A Week in Writing #351 - Blame it on the Pizza

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

Usually, on Saturday nights, my family watches a movie that we've recorded on the DVR, okay I've recorded on the DVR. After we watch it, I delete it and write a review. Not this week, and I'm blaming it on the pizza. A national chain was having a 49% sale which I thought would be fun, as a change of pace. However, it went awry from there. I'll take responsibility for it but one of the local stores is partially to blame.

Occasionally, I'll select the wrong location online and, usually, I'll catch it before I leave home. However, last night, we went to the store we usually use and waited, you know with the emergency brake a-blazing. One of the workers came out to deliver to another customer and asked the name my order was under. I gave her my name and waited. She came back a few minutes later and told us that the order was still in the oven. All, I think, is right with the world.

Well, I get the indication on the app that the order is ready and we wait. After about five minutes and a couple of tries to get someone to talk at the door, another worker goes back and a few minutes later tells us that we don't have an order at that store.

We check the app and head to the right store. They were very attentive and they give us our order. However, by then, it had been over an hour and it was too late to watch a movie, so no movie and no review for me this week.

That is not to say that there was a dearth of reviews on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, Trevor's review of Star Wars Racer Revenge went up, and on Saturday, Paul's review of  The Great Mouse Detective was the featured review. On Sunday, Trevor posted our MonsterVerse Review Hub, one place for all of the recent Godzilla-King Kong tetralogy of films.

This week, the blog will hit 1200 reviews on Saturday, so stay tuned.

On Thursday, I managed to send off a new query, again through an online form. If you've read this blog before, you know how little I like this part of the writing process. This one wasn't as bad as others, though I did have to come up with who might want to read Broken People and I was spared trying to think of marketing schemes for it. Of course, it's a wait-and-see process now. But I do have five out that can be considered active.

All of this is the background for what was the biggest item of the week. On Thursday, I was notified that ComiXology was going to publish our book on Wednesday, May 19th, or six days later. That put into process a lot of footwork on our part, including uploading issues to Kindle and GlobalComix, two of the platforms we publish on. I had already made the .mobi file I needed for Kindle but I hadn't uploaded it since I didn't know the date it was going to be released at the time. When we went to add the issue to GlobalComix, it was already there ready to go. I don't think either of us remembered uploading it but that made it go much faster than I expected.

We were lucky to have a review in the pipeline, and one that was particularly positive. You can read it here.

Paul and I also shot a commercial, which Paul edited, which we plan to post on the day it comes out. Additionally, we wrote and published our first Bark in quite a while. What had been a weekly newsletter is now to used for events like this. One will also be sent out on the day of publication.

Around that, we had a roundtable with the creative team on Friday and then a team-building exercise on Sunday afternoon, playing Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes. We had some technical issues both times but Paul figured it out and both Rachel and Julia were very patient with things. I don't want to take up too much of their private time but I think we all had fun.

I would, of course, ask you to consider purchasing the new issue on one of the five platforms we publish on. These are available through our website at The Campus Store. The links will be live as soon as we know them but for now, you can read about the new issue and perhaps catch up on the back issues you haven't read yet. And, while you're there, you can enroll at San Romero Community College and join our mailing list. It's always FREE!

Commercial over, I'll wrap up with my current book, Skylar, which isn't getting all the love it deserves. Maybe when things calm down I'll be able to get back to it. It is not that I haven't been thinking about it, though. My plan is to add a murder in the mix sooner than later in the story. But that doesn't make up for the lack of actually writing on it.

Next week, Paul, Trevor and I will be getting our second COVID shot on Tuesday, which might make Wednesday interesting if I have any sort of bad reaction but we'll see. I would encourage anyone who hasn't gotten vaccinated to do so as soon as possible.

Well, that about does it for me. Keep writing and I'll see you again 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 #349 - Trying to Find the Time

I don't know if you ever have weeks like this but there is more to do than time permits. It seems like every week is a study in compromise. And there is a certain unpredictability about working on a comic book that just adds to the stress. Pages show up whenever they're ready and that means they need to be looked at and feedback given and then relooked at when the changes are made. I'm not saying it's a difficult process but just time-demanding and time-consuming.

I'm pretty used to Powers Squared being the main activity many weeks but some weeks it takes up more time than others. That's not to mention prepping for the show on Friday, social media posts, updating the website, posting the video. This week, we had the added step of putting out our now monthly newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl. A lot of it is rote by now but there is always a creative twins story that has to be researched and written, a peek-of-the-week to decide on, and test emails to make sure the links all work.

This week, Paul and I are going to have a zoom call with one of our on-demand printers. We want to talk to them about the future and how we're going to get there together or separately. We need everyone's help to make this a going enterprise.

I did write a new review this week. Another Saturday night clean out the DVR film, The Wagons Roll at Night (1941). While the title may sound like a Western, it's about a carnival. The reason for recording and watching the film is Humphrey Bogart. Not sure when it will appear. Probably no time soon. My review of The Secret Bride went up on Trophy Unlocked on Saturday morning and Paul's review of the video game Minit went up on Wednesday. Next week, it's going to be solid Star Wars films and video games, so I'll be reporting back on those reviews next week.

No new queries this week. I've got the five out and I sort of ran out of time on Thursday when I usually send one. See how it relates back to the subject of this review? I'm pretty sure by now one of them has expired even though I've heard nothing back from any of them. But as I've written, nothing means no these days.

Skylar, as always it seems, takes a backseat to everything else. I try to work on it at least a couple of days a week but two is about as many as I get to it. I'm reworking some of the plot and, of course, other things along the way.

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

A Week in Writing #348 - Query Form Questions

Hope this finds everyone writing and staying safe.

I want to start off by giving myself credit for sending out a new query this week. I know it doesn't sound like much but it is my least favorite part of the writing process. So that's five out and so far no rejections but that doesn't mean anything anymore. Rejections are now less an email but the time running out, so maybe I've been rejected already and just don't know it.

The big trend now is to do your queries online using a form. I've found that with some minor changes the form doesn't change much between agencies. In the boxes on the form, they want to know the basic information, such as contact info, the name of your book, the genre, the word count, a short synopsis, a bio, and maybe some pages. These are the basics of a query letter. What gets me, is that one of the buckets they want you to fill in is the "query letter." I'm not sure what to put in this part. Do I put in the letter I would have sent through email, which would include the name of the book, the genre, a word count, a short synopsis, a bio, and my contact information? That sort of seems like overkill. I want to say it's like a musical artist repeating a song in the encore of the show. I did put in a really condensed version of what would have been my query letter but it seemed sort of gutless if you know what I mean. Well, we'll find out, maybe, if it was the right thing or not. There is no way to know that for sure unless an agent points it out specifically.

Well, that wasn't the only thing I worked on this week, so I think it's enough about that.

Last week, I wrote wondering how we were going to follow our interview of John Barber on OAPS. Well, we decided to get back to our roots and did a deep dive on one page of the upcoming issue, #11, What's in a Name? Part 2. While it may seem like we ad-lib the show, it was all scripted out and the images had to be picked out individually ahead of time. That's sort of what I worked on Wednesday night. It was about 1000+ words so that was my writing goal for the day. Paul reviewed and edited the script on Thursday. You can watch how we did for the next two weeks on twitch.tv/powerssquared or you can listen to it at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps

I purposefully avoided writing a review this week. I honestly didn't feel I had the energy on Saturday night to do one. Also, I thought it was a good idea to break things up. So, instead of drain the DVR Saturday, we watched MST3K's take on Invasion USA and a good time was had by all. Except for the Mystery Science Theater 3000's movie, I wouldn't know how to review one of their send-ups.

But there were other reviews on Trophy Unlocked. On Wednesday, it was a review of the video game Fuse by Trevor and on Saturday, it was the film Tomb Raider written by Paul. Sunday, we had a special review of Mortal Kombat (2021), which came out on Friday. That review was written by Paul.

Somewhere in the mix, I did manage to do some work on Skylar but as always, it never seems to be enough. I don't mean to ever downplay that work but it always seems like the one thing I fit into the mix rather than the main focus of the week.

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

A Week in Writing #347 - What Next?

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

Have you ever had a moment when you've done something really big and then realize you're going to have to think of something to do next week? On the Air with Powers Squared, we had the biggest guest we've had on the show, John Barber, the Editor-in-Chief at IDW, and our longest show clocking in at about 90 minutes.

John is someone we've known for about a decade, mostly through conventions, but he was nice enough to give us the opportunity to be on our show. We didn't think we'd have another chance so we asked him everything we could about his career. He started out doing webcomics and has worked at Marvel as well as IDW. He was very gracious with his time. I encourage you to check it out. Currently, the audio is available on several platforms, but you can listen to it on our website, https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps.

Now, we have to come up with something for next Friday. Can't top that but we'll do the best we can. I'm guessing we'll do something closer to the original intention of the show, which was to provide a behind-the-scenes look at Powers Squared. Stay tuned.

While we're on the subject of Powers Squared, please allow me to discuss a promotion we're running. One of the platforms we have it on is GlobalComix. Unlike other digital platforms like ComiXology there is no app to download. Well, anyway, on GlobalComix, we're offering the first three issues of Powers Squared for FREE! If you've been dragging your feet about reading it, now is the time. You can check out the offer at https://globalcomix.com/c/powers-squared?lang=en&utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=instagram%20post&utm_campaign=first_three_free. The hope is after the first three you'll want to read more and we might make some money. Talk about pipedream.

We're still waiting to hear back from ComiXology on Issue #11, so we haven't set a release date just yet.

I had another review go up on Trophy Unlocked this Saturday, Tomorrow is Forever (1946). The week prior was Hitman week #2 with Paul's reviews running Monday through Friday in this order: Hitman: Codename 47; Hitman 2: Silent Assassin; Hitman: Contracts; Hitman: Blood Money; and Hitman: Absolution. I did write a new one this weekend, Wife vs. Secretary (1936). No idea when it will go up but as always, I'll let you know when it does.

I did do a new query this week for Broken People. I decided to mix things up and sent it to an agent in England. I know, long shot but if I am rejected it will be interesting to compare ones from there to ones from here. I'll try to do a new one this week. I still need to write a new hook, I guess, based on my last rejection. You really hope they go on the writing but I think it's any excuse not to actually read them. But hey that's just my opinion.

In between everything, I have been doing more writing on Skylar. I'm still going through my routine of editing to get back to where I left off. I'm starting to think about making a change in the plotting of the story itself, something to raise the stakes.

I'm not sure where you are with the COVID vaccine but I'm scheduled to get my first shot on Tuesday morning. Last time I got a vaccine shot, about a year or so ago, it wiped me out the next day. So we'll see and hope for the best. But I'm encouraging you if you get a chance to get one that you do it. We all want to continue writing, don't we?

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

A Week in Writing #346 - Rejection Comes at All Hours

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

Has this happened to you? I was sort of feeling really tired on Monday night. After realizing that I wasn't going to be able to do any deep thinking on the review for The Guardsman (1931) that I was writing I happened to take a look at social media and finally my email. There, I found a rejection for Broken People from the agent I queried about three weeks before. Not a great way to finish the evening. It came in at 9:24 pm my time which means the agent either stayed up late to ruin my night or scheduled the email; I'm thinking the latter.

It should come as no surprise that the email seems like a form with BROKEN PEOPLE inserted in all CAPS, as it was about the hook rather than the writing. I will work on the hook before I send the next query. While this was a disappointment it is also why I didn't want to wallpaper all the agents with my query at one time. Better to try to learn from one mistake before moving forward.

If you're concerned, I did finish that review of The Guardsman, as well as one for Mank and another for The Last Flight (1931). The first and last of these have not been scheduled but Mank was released earlier today. While we're on the subject of Trophy Unlocked, this was Resistance Week on the blog with Trevor's review of Resistance: Fall of Man on Monday, Resistance 2 on Wednesday, and Resistance 3 on Friday. For a change of pace, my review of Rationing (1944) was the Saturday Morning Review.

On this week's On the Air with Powers Squared podcast, we had the entire creative team on the show. It was great to catch up with everyone and to let them know what we had been working on. One of them was, after talking to Eric Tapper at GlobalComix, we made the first three issues of Powers Squared free on their service. If you've been hesitating about reading it, you can't beat free. Check it out at https://globalcomix.com/a/powers-squared/comics.

Our guest next week is scheduled to be John Barber, the Editor-in-Chief at IDW. It's a long story that we'll get to on the show but you're invited to watch at twitch.tv/powerssquared at 6 pm PDT next Friday.

In other Powers Squared news, we submitted Issue #11 to ComiXology, so the release is coming soon. We also did an unboxing video on Twitch this morning. You can watch us unbox proofs of Issue #11 and #12 at twitch.tv/powerssquared. Upon reviewing of the proofs we did have some comments for one of the suppliers, so I had to write to them as well.

With Skylar, I made some more changes, which I hope will move the plot along a little faster. I was inspired to rewrite the first meeting between the title character and protagonist J.D. Barrister, a P.I. I'm setting it in a post-COVID world which means I may have to adjust the timeline as things unfold. Right now I picture it being Fall but I hope it's sooner than that.

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

A Week in Writing #345 - When Things Don't Go As Planned

Hope everyone is staying safe and writing.

Let's start with what didn't go as planned. I did not send out a new query this week, even though I said I would. Now, I don't have a great, that is a meaningful, excuse for not doing it. I watched a movie that night, Godzilla vs. Kong, at home, and wrote a review for it instead of sending out a query. When I wrote out my plan for the week, I didn't take this into account.

The next day, I actually had the day off from work and we watched another movie, Zack Snyder's Justice League, and then The Peanuts Movie that night. Friday night is not really a writing night for me anyway. I'm hoping to make good this week, though I am planning on watching Mank on Thursday night, so no promises.

This leads nicely into Trophy Unlocked. During the week we were leading up to the Godzilla movie with a couple of reviews, including Paul's review of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Trevor's April Fool's but very real review of King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) (American Cut). My review of Godzilla vs. Kong was the Saturday Morning review and Paul's review of the four-hour Justice League went up today.

We watched a movie last night, The Guardman (1931) but I haven't started a review of it yet. I was too tired to do it and had other work to do today to get to it.

So, I didn't send my query for Broken People but I did do some work on Skylar. Currently, I'm still going back through it, making changes as a sort of running start to continue writing the story. A couple of changes here and there. I'm liking having changed the description of the Skylar character. I think it makes it better. I did get through a couple of chapters this week, so I am making progress there.

On Powers Squared, we did receive new pencils from our artist, new completed pages from our letterer, and newly colored pages as well. So a lot of reviewing and comments. Funny how busy things can get with the book all at once. We did discover one thing that needed to be changed. We didn't catch it until after the letterer finished, so sort of a re-do for everyone. Something minor but it's the little things sometimes that seem to matter the most.

This week, we had a new guest on On the Air with Powers Squared, Jon Dexter contacted us about being on the show, the first one to ask, so we couldn't say no. He has a Kickstarter going on right now. You can listen to the podcast at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps. And you can support his Kickstarter if you want at https://tinyurl.com/9bpzjpnn.

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