A Week in Writing #549 - Worrying About WonderCon

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

I'm wondering if I should be getting nervous about WonderCon. We're about a month away and not everything is pulled together. I've ordered additional copies, on the hopes that we'll sell well at the con, but I'm also waiting for some things to arrive, or be sent for that matter.

After L.A. Comic Con, I sent five copies of our first trade to a bookstore in Hawaii. Well, in the middle of January, I wrote to see if I could get them back. Here were are nearing the end of February and I haven't gotten any indications that they've been sent, despite my asking for that. I'm pretty sure we should get them in a week, but they have to send them back, and yes, I have to pay for that shipping, but it would be less than ordering new ones.

I've also ordered some business cards specific to The Blade of Miracles, Trevor's book, that we should also be selling at WonderCon. TBOM will be the first non-Powers Squared title on the SRCC Press label. We're planning to put it out on March 19, so stayed tuned.

I've also revamped the website,  https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/ to include TBOM  and make it more visible, but bunching up the Powers Squared issues to match the trades we've put out or are planning to put out; Issues 1-5, 6-9, 10-14, 15-18, and 19-23. I'll be adding a new page for 24, probably next week, since we're planning to put that one out, the week after TBOM and two days before WonderCon on March 26.

Speaking of Powers Squared, we had our February Team Meeting on Friday with Julia attending. You can listen to our brief update here or watch it on our YouTube channel here after 2:30 pm PST on Wednesday. If you do watch it, I hope you'll also like and subscribe.

Our artist was unavailable when we do the podcast, so I'm hoping we can find a day and time that she might be able to appear, and yes, we do pre-tape on ocassion. Of course, we haven't heard much from her lately, as her work schedule runs into the night.

One more note about Powers Squared, since the month is almost over, I need to write the newsletter for publication next Sunday. You can, if you're interested, sign up for the newsletter, here. It contains some of the information I write about here, but is still different content. Hope you do.

Because of all the hype we've been hearing about it, we watch Anora last night. We're planning to put the review up next Sunday morning. The review I wrote last week, The Locket (1946), went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked, mostly because of the tale I mentioned in last week's blog. The Wednesday Game Day review was Paul's for Sonic Superstars (PS5).

No querying this week, I still want to make one more pass on the list, putting email queries above Query Manager submissions. I guess I'm a little nervous about what I'll have to have for those.

Did some work on Blackmail this week. I'm up to 6345 words so far. My protagonist finds out a secret about his wife and her ex-husband and has to work for her ex- in order to get the evidence back.

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

A Week in Writing #500 - Nice Way to End the Week

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

A nice way to end the week is to meet up with someone and have a good talk and catch up. And that's what happened this week on the podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. Lucas Scheffel, a comic book creator from Australia, was our guest for the sixth time, and for the first time in well over a year. We talked about his new comic book Kickstarter, comic book convenstions, Cricket and, of course, Bluey. You can listen to it on our website or wait until Wednesday to watch it here.

Seeing as it's a live podcast, we had a driver issue that delayed us and which Paul managed to work through, but it does speak to the challenges of doing one regularly, so there is some editing involved but nothing of substance edited out, just the rough start.

On the topic of the podcasts, I'm revamping that part of the website. I've been trying to keep a "Best of" section of videos, but that can get to be unweildy. So, I'm thinking of keeping a Best of but also adding separate sections for The Comic Book Club videos, the Taste Testing videos, and one of the conversations we've had with other creators. The videos about particular issues I've been adding to the pages about those issues, which is another way to keep the links on the website. So far, I've only done the section for The Comic Book Club. If you're interested, you can take a look at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/videos.

Working on the next issue of Powers Squared, which is sometimes a slower go than I appreciate. I really want 8 pages a month from the creatives involved: arist, colorist, letterer, but that is easier said than done. We're getting close to the end with the artwork for #26, tentatively titled, The Great Escape, as the artist is finishing the final pages and the cover.

For Trophy Unlocked, I wrote a review of Main Street After Dark (1945), a definite B-movie that was also the film debut of Audrey Totter. Not sure when it will appear. The blog is still in the middle of God of War month with two new reviews. On Tuesday, Trevor's Second Look - God of War: Chains of Olympus and on Thursday it was his Second Look - God of War III Remastered. The Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for Pompo the Cinephile, a 2021 anime look at making movies.

On the Skylar front, I did make some progress. I'm changing the story a bit, so some of what I've written will be changing, but I'm liking it better.

No querying this month. I think it may be April before I get to that.

During the year, there are several times when real life and family collide with my writing. I'm coming up on one of those in a few weeks. My mother is having a milestone birthday and we're all flying to see her in Houston. We're flying on a Friday, so we're relying on our arist, Julia, to take over the show. But there's also things like the Saturday Morning Review, the uploads and the newsletter that have to be done ahead of time. And, of course, this blog will be late by a day because of it, too. But that's a couple of weeks away.

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

A Week in Writing #498 - Newsletter and Podcasts

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

Sort of a busy week, though mostly behind the scenes sorts of stuff.

Every month, like it or not, we publish The Hound Dogs' Howl, our monthly newsletter on all things Powers Squared. Now, a lot of this is rather routine stuff, however, the lead, a feature about twins, A Heard Around Campus bit, as well as a recommendation have to be written. And wait for it, here comes my monthly pitch to have you, dear reader, consider signing up for it by enrolling in San Romero Community College. It's FREE!

This week's podcast features Moni Barrette, the Director, Collection Development & Publisher Relations at LibraryPass Comics Plus was our guest. While we try to have this be a conversation, questions still have to be drafted and reviewed. Moni talked about her career as well as getting comic books in libraries, one of which ways is through Comics Plus, which is what we're doing with Powers Squared. You can listen to the podcast now here or wait until Wednesday and watch it here.

I'm growing more and more frustrated with GoDaddy, which our website uses. Every Sunday morning, I upload the previous Friday night's podcast to the YouTube and the new peek-of-the-week to the website. I then update the website with links to the new video, update other pages related to the peek-of-the-week, especially when it involves the cover and then write and schedule two social media posts to coincide with the new data.

The last thing I need at 7 o'clock on a Sunday morning is for GoDaddy to f### up, which it did today. For some reason, the new color cover wasn't inserting like it should. There had been a black and white ink cover that was being replaced with the colored version. But, oh no, GoDaddy wouldn't do it. I manged, after several attempts to get the colored version to show up on the pages I wanted to put it on, including in addition to the peek-of-the-week page but also The Campus Store and the page about the issue. I try to keep them in sync, as it doesn't make sense to have a peek-of-the-week that is already available elsewhere on the website.

The biggest problem I had was in trying to do the social media posts. The colored version wouldn't insert, but rather the previous black and white one would insert in its place. I tried to remember what GoDaddy had advised I do when things didn't seem to work, which was to clear the cache. This is something I hate to do, since I have relog into every app and, surprise, surprise, that doesn't always go well, as the saved password for whatever reason doesn't match the password it's supposed to be per the site. I'm still not completely logged into X as a result. The better solution, since that didn't fix the problem, was to reload the image; that worked. If anyone has a good suggestion to replace GoDaddy, I'm all ears. Leave it in the comments.

Well, I finished my review of X-Men: First Class and started a new one for Naked Alibi (1954). On Trophy Unlocked, the Saturday Morning Review was Paul's for Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. And ICYMI, Leap Year (1924) made it to the blog. Just as a warning, we're coming up on March and it will be mostly devoted to the God of War franchise, so buckle up.

I did manage some fictional writing this week, but it probably doesn't add up to 1000 words, but there I did do something.

I still have more of that to do, a review to finish, press releases to write and, hopefully, more pages to review from our artist and colorist.

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

A Week in Writing #450 - Skylar Taking Shape

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

I don't usually lead with my work on my novel Skylar so I'm going to change that now. No, I'm not done, nor am I close, but I did have a good week with the book, getting in close to 3000 new words in, maybe more, including over 1400 today, as a matter of fact. Some of it comes down to timing, either having it or choosing to write when the opportunity comes up.

Anyway, I've gotten through a couple of points in the story that have been rattling around in my head for awhile and I've set up what could be a nice bit at the end. See, I'm not calling it a twist but I think it will make a nice payoff when the time comes.

It's hard to write too much about something without actually talking too much about the story itself and I'd like to keep as much under wraps as I can.

On the opposite side of the scale, I spent a good part of the week working on the new issue of The Hound Dogs' Howl, our monthly newsletter. A lot of it is part of a form I've established but there is some writing involved, including an introduction, a story about twins in the news, Joyce and Raissa De Haas of Double Dutch Drinks; a Heard Around Campus segment (since this supposed to be about a college) and some miscellaneous bits here and there. Paul and Trevor add a recommendation, this month The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Oh, I could send you a link but I'd rather have you sign up for it, you know, take it out for a spin.

We're sort of in a slow patch for the book, as our colorist turned artist, Julia Canon, is finishing up her coloring work before she starts on being the artist full-time. I'm hoping that transition begins in April.

Well, I did it. I proposed my panel to San Diego Comic-Con. I'm not even sure if the window is officially open, I was just told April, so I sent in my one paragraph version. I'm not sure what else I'll have to provide. There are supposedly forms but I don't know if there is pre-judgement on the idea first or they send the paperwork and make their judgement then. The important thing is that it's in, so we'll see how it goes. There's nothing wrong with trying, only inaction.

On the business side, I had a bit of a scare with the website. While I was updating various groups about our recent peek-of-the-week, I found that there was a problem with our website. Apparently, something had gone wrong with the certification and Google was labelling it a dangerous website. Well, it took some waiting, but Go Daddy did fix it and told me how to in the future. But there's nothing worse than sending out links that scare people away.

No new reviews from me this week again. Rather than watch something new, we decided to watch Safety Last, the Harold Lloyd classic that was celebrating it's 100th anniversary on April 1. And yes, we did review it about 10 years ago. This week's Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked was Trevor's review of Shrek Forever After.

One new query, again, only for Broken People. I did work on my paragraph long synopsis for Past Present, but I have yet to test the waters, though I did do some work on putting together a list of agents to query. Basically, the same form letter will be sent with the book bits changing. I'll keep you posted.

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

A Week in Writing #442 - Getting Behind, Again

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

I don't know about you but I feel like I'm falling behind, again, on my projects. It's not one thing in particular but just the week that was.

I started working on a synopsis for another book, this one called Past Present. This is another one that I've written with J.D. Barrister, my LA private detective. In this one, he's hired by an ex-girlfriend to follow her husband. And what starts out as a rather routine case ends up in murder when incest is revealed. I won't give any more away than that. But I realized once I was into the book that I had already written a couple of synopses for it back in the days I first tried to get representation. I know it sounds conceited but I really like this book, at least the characters and interactions in it.

So, I guess the next step is to query that, avoiding of course, those agents who already turned it down. Surprsingly, not a long list but I'll have to do that separate from Broken People, which I'm currently querying around, and yes I did send a new one out this week. Do I get a gold star now?

I started going through Past Present and making changes so there goes a couple of nights.

I'm behind on everything else, with poor Skylar once again getting neglected. It's nothing personal, just so many hours in the day.

I did spend a good portion of the week on Powers Squared related items, including struggling with my GoDaddy website. It all started when I wanted to add a Character Page for a new one we're introducing in the next book and a preview of the next book, Mocha and Raven. However, the character page would have been my 51st and that's too many for dear GoDaddy. So, I spent a good porition of this week trying to work around that, deleting some old pages and trying to combine issues into story arcs. I had the notion to turn all the issues into one page but there would be too many sections for a GoDaddy page to handle.

It's not that I mind web design, but it's the limitations that I'm getting tired of. Not sure I'm ready to move on but I'm starting to lean in that direction.

The rest of the time was spent on The Hound Dogs' Howl newsletter. It's a monthly wrap up of all things Powers Squared. This my regular ask for new subscribers. If you read this and are interested, you can get your own copy by enrolling at SRCC, the college where much of the action takes place.

It probably won't surprise you that I'm somewhat behind on my reviews for Trophy Unlocked. I did finish one for Marcel the Shell with Shoes but I'm still not quite done with Bullets or Ballots, Lord of the Rings (1978) and now I have to do one for The Banshees of Inisherin as we race to catch up with some of the Academy nominations.

The Saturday Morning Review was Paul's review of Bluey's Big Play, which we saw recently in Los Angeles.

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

A Week in Writing #441 - Getting Some Things Done

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

Well, fewer things are in progress than last week but there's still a lot I'm still working on. Let's start with an example of both.

I finished one review for Trophy Unlocked, the one for Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter. I'm close to the end with my review of Lord of the Rings and I've started a new one for Bullets or Ballots, a 1936 crime film with Edward G. Robinson and Humphrey Bogart, the latter being from the Saturday night drain the DVR viewing.

I did have a review on the blog, the Saturday Morning Review was The Automat, a 2021 documentary about the automats in New York and Philadelpha. The Wednesday Game Day review was Trevor's for Samurai Jack: Battle Through Time.

Work continues on the new issues of Powers Squared that we intend to release this year. Trevor made all of the edits and now I'm resizing and making .pdfs.

I also completed my fifth go at what I'm calling The Great Escape (title subject to change) a one-shot issue that would resolve a question left over from Issue 18, which you'd have to read in order to understand what I mean. 18 is one of the issues we're planning to release this year, so you'll have to wait, I guess, to find out.

We had our monthly team meeting this past Friday for our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. It was our first without Rachel Wells, so it kind of felt like someone was missing. It was the third time this month that we've had Julia Canon, our new artist on the show; she's getting to be quite the regular, which is nice.

No progress this week on the pilot outline, still too many balls in the air for that to get the attention it deserves.

I still haven't had the chance to fix my GoDaddy/Facebook issue but I've got a sort of work around, using IFTTT, which should connect Instagram posts with Facebook. The issue is that you use handles on Instagram that don't apply to Facebook but that can be cleaned up on the backside. I'll see how that goes for this week. It's just a matter of priorities with me.

I did manage a new query this week. Having a synopsis ready to go has really opened up some additional opportunities for me. I'm still trying to do one a week, so as not to over due it. I don't want to send out a bunch and run through the list too quickly, if that makes any sense. I've also started thinking I need to do a synopsis for another story that I think is ready to go, Past Present.

Unfortunately, aka Skylar got the short shrift this week. One of the issues for me was that sometimes when I'm writing late at night, I'll say after ten, I can fall asleep at the keyboard and so I lost the place I was at with the book. I discovered that late one night as a matter of fact.

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

A Week in Writing #438 - New Year Old Routines

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

Starting over with the new year is sometimes harder than you think it will. I don't know about you but going back to the full time gig is more tiring than you might think it will be. It's sort of like using muscles that you haven't in awhile.

It also means I'm back to trying to squeeze in whatever writing I'm trying to do in a couple of hours every night. So, back to the old routine as it were.

Routines for the most part are good when it comes to writing but at the same time, they are very limiting. And getting back to them is sometimes hard. All this as a prelude to explaining my output for the week.

I do want to say I worked on aka Skylar but like last week, I'm sort of going through and making changes to what I've already written so far and not making progress on completing the story. So, if you're keeping track at home, I'm up to 57,652 words with at least another 30,000, I'm guesing, to go.

For Trophy Unlocked, I completed a new review, this time for Three Strangers, a 1946 film noir crime drama starring Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, and Peter Lorre. As always, this was a film I had seen playing on TCM and decided to record and was part of our Saturday night DVR cleaning; see it's all routine. And, as always, I don't know when it will see the light of day.

The Saturday Morning Review this week was Paul's for Weathering With You, a 2019 animated film from Makoto Shinkai, the same director behind Your Name (2017). This film was one we watched on Movie Day, which in my family is the day after Christmas. The British have Boxing Day, in my house we have Movie Day.

On the topic of Powers Squared, and you knew we were getting here, we agreed on the premise, so now it's on to the outline.

We had our new artist, Julia Canon on our podcast On the Air with Powers Squared. With all of the other changes going on this year with the book, it's nice to have her stay with us. It's a bit of continuity, even though there will be differences in her style versus Rachel Wells' had been.

Based on this idea, the peek-of-the-week is a comparison between the three artists we've had, Sika Murti, Rachel and Julia, and their character designs for the main characters. This week it's Marty.

I also made some changes with the website and the merchandise. We decided to take down some of the t-shirts and make available ones with the new logo on them. If curious, you can check out The Campus Store.

I had a bit of hiccup with my usual routine, since we're on that topic. On Sunday mornings, I post the peek-of-the-week and upload the OAPS video on YouTube. And then, I do some future social media posts for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter using Go Daddy, the platform the website resides on. Only today, the links with Facebook and Instagram didn't work and I couldn't reconnect them. After spending about an hour on it, I finally found out it's more system wide than just me. When you only have so much time, spending it chatting with a service rep is not the best use of it. And, now I have to go back and redo them later this week, yay!

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