weekend isn't technically over (Labor Day), I don't think I'm going to get everything done.

My frustration has nothing to do with the people I'm working with on the project, they're all great. But I was hoping to do some preliminary work on Issue #10, which we want to get out in the next month or so. It feels like it is overdue.

I wanted to get some proofs made. We use two different print-on-demand services, one in the US and one in the UK. Our US one won't let you upload your files until after you've paid, which is all well and good, but you can't pay the invoice generated on the site until they send you an email link, which is a bit frustrating. To their credit, they did check their messages on a Sunday afternoon and sent me the invoice, so I was at least able to get that part done.

With the UK one, which also does t-shirts, I wanted to get a couple proofs made, but could only get one done. Again, not their fault, but one of the two images needs to be altered in a way that is above my limited Photoshop skills. I've contacted the original colorist to see if she still has the layered tiff file that would make the change easier to make. If not, there are other options, but it means it won't happen this weekend.

When I tried to upload the comic book to that site to get a proof made by them, I got an error message I can't get past, so I have to wait for them to get back in the office. Again, I'll probably be able to do it tomorrow, but that's not what I was planning to do then.

Otherwise, things are going well with the book. We have a great team and we've started a new issue this month, our 16th (part of the reason 10 seems to be late). Paul and I had Rachel as a guest on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, and she discussed character design and turning the script into thumbnails. You can watch it on our YouTube channel if you're interested.

In other writing, I finished my first round of research on agents. I decided to wait until after Labor Day to send out my first queries. I will admit to being nervous. I researched about 95 agents. As I discussed last week, I've grouped them into three color categories: greens are the best bets (44); yellows are secondary choices (40) and reds are not to query (11). You sort of want to test a few to see if it's the query or the agent, so I'll take it slow.

I did some more writing on Skylar, but not really enough to have more than this much mention here.

For Trophy Unlocked, I worked on two reviews, one I've completed for Old Yeller (1957) and one I'm still working on for Three Men On a Horse (1936). Again, I don't know when they'll see the light of the internet. This week and next have been pretty much dedicated to Tony Hawk, with reviews this week for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (PS1), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS1), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (PS2), Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 (PS2) and Tony Hawk's Underground (PS2). The Saturday Morning Review was Mulan, but the 1998 original and not the one on Disney+ (see what we did there?)

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

A Week in Writing #305 - Pre-Query research

As promised, this week I began the sometimes arduous task of researching agents so that I might have the privilege of their rejection later. Of course, I hope this time I hit gold and find someone who will take an interest in my work, but I want to prepare myself for what has been the norm.

I began by using the site querytracker.com, which tracks agents and allows you to track your queries there as well, in an effort to make this a more communal process. They list agents by genres they handle, so using my previous spreadsheet, I added and subtracted from that to come out with a list of possible agents based on that criteria,

The next step, and this is where I am at present, is to do a deeper dive into these agents and their websites to see, for starters, if they actually mention handling or looking for books in that genre. While a majority of them are coming back positive, there are some that don't mention it or handle it for say Middle Grade and YA, not my target audience. I'm also noting what their position is at the firm. I'm not sure if it's better to hit the highest person on their food chain, say the owner, who no doubt is very good but also very busy, or to hit the lowest person, someone new and hoping to build their "list".

After that, I'll do a deeper dive on the ones I want to query to, who they handle and how to contact them. More and more of it appears to be going online with a form rather than an email. My guess is that forms are easier to ignore.

We'll see where it goes from there and I will, of course, be complaining informing you here as I go.

I am still working on my rewrites for The Runaway. I'm trying to fix things as I go, though I know I'll have to go back through it again later.

Oh, remember Familiar Stranger? And the editor who dropped off the face of the Earth after 30 pages? Well, my mother asked me out of the blue about that last week, and offered to call the man, since she's the one who originally introduced us and knew him previously. She, of course, left a message, since he didn't pick up her call either. She told me she left a message saying that it was about "David's novel". I would have played it differently, as I doubt she'll ever hear back from him. Personally, I've moved on without him but if she wants to go down that rabbit hole, so be it. I will let you know if anything ever changes on that front, so don't hold your breath waiting.

We did a new On the Air with Powers Squared on Friday talking about life outside the comic book. I made a point of mentioning this blog, so if anyone has followed up on that, welcome! Leave a comment.

We received new pages from our artist this week, inks to be exact. We still have four to review and will do that before the day is over, even if this might go out before that.

As far as future content is concerned, Paul and I had a Google Hangout with the co-founder of Artithmeric this morning (evening his time), Andrew Copeland. He runs a couple of ad agencies, a CBD consulting firm and Artithmeric. Next time I feel like I'm busy I'll try to remember all that he has on his plate. That video should be coming out next Sunday on our YouTube channel.

We also got back the audio for a couple of new Character profiles that will be going up later in July along with other Google Hangouts we did with our artist and colorist. You might want to subscribe and ring the bell to be sure to be notified when they go up.

I'm working on a new review for Trophy Unlocked, The Clay Pigeon, another from our Drain the DVR Saturday nights. I should have it done shortly but couldn't get it done before I did this. I did have a new post on the blog, Heat Lightning (1934), the last of my June Pre-Code Hollywood posts. Before that, on Wednesday, was another Transformers Game review from Trevor, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark.

Well, I think that covers the bases for now. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #304 - New Content

I want to wish all the fathers out there a Happy Fathers Day.

I think I hit all areas this past week, though, of course, there is always more to be done. But let's start with Powers Squared. On Friday, Paul and I shot four videos that we're hoping to put out over the next month or so. Two of them are unboxing videos, one of which went up today and you can watch it here.

We also had two individual Google Hangouts with our artist, Rachel Wells, and our colorist Julia Canon. We had previously done a few with Rachel and our then colorist, Nina Gaillard, but that was almost two years ago now. It was about time that we do a new one and it was pretty cool to talk to them. I, for one, had never actually spoken with Julia before, so it was nice to have that opportunity.

We also arranged this week to have two people narrate Character Profiles for us. I can't go further into the whos just yet, but we're pretty excited about it.

We spent some time this week reviewing pencils from Rachel for issue #15. We had her make a couple of minor changes on a couple of animals. I like how we can ask for reasonable changes and she seems very willing to do them with a very quick turnaround. Now we're on to the inks for those pages.

For Trophy Unlocked, I managed to write two new reviews this weekend, one for Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry, which we watched from a VHS tape I had, and one for He Was Her Man (1934), which we watched as part of our Clean the DVR Saturday Nights. I had recently read Allen's autobiography, Apropos of Nothing, and was in the mood for one of his films. I don't know if you've tried to buy any of his movies lately on DVD or Blu-Ray but they're getting to be really hard to find unless you import one from Poland or France. I ended up ordering what I could on Saturday morning.

So to answer your questions, yes I still have VHS tapes, though very few and we do have a VCR machine, two actually, that both work. And, no I don't believe the allegations against Woody Allen. Two investigations have shown nothing happened. I would recommend his book, however.

I did publish a new review as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review, The Most Dangerous Game (1932). We're doing a Pre-Code June so to speak on Saturdays. So far, Wednesdays have been for videogames. This week it was Paul's review of The Last of Us Remastered + Left Behind. Next week, starting Monday, it will be a week-long look at older Transformer video games, but more on that next time.

For my other writing, I did more work on The Runaway, including finishing that chapter which had sort of stalled for whatever reason. I also continued my rewrites on the other chapters. I'm finding that even with these modest edits, I've got a bigger one coming to pull everything together. As I'm going, I see where a revelation I may have made earlier would play well in another spot. I'm sure you've had the same experience. I still want to see how much more I can add to the word count before delving into what will no doubt be a fairly healthy rewrite. As far as I'm concerned, nothing is golden.

I did not start the query process on Broken People. That was one hill that I didn't climb this week, though I know I should. I will try to have at least a good query letter by this time next week.

So that seems like a good place to end it. Keep writing and I'll see you next week.

A Week in Writing #282 - Getting Back into a Groove

The first week of the year that things seem to have gotten back to normal. That's not to say that I did everything I wanted to do, but I do feel like I got some things done.

More work on The Runaway and a new twist that seemed to grow organically from the rewrite. Honestly, I'm not sure where it will lead, but it is a path I'm going down for the moment. The rewrite becomes less like editing and more like actual writing. I worked sporadically on the book, so it's not every day, as much as I would like it to be.

I'm liking the twist but I'm not sure it will solve the larger issue I was having, which was the book was coming up short. Hopefully, the new direction will lead to more story and more pages.

Continued work on Powers Squared, though as always it seems to be more business-side than the creative-side. The big issue at present is trying to find a new colorist. If money were no object then I don't think this would be an issue but it is and is. We're hopeful that we can find a balance between talent and price.

We tried again this week to solidify a signing. We had a good meeting about it prior to New Year's but not a word since. We had emailed them but no response, so I thought I would try going to the store and see if I could talk to someone face to face. Apparently, they don't work on Saturdays so I guess I'll have to follow up during the week. Making phone calls is always problematic given the situation I'm in at work. I sit at one of those long, no real privacy tables, so I have to go outside to make or take a call. But those are the circumstances so I'll have to cope. I would really like to nail this down this week.

Trophy Unlocked is getting closed to 1000 reviews. My reviews, by design, are not part of the final countdown. I'm totally okay with that. This week, we published two reviews, Tron: Evolution - Battle Grids for the Wii and a Second Look - Tron: Evolution for the PS3.

I did write a review this week, about 1200 words about The Cat In The Hat (1971), a CBS TV Special. Normally, we don't do TV shows but in this case, I wanted to make an exception. We ended up watching this on our usual Movie night. It was a random selection and it was so bad that we decided to ditch the DVD first chance we get. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

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

A Week in Writing #261

This week, I'm going to build this post as the week goes, rather than try to recollect the week on Sunday, since I'm going to be in transit for most of the day. Since this usually covers Sunday through Saturday, we should be good.

The week got underway with new pages from Nina. There turned out to be an issue that we had to address, which is pretty rare when it comes to the coloring. Even though Paul and I look at everything during every step in the process, there are still things that we occasionally miss and this is what jumped out at us with one of the pages. A character was drawn similar to another character, which meant that they were also colored to match that character as well. We also had a special coloring built into the script, but there didn't seem to be a place for it in the panels on the page. To make a long story short, with some back and forth amongst all of us, including Rachel, we came up with a solution.

I did some more writing on Sunday on The Runaway. Still reworking the story, trying to save as much as I can from a previous version while still making changes. I want to make it better, but I don't want to write when I don't have to. I wrote just shy of 1200 words on Sunday.

Also, on Sunday, Paul and I did our video, A Week in Powers Squared, and sent our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl. Something we still need to work on is building up our audience for both. We're a few weeks short of our 52nd weekly video and would like to get to 25 subscribers. For the newsletter, we're at about 80 and need to get it to 100 as soon as we can. If you're interested, the YouTube channel is here and the sign up for the newsletter is here. Every subscription counts.

Monday was a pretty light day writing-wise. Worked some more on The Runaway. I'm in one of those situations where I've sort of written myself into a corner with the new prose bumping up against the old. I hate to waste what I've written and despite the idea of keeping it for another time, that rarely works out the way it's supposed to. I'm sure as time goes on, the two storylines will diverge again and I'll have several thousand words of useless plot.

I've made the decision to stop posting this blog on Medium since I haven't got any hits in months. It doesn't take all that long to post it there, but with one follower and no reads it's time to cut my losses so to speak. I don't think anyone will really notice it's gone, so this will serve as my announcement. Medium will be just one more social media platform that never took off for me or Powers Squared.

Tuesday was spent on trying to get the word out about Powers Squared's landing page. Made posts on the usual social media (Facebook and Twitter) and even created, using MailChimp, an Email Signup tab on the Powers Squared Facebook page. Using MailChimp has some advantages, but it is not very self-explanatory. I was trying to follow their instructions to link our campaign to Facebook but came across what appeared to be a dead-end. I wasn't getting the dropdown the instructions told me to use. I had to do a separate Google search to find a solution. Got it to work but it took longer than it should have; it always does for me when I'm trying to do something.

Sent out a couple of query letters on Tuesday as well. I don't mind the process, though I have a  certain apprehension when doing them. I'm never sure, based on the instructions on the various agent's websites, if I'm sending the right thing to the right person in the right way. If you're like me and use Query Tracker, you need to be sure to check the websites. While I find the site very helpful, there are sometimes subtleties that get lost. If an agent is shown, as an example, to handle Young Adult and Mysteries, oftentimes, they handle Young Adult Mysteries. Always check the websites and even then it can be a crap-shoot.

I don't like to have too many queries out there at one time. On the oft chance I get feedback from an agent, it might help me to change up the query letter, which is already something I do anyway. Right now I have six out there. I try to give agents time to reply but when it's "only if interested" I'm not sure what that means time-wise. If they're really behind that could be three months, I don't know. But six seems like enough for the moment.

The final page from Issue #11 came in with a slight redesign from Rachel and within about 2 hours and 15 minutes, the coloring was updated and the pages are now on their way to Trevor for lettering. I've said it before but I still mean it, I really like working with everyone on this project. They really seem to rally when it counts and I appreciate that.

On Wednesday, spent some time working on Powers Squared's website. I've been trying to regularly put up a poll question on the site, with varying degrees of success. I thought that it might be related to the fact that the website is the link for them and when you go to the site you actually have to scroll down to find the question. Decided to try to set up a page dedicated to the poll question, which would then provide more of a direct link.

I'm not sure if GoDaddy supports polls, but someone there set it up for me on my home page some time back. I've been using PollDaddy, now CrowdSignal, to create the polls and from there I've been copying the code onto my home page. I discovered that you could duplicate and move a section, which I managed to do successfully today. So now all polls will point to https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/poll. There is probably one there now if you want to vote.

Paul did some work with OBS, YouTube and our new Stream Deck to make it work, so we're set for new videos. There is a fairly significant latency period using this method and the videos take longer to process on YouTube but I'm hoping we can not only make the videos more entertaining but also more closely link the information in the newsletter to the info in the videos. They'll still be different but now they can be more closely related.

Late on Wednesday night, finished a review on There's Always a Woman (1938) for Trophy Unlocked. The film was one that I saw recently on TCM and wanted to see since it paired Joan Blondell and Melvyn Douglas. You'll have to wait a while to read it, but I'm glad I got it done.

On Thursday, I made an effort to reach out to people I knew on Linkedin to ask them to join the Powers Squared mailing list. Six or seven people. Only heard back from one and even then I'm not sure he'll actually sign up, even though he wanted to get together with me. I don't know why it's so hard to get people to sign up.

More writing on The Runaway, finishing off the chapter I was working on. Being a pantser, I'm sometimes curious where the story will go from here. I know how I want the story to end and it's the getting there that's the fun.

Friday will be my last writing day of the week. It got off with a bang, too, a rejection from one of my queries. It appears to me to be one of those form letters that's meant to look personal: "Thanks for sending me Broken People.  I wish I could represent every book I enjoy.  Because my resources are limited, I can only devote my energy to projects that I feel passionate about, and I'm sorry to say that your book isn't right for me."

Notice how she doesn't say she enjoyed my book, only that she wished she could represent all the books she enjoyed. Sort of encouraging but very unspecific at the same time. And I guess it goes without saying that we don't share the passion for Broken People. So I'm down to five.

After thinking about it for a few minutes, I found another agent on my list to query. This one doesn't provide any guidelines about what he's looking for in a query letter. In fact, the agent's website is almost non-existent. But he's listed many other places, so it's always worth a shot. Sent him a similar query to one I had already sent: the first two chapters and a synopsis. It's a little like shooting in the dark since I don't know any preferences he might have. And, of course, there is no timeframe for when to expect or not expect a response from him.

Received the news on Friday that our long-time colorist, Nina Gaillard, has decided to leave Powers Squared after issue #12, which will be her seventh one to color. She's decided to seek other opportunities and projects and while we are very sorry to see her go, we wish her great success in the future.

Sort of a sad way to end this week in writing.

Saturday, before leaving for a weekend trip, posted Trevor's review of Atlantis: The Lost Empire for our Saturday morning review on Trophy Unlocked.

So, that about wraps things up for this week. More next. In the meantime, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #257

The week after Comic-Con is always a bit hard. The conference really takes it out of you physically. There are usually a couple of days during the week back that weariness creeps in during the afternoon. But that passes after a few days.

Something that you don't want to pass is the feeling of belonging. While there are people there who are more successful than the others, many, if not most, are in similar straits. Creatives who have to support themselves through other means, like a day job. For many, the creative outlet is not enough to make a living. In many ways, they make a community and I'm only starting to understand how to work with it and within it. It is that feeling that I think makes me sort of melancholy on the ride home on Sunday night.

But work continues. While we were gone, Rachel sent us pencils for four more pages in Issue #12 of Powers Squared. Paul and I didn't really have a chance to look at them until Tuesday night. But knowing she was working on the last section of the script made me anxious to make sure the next story arc, The Imposter, is ready when she is.

On the night we returned from San Diego, I did some work on the script and I worked on in it some more on Monday and Tuesday night as well before giving it to Paul to take a look at. I don't consider anything I've written to be cut in stone and the goal is always to make the book better.

During the week, Nina sent in four more pages of Issue #11 and Trevor lettered four more pages from that issue as well.

Our Kickstarter plans seem to have taken a backseat for a while; not forgotten, but just delayed a little. I think we're getting close, but there are still a couple of things we need to pull together before we go live. I'd like to get the graphic novel lined up, as well as make sure I understand the pricing of using a print on demand service to fulfill the orders. We're also thinking about a new t-shirt we could offer, but that's just in the preliminary stages.

On Tuesday night, I also listened to another of the List Launch podcasts, this one about building your list through family, friends, and colleagues, you know, low hanging fruit. We're still about 24 subscribers short of the magical threshold of 100, so if you're reading this and you're someone I know, be prepared to get some sort of communication from me about signing up. And if you're reading this, and we don't already know each other, I will invite you to join here. It will only cost you an email address and you'll get a free copy of Issue #1. And you can then read all the Powers Squared nonsense on our newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl, rather than reading it here, though this does have a different slant.

Paul took over an hours' worth of video that we both shot at Comic-Con and edited down to a half an hour, which we put up as this week's YouTube video. It's our longest video to date and is more about our life behind the scenes as attendees. One of the problems with me watching it is that I had to look at myself repeatedly over the 30 minutes. It's sort of one thing to shoot a vlog live and then move on, but to have to watch yourself in action is a different experience. You may not learn the secrets of the galaxy, but you will get to see Paul and I (and Trevor) standing in lines, coming out of restaurants and even sitting in the occasional panel. A splendid time is guaranteed for all.

One of the things I think I've learned from watching the List Launch videos is the concept of an avatar or your ideal subscriber. Your avatar is supposed to be the hypothetical person you're aiming at with your newsletter/marketing, etc. I'd also like to think of the avatar as the person you're trying to impress. I'm trying to apply some of that to not only this blog but also to my other writing as well. If I want to be a writer, then I need to do things writers do besides blogging about them.

I know that I talk, or, as is the case, write, a lot about querying, but I don't do it. I was telling someone recently that I find the whole process mildly time-consuming but also soul-sucking as well. But to prove it to myself, I did it last night, sending a query regarding Broken People through an agency's online submission form. I had to provide not only basic information about the book, but a query letter, a short synopsis, and the first three chapters. Luckily, I had been working on the short synopsis. Rather than worry about rejection letters, they provided me a link I can look at to see when they reject me. So far, none of the queries I've sent out have gotten as much as a response, which is the soul-sucking part, but I want to do well by my avatar, so I'm going to continue. Of course, I'll recount here how many I do and if I ever hear back anything.

Worked most evenings on The Runaway and I'm not at the place where I left off, which is about 237 pages in. Now it gets down to more original writing, which is harder but not impossible. I will, of course, write about that here as well.

A little bit of news on Familiar Stranger. Called the editor on Friday afternoon and, of course, once again got his voicemail. This time, though, I decided not to leave a message, I mean what's the point. However, after I hung up, I received a text from him, which I couldn't answer in the car while driving, but did later when I got home. Now, the polite thing would have been for him to reply back to my text, which of course he didn't, but it's sort of a positive baby step, I guess.

Sadly, no new reviews from me this week for Trophy Unlocked. Trevor, however, did come through with a review of a 22-year-old video game, Spy Fox in "Dry Cereal", so there was still a Saturday Morning Review on the blog.

Well, that's it from here for now. Until next week, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #252

Unlike last week, I feel that this week was pretty successful from a writing perspective. Not that I did everything I wanted to do, but I did get some good work done.

To begin with, from Monday through Thursday, I worked on The Runaway. Being a pantser, as they call it, I write until I run out of ideas. In the case of The Runaway, I had sort of written to a point that I needed to regroup from. For me, the best way to get back into the swing was to start from the beginning and do rewrites. I've been able to go through a chapter a day so I'm feeling better about it. Hopefully, the work will continue next week as well.

I'm afraid nothing to report on queries, none sent again this week or Familiar Stranger. I haven't yet gathered the courage to call him at where I think he works, but that appears to be my only option if I ever want to hear what happened to his edits.

On Monday, I did finish two reviews for Trophy Unlocked, the long-gestating Sabrina (1954) and Their Own Desires. On Saturday, after seeing parts of Sabrina again on Friday, I decided to make some updates to that review, but those are hopefully done. This week's Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of Toy Story 4, which we saw on Friday afternoon. I think that might be more of the norm this summer, as there are a lot of films that we will be seeing and publishing them on Saturday will be more timely.

For Powers Squared, this was a very productive week, as we received pencils from Rachel for the last four pages of Issue #11 and the cover. Really cool stuff. And, if that wasn't enough, we received the first four pages of the same issued colored by Nina. Again, really good. Those pages have been sent on to Trevor for lettering.

Paul and I continue our weekly video on our YouTube channel, Powers Squared Comic. If you're new to the blog, we had to change the name a few months back when we realized we had the same name as a quasi-religious channel. Would really appreciate it if you would subscribe to the channel and ring the bell to get notifications of new videos. This week we use new lights for the first time while we discuss A Week in Powers Squared.

I know sometimes this blog becomes promotional in nature, but that's sort of related to writing. You do the work hoping someone will read it. So, there will be times when you're suggested to watch, read or buy something. I try to keep it to a minimum, but I can't help it.

We're still working on ideas for our Kickstarter and would appreciate any recommendations you might have. We reached out last week in our newsletter (you can sign up here) and asked if anyone had any ideas on what they'd like to see as a tier reward. So far, stickers were the only thing mentioned. Can you think of something that would be a good reward for backers?

And while we're on the subject of backers, we're looking for a name to call our fans. I came up with The Twins, as in "Join us and be one of the Twins." Paul came up with Hound Dogs, which is a reference to the school's newspaper, which is itself an Elvis Presley reference.

Well, that appears to do it for this week. Keep writing and see you next week.

A Week in Writing #230

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #223

The big news for Powers Squared this week is the new banner and channel description we've put up on the YouTube website. The image was done by Rachel Wells. Paul wrote most of the description, which was better than the one I came up with, something along the lines of  "A weekly exercise in futility as two men try in vain to grow their social media in a series of unviewed vlogs."

Seriously, we would appreciate it that if you read this blog you'll also take a look at our latest video and would like it even more if you could subscribe and ring the bell so you can receive  notifications when new videos are available. They're the usual rubbish and no longer than a few minutes, so it won't take long to show your support.

Seeing as this is the end of the month, we've received eight pages from Rachel, bringing us up to page 16 and four more pages from Nina, bringing that part up to page 8. Trevor also lettered three pages, so it seems to be firing on all cylinders.

This is the week that both Powers Squared and Trophy Unlocked made their first appearances on Pinterest. While I've had an account for awhile, I had never really done anything with it, other than collect pins on a private board. I decided that maybe it would be another way to publicize both. Pinterest brings up to six the number of social media accounts we now have for Powers Squared. For Powers Squared, I'm trying to upload images from the comic book pointing back to the website. I started with the main characters and will hopefully be adding more as the days go on.

Speaking of Trophy Unlocked, we had a bit of milestone this week as Trevor's review of
Starlink: Battle for Atlas for the Nintendo Switch makes the 900th one on the blog Paul started 8 years ago.

We also got the Christmas Holiday reviews started with Trevor's review of the animated The Tailor of Gloucester (1993), an adaptation of a Beatrix Potter story. Recently, Trevor has really gotten into Potter's artwork and this seemed like a natural for him to review and to kick off the season.

On that subject, I came across a Christmas review that I had done but had not published, Laurel and Hardy's Babes in Toyland (1934), aka March of the Wooden Soldiers. That will most likely appear before we wrap up our annual salute to Holiday films.

I also published my review of A Star is Born (2018), just on the tail end of its theatrical run. We don't see all movies when they first come out so it's no slam on the film that it took so long to get a review written. Publishing it became tricky with the milestone, so it had to be fitted in before it got to be too old. Oh, the joys of blogging.

In other writing, I finally finished my rewrites on Broken People, though there may be some tweaking to come. It sort of felt a little anti-climatic to finish it. While rewrites are a bit of a beast, I get nostalgic for the process as I'm finishing it. This one, as I've discussed, was more than just rewriting but also blending two stories into one. I sort of changed the ending, as I took the better of the two previous ones with a bit of a twist. Right now, its 94,281 words and 519 pages.

And just when you think you're done hearing about it, I do have news on the editor and Familiar Stranger. It seems he had a birthday recently, which means he's still alive, so one question answered. In my greeting, I slid in something like "Hope to hear from you soon" to which he replied that I would be soon. Now soon isn't exactly a definitive time but this was the first acknowledgement from him in months, so who knows, something might actually come of it. I guess the keyword here is "Might" but at least there's hope. And what a better way to start out the holidays.

A Week in Writing #221

I know I don't always write this but this was a pretty good week as far as writing goes. I made good progress on my current rewrite, there were new pages of Powers Squared and new reviews up on Trophy Unlocked.

Let's begin with Broken People, a title I like. With the pencil and paper edits, I'm up to page 495, as far as turning those into manuscript pages, I'm up to page 354 or 64,452 words, so it's coming along, though I don't think I'll get it wrapped before Thanksgiving, which was my sort of stretch goal. Even with doing the edits on paper, there are still times when I'm leaving myself notes to either write something else or look up something. I'm liking where it's going, so that's important.

I'm going to leave my editor on Familiar Stranger for dead. He doesn't seem to want to communicate, which is really on him. I don't know what happened. I'll keep trying, but at some point, you've got to move on. As I've written before I sort of live by the lyrics from Twenty One Pilot's Heavydirtysoul "Death inspires me like a dog inspires a rabbit". I want to get it done now and, apparently, he doesn't.

Good progress on Powers Squared. Trevor finished the last pages and cover for Issue #8, Rachel sent us pencils for pages 9-12 and Nina sent us the first four pages of Issue #9, so things are happening.

Paul and I did our 8th Week in Powers Squared vlog on our YouTube channel. At Paul's suggestion, we came up with a new thumbnail for this vlog.

Thumbnail for A Week in Powers Squared #8

We also discovered that there is another channel called Powers Squared, so need to change ours. When we tried YouTube wouldn't let us because we'd changed it too recently, which is like several months ago. But when we do we'll be sure to share it here.

Went to Local Comic Book Shop day and was able to look at some other issues to see what we need to do for a back cover. I'm still interested in offering a print on demand option but we need to come up with a back cover for each issue. Oh, if I had more time every day. I think I need a time turner.

Check the website, https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/ on Black Friday for an update to the Home Page to celebrate the Christmas season.

For Trophy Unlocked, published a review of Follow Me Quietly (1949) as part of our annual Noirvember celebration.

I also finished two reviews, one for The Santa Clause (1994) for our upcoming month of Christmas films and one for A Star is Born (2018). Not sure when that's going to be published. We're trying to work around the 900th review and an anniversary review and don't want to overshadow either. So you may have to wait for A Star is Born.

In honor of Penny Arcade's 20th Anniversary, we published Review Hub - Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness

So, Thanksgiving is coming up this week, which means food, family and football. One thing it doesn't mean is a lot of time for writing. Will carry on as best as I can and will report back here next week.

Hope you have a happy and safe holiday.

A Week in Writing #220 - Radio Silence Really Sucks

Do you ever have weeks where you feel like being nice isn't paying off? I have that feeling about my editor on Familiar Stranger. It's been two months since I received any pages and then it was only the first 50 with only grammatical changes. We've talked once since, not for lack of trying on my part, I've called him several times, though spaced out over weeks, left voicemails and no response. I've texted and I've written emails, but nothing. I've tried to be lighthearted about it but what I'd like to ask is what the @$#!! is going on? You're raised to be nice, so I asked if it's something I've said or done, instead. I'm truly getting tired of being ignored, especially when he said he wanted to do the editing, said he liked to work with me and even when we did speak, say pages would be forthcoming. I don't understand the radio silence.

There seems to be a lot of that going on. We're not hearing regularly from either the artist or colorist on Powers Squared. Not sure what's up with that either. The only communique has been an invoice from the colorist, which I paid. Usually, that means pages are coming but so far nothing. I would have thought they might ask about the L.A. fires, make sure we're alright since we're about ten miles from one of them but no.

Paul and I did our seventh Week in Powers Squared vlog on our channel where we share what's new this week. It's pretty short, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/FUwtUAB1f3A.

Thus concludes our ranting section of this week's post.

On the writing side, I've continued to make edits on Broken People. The rewrites are in two stages. There are the pencil and paper edits and there are the updates to the manuscript based on those. With the former, I'm up to page 299 and with the latter, page 197.

What happened this week, is that before dinner, I was working on reviews for Trophy Unlocked, after dinner updating the manuscript and then before bed the pencil and paper edits. I would say that for the most part, it seemed to be working.

As far as Trophy Unlocked, I wrote a future one for The Secret Bride, a film I happened to see on Monday night. With that completed, I wrote one for our Chrismas season on How the Grinch Stole Christmas, the original TV special from 1966. With that completed, I began working on one for The Santa Clause. When that's done, we'll have one more needed for the Christmas reviews that will be published on the December Saturdays leading up to the holiday.

For the Saturday Morning Review, published Shadow on the Wall (1950) as part of our Noirvember celebration.

I wish there was more to talk about. I'll be trying to contact everyone this week so maybe I won't be ranting about radio silence again next week. Until then, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #205

Well, as sort of predicted, this was a low energy low creativity week for me. I really don't know why but the week post SDCC is always hard. I've read other writers, who attended, complain about the same thing so I guess I'm in good company.

Sadly, did very little writing this week, finally towards the end picking up the script to a future Powers Squared issue. It occurred to me, sort of out of the blue, that no one is ever held accountable for some people dying in the story arc and that just didn't seem right for a superhero story. When I went back in to fix that, I started rereading and rewriting from the start. I'm sure what I do isn't unique but when I read something I've written I try to read it not so much as it is on the page, but as how it should sound. That leads to other changes and I'm still going through that process.

One of the things I was looking at, was trying to improve my panel descriptions, because of the panel I took last week. I'm trying to do some work on them but when we talked this week to our artist Rachel Wells, she indicated that she likes the descriptions to be somewhat vague because it gives her more leeway. So I guess I'm trying to find a balance since I find I'm using "Continuation of Action" too much.

While we want to continue to have an active YouTube presence, we still want to do a similar video with our colorist, Nina Gaillard, Paul wants to do something different from them all being interviews. It's a good idea, it's just how to do that we're discussing. Perhaps some sort of trailer for the comic book. Stay tuned.

On the creative-side, Nina delivered the last four pages of Issue #7 as well as the cover. Those were forwarded to Trevor for lettering. Rachel delivered inks for the first eight pages of Issue #8, gulp, so that's moving forward as well. Really appreciate all of their hard work on the book.

No new reviews from me this week. Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review went to Trevor's re-review of M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender. It's a good thing to have multiple reviewers sharing the responsibilities.

Still, no word from my editor on Familiar Stranger and I've been derelict lately on re-reading the ending of Paperback Detective. I have been playing with an idea for a new J.D. Barrister story, though I think there are older ones that still need work. I don't know yet where I'm going but I will, of course, update you here.

On the subject of writing, I had lunch on Friday with a couple of women who used to work for me at Sony Pictures. It was something that was long overdue and I'm glad we were able to reconnect. One of them, like me, is a writer, though she writes in a different genre, YA. We briefly touched on the unpleasant side of writing, the query process. Like me, she doesn't want to self-publish so we have to go the traditional route and get an agent who will represent us to a publisher. It is a very tricky and, more times than not, unfulfilling activity. Everyone has their own war stories, so to speak, and it was nice to commiserate a little bit about that with another writer.

Whenever Familiar Stranger gets worked out, I'll be going through that process myself. I view it as a necessary evil thing you have to go through if you want to make it. And we all want to make it.

Well, I'm hoping to get back on track this next week. Until then, keep writing.

A Week in Writing #203

This was sort of down week for me, energy-wise and creatively. I'm not sure if it was going back to work after nine days off but it was really tiring and I had low energy at night. That means less of everything, including a week off of Instagram, etc.

Most of the work on Powers Squared seemed to revolve around the AMAfeed we were doing. It ended this past Friday after a week. We had, if my counting is correct, 32 questions. Some of the questions weren't directed at me, which was fine and how it should be, though I had to make sure every question got answered. Hopefully, this will be something people will continue to look at and that it will drive interest in the book. You can read the Q & A here.

I opened the questions to our artist and colorist, though only Rachel wrote any answers. There were some directed towards the artists or related to their work as much as ours. I really want to see them get involved in publicizing Powers Squared, too. Up until now, the issues that have been published have been mostly the work of others but from Issue 6 on the visuals are theirs.

To that end, we did a Google Hangout with Rachel, which was almost the first time we'd ever spoke with her. That was supposed to be the plan, but we had issues with getting it going so I had to call her before, a couple of times, as a matter of fact, to try to work through it. The process is not intuitive despite what we'd been told. Rachel had to put us in her "circle", whatever that is, to get the video feed to work.

The camera is only on her throughout, I'm guessing people have tired of seeing me or the boys talking. I think I monologue too much this time and don't let Paul talk but we're working on the bugs. The most important thing was to get Rachel involved. You can see her speak here on the Powers Squared Channel on YouTube.

We really appreciate her work on the comic book and her taking the time to talk to us. I would also like to do something similar with Nina in the near future.

There was progress made on the artwork this week. Rachel did pencils for the first four pages and made some minor changes Paul and I wanted her to make. It's always exciting to see things taking shape.

Trevor made the updates to Issue #6 that Paul and I requested. Really looks good. Now we can take the issue with us to Comic-Con next week. There are a few people we can show it down there. There are also some panels I'm looking forward to taking while I'm there, including one about writing better panel descriptions, which is something I can improve on. I will be writing more about Comic-Con next week. As a reminder, the next post will take place on Monday, rather than Sunday.

As far as other writing goes, I did work on two reviews this past week and completed one for Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, which will be going up next Saturday. I think its kind of fitting for the occasion. The other one, Dumbo, still needs some finishing touches.

Big week for Trophy Unlocked and Trevor as we published three of his posts this week. On Saturday we published Trevor's review of G.I. Joe: Resolute, a telefilm compiled from short episodes of a television series. The day before, he published a Review Hub in honor of the Metal Gear video games on the anniversary of the first game's release. And the day before that, his review of Moss, a VR game.

No word yet from my editor on Familiar Stranger and I did manage to work through the ending of Paperback Detective, though it's still pencil edits. I'm hoping to finish it up before we head south.

Hope next week goes smoothly for us and for you as well.

A Week in Writing #197

It's been a productive week but without any real breakthrough moments. Most of the time has been spent on various aspects of Powers Squared.

We received eight new pages from our artist for Issue #7 and thumbnails for the last four pages of the issue and the cover. Things seem to be moving forward on those. There were some lighting concerns which she diagramed and which we sent to our colorist.

Most of the writing has been on the last two issues of the story arc we're hopefully starting in July. These issues are called The Imposter and come after two other story arcs, Mathmagical and What's in a Name? which are two and three issue arcs respectively.

Just trying to be prepared. It's sometimes hard to keep everything straight. We're trying to do some planning for the upcoming release of With Great Powers Comes Something, Something, Something... which is supposed to be published later this month. BTW, we released the second of our videos about the creation of the comic book. You could be a real hero and take a look at it, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRntK-uJYZA&feature=youtu.be

And by hero, I mean you could be the first one on your block or any block, for that matter, to take a look. We have one more of me to go, which will probably be next Friday, if you want to wait and binge watch them all.

I think I finally got my cellphone fixed, so I should be getting back to more Instagram as well. I'm having a bit of an issue though, with multiple versions of those posts showing up on the @MartyandEli twitter feed. Hopefully, I've got the right setting on IFTTT, so that doesn't happen again.

Also, as part of the process, we also wrote a press release. We're supposed to have communications with Comixology this week, perhaps Monday, about what they might have prepped, but I thought we should be ready with our own just in case. You might have watched, as we did, their big announcement about Comixology Originals on Twitch on Friday. Big, I meant Epic.

Didn't write any new reviews this week, though we did watch Valerian on Friday night, so there may be something a-coming about that in the near future. Published Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review of Sky High. You can be a real hero and read that one as well.

No word, so far, from my editor on Familiar Stranger but I'm not worried, at least not yet. Haven't decided what to work on next, sort of dragging my feet until the writing is done on Powers Squared and there is some time.