A Week in Writing #573 - Another Down Week

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

I seem to be racking up disappointing weeks here. I'm not sure what the issue is, but I'm pretty sure it's time, or lack thereof.

On the accomplishment-side of the equation, I did rewatch Brother Orchid and write the review. As always, I don't know when it will see the light of day. That doesn't mean things haven't been busy on Trophy Unlocked. My review of the new Superman movie went up on Wednesday. Saturday saw Trevor's review of Freaky Friday, and then today, his review of Bad Guys 2 went up. Soon, there will be his review of Freakier Friday, which we watched this morning. I also started working on one for The Gangster, another recording from the last Summer of Darkness on TCM.

We also discussed movies on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. Paul and I reviewed the summer movies, or the few we wanted to talk about, as there were like 139 films that will have come out between the beginning of May and the end of August. There are several which we think are better to wait for streaming. You can listen to the podcast here, watch it for a couple of days here or wait until Wednesday at 2:30 pm to watch it here.

In the meantime, another video went up today on our YouTube channel, Paul's SDCC 2025 Vlog. After about 20 years of SDCC, we got to experience it from the other side of the table. Paul talks about how that went from his perspective. You can watch it now here.

One of the outgrowths of Comic-Con is that we might have found a distributor. However, I'm going through the .pdfs of our remastered first five issues and there are a lot of changes as far as placement that I need to go through. By that, I mean the margins, which for some reason are really off. I'm going back and trying to correct them before moving on with pursuing the distributor, as they want .pdfs. I've done one issue this afternoon and will keep working on that.

We also registered the next two issues of Powers Squared, #26 and 27, for copyright, so I have to update them as well before getting test printings done. It never seems to stop.

No queries again this week, as we spent some of that time inviting people we met at Comic-Con to be guests on the podcast. So far, the only one to come back to us is David Petersen, the creator of Mouse Guard. This would be his second time on the show. Stay tuned. We're also trying to line up a Comic Book Club session as well.

I did some work on Blackmail this week. Still editing. I'm not really happy with one chapter, so I'm going to work some more on it before moving on with the book. I'm a couple of hundred words south of 51,000 with 80,000 a minimum.

This week, I've got pages to realign, as well as a review to work on. I'm sort of promising to do a new query and to work more on Blackmail.

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

A Week in Writing #416 - Eight Years On

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

It didn't really occur to me until I numbered this post that I've been doing this little blog for 8 years now. (52 X 8 = 416). I'm not sure what this proves other than I don't know when to quit. Shout out to Paul Hankins, who has been my editor for the entire eight years and the one person I know who has read every post. No telling how bad this would read without him.

I don't really want to spend this post going over what little progress I've made through the years. This has been my place to share the ups and downs of my writing journey. And, since it has been eight years, I guess I'm still on that journey. I don't know if I'll ever make landfall but I'll be happy to let you know if I ever get there, wherever there happens to be.

Part of that journey is trying to get representation for my writing. As I've been detailing my recent efforts using the book Broken People. If you've been reading this blog, you know how much I love this process and how sarcastic I can be. To that end, I did hear back on a query I had given up on. The query dated from 4/29/2022 and it wasn't until Monday I heard back.

Surprise, not, it was a rejection but one that at least seemed somewhat personalized, coming as a response to my original email, so color me impressed:

Hi David,

Thanks for thinking of me for this. While I did like the premise, I'm afraid that I didn't connect enough with the pages in order to pursue. I do wish you the best of luck in placing this elsewhere.

All the best,

__________

I also realize, based on his reaction, that updating the book was probably a good idea; it is something I have done since. While I don't want to go into all the changes, the book used to start with:

Her hand was soft and surprisingly warm and holding it grounded me. I had spent most of the day playing errand boy for a law firm. My business card reads private detective but when times were hard, and my rent is already overdue, I'll do practically anything for money. Delivering subpoenas and summons wasn't below me.

Now it starts like this:

    The first punch landed and drew blood. If that hadn’t happened, the fight would have almost been comical. Daniel Redmond had to have a foot or more in height and nearly two hundred pounds on his opponent, a short, wiry Guatemalan former flyweight named Pedro Lopez, or as the ring announcer called him, the “Guatemalan Guerilla”. What Redmond didn't have was his wits about him and the flyweight was getting the best of him.

It gets to the action quicker and I hope that it might make an agent more interested in reading more.

Changing topics, work on Powers Squared continues. On Monday, we got pages from our colorist. Paul and I reviewed them and sent back some notes.

Sundays are busy for me when it comes to the comic book. I update the website with a new image every week, or what I'd like to call a peek-of-the-week. It's a glimpse at a future issue; currently, it's Issue #14. I also post Friday's OAPS on YouTube and set it to go up on Wednesday. Then I update Pinterest with both updates and finally set up some social media posts to go out on Tuesday and Wednesday, Tuesday for the peek-of-the-week, and Wednesday for the video.

This Sunday, being the first one of the month, means there is also a newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl to get out. A lot of it I do during the week leading up to it but there are still last-minute revisions and links to check before it gets sent.

I'm working on a couple of reviews this week, The Devil and Miss Jones was a movie I happened to catch while otherwise writing, and Tomorrow is Another Day from Saturday's drain the DVR exercise. I hope to finish them this week.

One of my reviews, Bull Durham (1988) went up as Trophy Unlocked's Saturday Morning Review. Wednesday's Game Day review was Trevor's for The Looker.

To round out the week, yes, I did work on fka Skylar, it's just not in a way that has increased the word count but I'm getting there.

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

A Week in Writing #350 - Does it Feel Like Summer Yet?

Happy Mother's Day to all the writing mothers out there! Hope everyone is staying safe and, of course, writing.

Doesn't it feel like it should be summer already? I know it does for me. But there is still so much to be done before those days get here. Not sure, really, what difference there is going to be between this summer and last but I'm hopeful it will be better.

It seems like more and more time I spend on the business of writing. Not that I'm making any money at it, at least not yet, but it seems there are still things that have to be done. One of those is querying to get an agent. When last I wrote about this, I had five and no rejections. However, I think the time ran out on two of them, so I CNR'ed them. I saw this abbreviation in the comments on QueryTracker so I'm using them here. It means Closed No Response. Not even a doesn't fit my list email, just the gut feeling that the vague deadline they set on their websites has come and gone.

I did send out a new one on Thursday for Broken People, again using an online form. This form was just a space for me to enter the letter, a synopsis, and the first three chapters, as requested by the agency. Formatting be damned! It seems like the agency wants to get away from emails but hasn't quite made the leap to hire a third-party site like most of them seem to use. I do like the fact that I don't have to go into great details about marketing for the book or comparing mine to other books on the market. So, I guess there was a plus-side to it. I'll go through the same exercise on Thursday; my least favorite thing to do.

On to Powers Squared where it was a jumble of a week. ComiXology sent us a rejection (tentatively accepted) email on Tuesday, not so much for the content of the book but the formatting. They require a .pdf and said it had Aliasing issues. No, I had never heard of it before either. Their solution was for us to recreate the .pdfs and click on the "anti-alias" checkbox we had apparently "overlooked". I don't know about you but my version of Acrobat does not have an "anti-alias" checkbox and searching through the help only proved that my version, which is a standalone version, was no longer supported. Since we had never had the issue before and our process hadn't changed, I decided that perhaps we had submitted a reduced .pdf, so I sent them a full-bore version instead. Waiting to hear back on that one.

Paul and I had a meeting this week with the powers that be at Artithmeric, the British publish-on-demand/publisher for Powers Squared. We wanted to see what they had in mind for us in the future, as they have started doing Artithmeric Editions, and I mean they're still Kickstarting the first one for Dirk Brodey and we wanted to know if we were going to be a part of it.

Turns out we are, maybe sooner than later. Paul and I decided that, while we can't afford to go back through the first five issues and re-do the artwork, we might be able to take a second pass at the dialogue and maybe tone down some of the wordiness and perhaps sneak in some details that might be handy later on, meaning issues we've done since. Turns out that's about 108 pages of script, which I started going through this weekend. More to do. Not sure what copyright issues there will be but at least I know enough to ask about that.

Anyway, the idea would be to do a new Artithmeric Edition of the trade hardback using money raised on Kickstarter. What they really want to do is move into the European market with translated versions in Spanish, Italian, and French. Apparently, BDs, as they're called, are big sellers and who doesn't want to make money off their work? So with the English version they would use a French equivalent of Kickstarter to raise money for a French version, then use that money to crowdfund an Italian version and then Spanish, or some combination of those. Of course, we want in.

Paul and I discussed all of this on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, which you can listen to by clicking the link. It's all of 10 minutes this week.

Speaking of week's it was May the Fourth Be with You all week on Trophy Unlocked, starting with Paul's review of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace; Trevor's review of Star Wars Episode I: Racer (PS4) on Tuesday; Trevor's review of Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones on Wednesday. Thursday it was Trevor's Second Look - Star Wars: Clone Wars (2003); and on Friday, it was Paul's review of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith.

To really change things up, on Saturday, we posted my review of Straight Shooting, a silent Western. Made in 1917, it was John Ford's first film to direct.  I also started, and nearly finished, one for Two Seconds (1932). No date set for that one.

That gets us back to Skylar and, yes, there was some progress made on that and more to come I assure you. I am to a part that I will actually be doing more re-write/writing as opposed to editing so I am excited about that.

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

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 #242

If it feels like these are becoming Powers Squared-centric the last few weeks, there is a reason for that. My work on Powers Squared has seemed to have taken over my writing time because it has.

To begin with, we received pages from Rachel and from Nina this week. Rachel sent us four penciled pages from Issue #11 and Nina sent us four pages from Issue #10. Both are doing their usual really good work and Paul and I have been happy with what they've sent us.

There is a bigger and bigger share of the work that I would refer to as the business of a comic book. We're scheduled to do a signing on May 4th, Free Comic Book Day, at our local store, so there is a lot of work involved in getting ready for that. Chief amongst them is having books to sell. I'm pretty sure we'll have them but in order to make sure, I had to expedite the shipment for the first two issues. With shipping, the prices are such that even if we sell out, we'll lose money on the deal. I put some of it down to poor planning on my part, but I'm trying to look at the upside. Hopefully, we'll have more fans afterward, which should make doing things like the Kickstarter easier.

Also, we decided to buy a banner for the event, which I know is more money, but again we're hoping it is something we can use more than once. Not sure if you've ever tried to buy a banner on the weekend, but it's rather hard, as most print shops are closed on Saturday and Sunday. There are in fact two places in our neighborhood, but they never seem to be open at all. We went to FedEx/Kinkos and while they were very helpful and informative, their prices were too high for us, again considering we're losing money on the signing to start with. We ended up buying one online which comes with a stand for about $80. When it arrives, of course, there will be video and photos to share.

We managed to squeeze in our weekly vlog which you can catch on our YouTube channel and on Pinterest, Tumblr, and Linkedin. So really, when you think about it, there is no excuse for not watching it. Paul and I had some constructive discussions after our taping about future vlogs. We both know we can and will do better, so please keep watching.

This weekend, we also bought a selfie stick for our Instagram videos as my arms are only so long. We'll hopefully start using it next week.

We also sent out our first newsletter to the people on our mailing list. I was a little disappointed that it ended up in my junk mail, but I think that's probably par for the course. You, too, can sign up for that by going to https://mailchi.mp/dc302d04a252/powerssquared and signing up. Be sure to add info@powerssquaredcomicbook.com to your contacts to avoid the junk mail issue. If you received it, I would really like to hear what you thought. Always want to make it better.

Next week, I/we are going to go through a ComixLaunch 5 day training on Kickstarter. Hopefully, it won't be all time-consuming, but you never know. The mailing list and newsletter were just steps in a longer process.

Not all the writing time was about Powers Squared. I did manage to complete a review of Life of Pi, which should be up next Saturday on Trophy Unlocked. Trevor published a review of Smallfoot mid-week and Paul published his review of Venom this past Saturday.

Sad to say, no novel writing worth mentioning and no new queries but also no new rejections, so I'm still two out and one rejected. I'm going to have to follow up on the first query soon, so I'm girding for disappointment. (I know, such a positive attitude.)

Well, that's about it for this week. Next week, no doubt, more Powers Squared. In the meantime, keep writing.