A Week in Writing #62

Again this week, it seems like it was hard to find the time to write. It's all a balancing act between work, family and writing. Some weeks are weighed heavier towards one than another.

I've been waiting to hear back from my editor on Past Present. Last weekend, we reconnected via email after several months of silence. Not sure what to make of the radio silence this week, but I try to be patient. We all have our own balancing acts to maintain so hopefully he'll get back to me in due time.

On the copyright front, I found out that the first document we submitted, 19 months ago, has been granted a copyright and we should received the certificate in the next few weeks. Sort of exciting to have a copyright. Not nearly as good as having something published, but definitely makes me feel like we've created something.

Speaking of creating, finally finished the page panel process with the script, though I think there are a few changes I still want to make. I want to put this to bed so I can move on to other writing. I know what I've been writing about for several weeks seems rather simple, but it's that 'ol bugaboo of time. Even relatively simple tasks take time to complete.

Speaking of completing things, the salute to horror films on Trophy Unlocked ended on Halloween with the publication of a review for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920).

As far as the blog goes, finished my review of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? this week. Also wrote a review for the Buster Keaton short, One Week (1920), which was 2700+ words in length.

After publishing reviews for two silent horror films in a row, I thought about continuing with silent cinema into November. I have a few silent film reviews in reserve, but it got me to thinking about the ones I've never reviewed and One Week came to mind. It's the first solo short Keaton released after this partnership with Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle ended. I really like it and the memories it bring back of my family discovery of Keaton's work and watching shorts and features for several weeks in a row. I squeezed in the review in between doing some yard work, shopping, Halloween and a football game on TV. It came out to be about 2750+ words in length.

With the time change this weekend, I know it's going to be hard to write as much as I want as my body will still be adjusting for a few weeks. I will report back next week on how things went. That is, of course, if I can find the time.

A Week in Writing #61

Another week that I feel like I'm floating in place, more than really getting anywhere with my writing.

Finished with the storyboard and now I'm revising the script for Part Two of the comic book's first adventure. I find this part interesting as I'm now forced to make changes that will still tell the story we're trying to tell, but at the same time fit in better with the spacial limitations of a page and panel. Sort of the rubber finally hitting the road, but I'm sure there will more changes when pencil hits paper. This whole process is really dominating my time for writing.

Finally submitted the copyright registration for Part One. Took a couple of tries, actually, but I got it done. My goal this week is to take the next step and begin the process to find an artist.

And finally made contact with my editor. I'm hoping we can get back to the rewrite, but I'm still not sure how things will play out. He's really made me a better writer and I'm anxious to continue that process.

Didn't have a review from last week to finish, but still the blog posted two reviews. One from Paul about Back to the Future Part II published to celebrate the day and time the movie was supposed to take place in. Also published a review for a real, though non-existent movie, London After Midnight (1927). The last known negative of the film burned in a fire years ago at MGM, but the film was sort of put together from production stills and a continuity script. Horror October will conclude next weekend, on Halloween, with a review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but that link will have to wait until next time.

A Week in Writing #60

This has been a particularly hard week for writing. There has been a bit of a time crunch, but I'm also sort of in a bit of limbo. I'd like to be further along with so many things and I really only have myself to blame for most, but not all of it.

No new queries and I'm guessing I'm not going to hear anything more back from the previous ones I've sent out. But I don't want to really spend the few hours I have a week on that, at least right now. I don't get the feeling I'm getting anywhere with those.

I would really like to get back to the mystery writing. As I've written before I have some ideas on the rewrite for Familiar Stranger. But I really want to square away the comic book, at least get it to a ready state, before I get back into those rewrites. I'm now drawing the storyboard for Part 2 of the first story. This is really what my writing had gotten down to, finding a few minutes here and there to scrawl out a few crude notions of what is visually going on. When that's done, I still need to sync it up with the script and then I'm going to call it ready for now.

Reached out, over the weekend, to my editor on Public and Private (remember me writing about him?). It's been about five months since we've communicated or rather since I've heard from him. I had planned to wait until the middle of September to try him again and that sort of drifted into the middle of October, but I finally did. Hoping to hear back and get some work done on that manuscript as well.

Still fooling around with copyrights. Again, my fault for dragging my feet. I keep thinking the process will take a long time. It really doesn't or shouldn't. My problem has been when I go to the step of paying, there seems to be a network error and when I go back to my case, as they call it, what I've entered is gone and I have to start over. Frustrating to say the least. Will try that again this week. Want to get that process started before we try to find a new artist.

Did do a bit of writing, for the blog; another future review for How I Won the War (1967). We watched it on Lennon's birthday (10/9), which was last week, but I didn't get a chance to finish the review until this past week.

Posted a new review for Mad Love (1935), as part of Trophy Unlocked's Horror October. Please read it here. Also check out our ever-growing horror review post here. As always, comments are always welcomed.

A Week in Writing #59

Sometimes when I sit down to write these entries I feel like I didn't have a really productive week.

Spent most of my writing time this past week pulling together the rest of blog entries for Horror October on Trophy Unlocked, including finishing my review for The Cabinet of Dr. Calagari and adding photos for the other posts. Posted the second horror review of the month this one for Creature From the Black Lagoon on Saturday.

I try to post at least one review a week, usually on Saturday mornings. This is after it has been edited by Paul, who has been my editor since I started posting on the site. After posting on Trophy Unlocked, I post something on Facebook and Twitter. After that I post the same review on the TCM Classic Film Union site. Sometimes at seven in the morning on Saturday I seriously wonder what I'm doing and why. But I still enjoy writing them and as long as I do, I plan to keep publishing them.

Spent a good part of the time on what I consider the business-side of writing. While I did do some additional research on potential agents for my book, I didn't get around to actually querying anyone. But I did do some work on the business-side of the comic book. I found a group on Facebook that is designed to link writers and artists together, in a similar way to what is supposed to be accomplished at the Comic Creator Connection at Comic-Con. The idea of the group is that writers looking for artists, which is me, would make a post with a link to at least a sample of the work they need an artist for. The idea is that a conversation would start and hopefully a comic book would result.

I hate to admit this, but I'm a little concerned about presenting my story without some sort of copyright protection. After consulting an expert, I don't name names on the blog without permission, I remembered to check the status of the copyright Paul and I filed for back in March 2014. I had never received any sort of communication and it had been 19 months, so I wrote an email to the copyright office and while they told me it would potentially take 10 business days to get a reply, I did get one in a couple of days.

Turns out they couldn't complete the process because they coudn't open the attachment, which while in an acceptable format, doc.x, couldn't be opened for some reason. Why no one had gotten back to us about this issue in 19 months is beyond me. I sent them the same submission in a .pdf format via email, but still not sure the issue has been resolved.

The copyright office claims it takes up to 8 months to register an IP when submitting electronically, I don't want to sit on the process for that long. More to come on this in the days ahead.

A Week in Writing #58

Spent the majority of my writing this past week on the storyboard and script for the comic book. Actually did some editing on both as part of the process of syncing them. Now that I have a storyboard and script for Part One, I feel a little like the dog that finally catches the car he's been chasing; I'm not sure what to do next. I know I need to find an artist, but I'm not sure how to go about it. This will be something I'll be working on for the next week or so. I have some avenues to reach out to people, but I'm finding myself to be a little gun shy. I have the comic where Paul and  I want it and now bringing in someone else we lead to change. I'd like to bathe in the enjoyment of accomplishment for a few minutes before being thrown back into the world I know all too well: rejection.

I started the same process on Part Two, but I think I'm going to be moving back to other writing endeavors while we search for an artist. I'd like to get back to the Familiar Stranger rewrite, but I've got a few chores with the blog first. I'd like to ready the posts for October, which means I still have three to post, including one to finish, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Turned the page on Shakespeare September on Trophy Unlocked and started into the annual look at horror films for Halloween. Started with The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), which I posted on Saturday. I also made a bit of a blunder and instead of editing the Horror Film Review Hub, I actually reposted it. It felt like a rookie blogger mistake, but I'm going to have to live with it.

A Week in Writing #57

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

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

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

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

A Week in Writing #56

Some weeks seem more productive than others. This past one I would place in the less than category. While I worked on the thumbnails for the comic book and did finish a draft, I'm not done. After finishing, I looked at my work and decided I needed to redo most of them.  Not because the art was good or bad (it's bad), but because the spacing doesn't work as well as it should. It's all part of the process and I don't have a problem with that, as much as I just want to be further along.

Spending my time drawing means I'm not actually writing. I did have a sort of breakthrough on Familiar Stranger, the book I had been rewriting last summer. One of the plot points has bothered me for a while and I had a thought that will change that for the better. Once I'm done with my drawing experiment, I will hopefully get back to that.

I haven't sent any new queries and have received no new rejections, so I guess that's a push. I also haven't followed up with my wayward editor. I'd like to say it's about finding the time, but there's a part of me that's just a little afraid to. I don't know why there's been radio silence for so long and I'm a little anxious about finding out that answer.

Published one more review for Shakespeare September on Trophy Unlocked for Othello. Worked on another one for the near future, The Picture of Dorian Gray. Got about 1500 words into it, but I'm not finished. Nor am I finished with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, so I need to find the time in the next week to wrap these up, as I'd like to publish both next month for Halloween. There are five Saturdays in October, so I'm planning on five horror films.

So not the most productive week, but I think I'm still working on things. My goals for the week are to complete the redraw for the comic and to hopefully complete one of my October reviews.