A Week in Writing #496 - Attempting to Impart Wisdom

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

I'm stealing the title for this post from the latest On the Air with Powers Squared podcast. On Friday, Paul, our artist Julia Canon, and I spent about an hour talking with a future comic book creator, Kevin Krust, answering questions he had about doing a book. That reminded me that every so often, I hope that I am doing that here. Sometimes, this is a rant session for me, sometimes just a place to enumerate whatever it was I did or didn't do the previous week, but every so often, I hope some wisdom is imparted, however little that may be.

If you're interested in what we imparted to Kevin, you can listen here now or wait until Wednesday and watch us on our YouTube channel. I don't know what you may think, but I believe Kevin thought we were helpful.

Speaking of Powers Squared, I believe we've set a release date for Issue #20, Mission: Istanistan. The release date will be March 13th. We'll be talking about that release on our March 8th podcast, which will feature everyone connected with its production, including artist Rachel Wells, colorist Julia Canon and letterer Trevor Hankins. Be There and Be Squared. We go live at 6 pm on twitch.tv/powerssquared.

We'll also, hopefully, be talking with Moni Barrette from LibraryPass/ComicsPlus on the March 1st podcast, so you might want to tune in for that as well and find out how we pulled that off.

On the subject of Powers Squared, work continues on Issue #26, "The Great Escape", with Julia sort of outlining pages 15 through 17, the next three pages she'll be working on.

After that, I'm thinking at this point of maybe doing our fourth one-shot in a row, Billy and Raven, which would be the first Powers Squared story not to feature Marty and/or Eli. Billy was first introduced in Issue #1 and Raven in Issue #16 "Mocha and Raven". It would be a big departure for us, but not all of the Archie comics featured Archie. I'll be revisiting that script in prep for that, even if we decide not to do it.

I've also been working with Rachel on some Powers Squared paraphenalia that might come up when we do our next Kickstarter.

On the Trophy Unlocked front, I finished my review of Chang (1927), which was one of the three films nominated at the first Academy Awards for Best Unique and Artistic Picture, losing to Sunrise. I had got to thinking it would be cool to watch and review all six films nominated for the Best Picture categories and Chang seemed the hardest to find. I had to buy a used Image DVD in order to watch it. You'll have to wait for publication to know if I thought it was worth it or not.

I'm still working on my review of X-Men: The Last Stand. I believe there will be a flurry of X-Men reviews on the blog coming out ahead of Deadpool and Wolverine.

The Saturday Morning Review this week was Paul's review of Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief  the 2010 feature and not the Disney+ series. The Wednesday GameDay review was Trevor's for Transformers: EarthSpark - Expedition.

I'm afraid not much other writing happened this week. As usual, Skylar got short shrift again and no queries were sent. This is the part of post where I mention what I didn't do this week and these two items seem to be permanent residents.

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

A Week in Writing #495 - 1,000,000 and Counting

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

Let's start this week with a nod to Trophy Unlocked, the blog my son Paul started and that Trevor and I also write reviews for. This month, the blog passed 1,000,000 views, which is a significant milestone. I wish I knew when it hit that number, it was sometime during the week, but the fact is that it did. Congrats to Paul for sticking with it all these years.

While we're on the subject, my review of The Holdovers, was this Saturday Morning's Review. I have two that I have to work on, X-Men: The Last Stand and Should Ladies Behave, the latter beiing a 1933 pre-code comedy-drama. I don't think the former needs an introduction.

Another happy surprise I received this week was a message from a teacher in Australia that I am linked in with on, well, LinkedIn. He wrote that in one of his classes, he was talking about creativity and character development and mentioned Powers Squared to his students and that they loved the concept. Of course, I was happy to hear that someone likes it, so I spent a couple of hours cleaning up the pages and sent him a reduced .pdf of the first trade to share with anyone in the class that might be interested. I'll be curious if any of them sign up for the newsletter, which was my only request if they liked it.

Besides resizing more pages, I also worked with our artist on a couple of new pages. I'm trying to keep her on two pages a week. She had some ideas that made sense and I had to do a little rewrite to make it work, but I think makes the story better.

Our scheduled guest on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, had internet issues so we had to reschedule for March. So, we pivoted to The Lightning Thief, the first book of the Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan. Paul had read the book and we had all watched the Disney+ series and the feature film made before that. You can listen to it here, or watch it next Wednesday on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared).

And if that wasn't enough, we posted a new video this morning, the sixth in our taste test series, this one being 5 of Mr. Beast's Feastables chocolate bars. These sort of videos have been pretty successful for us. Hope you watch.

All of this left me a little time to work on Skylar and my new story. And I haven't yet managed to flex my query muscles, which is something I wanted to do this month.

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

A Week in Writing #494 - A Lot to Do and So Little Time

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

I don't normally talk about the weather, but today it has been especially rainy here in Los Angeles, where I live. I like rainy days, but I didn't get much writing in, as I was busy with other duties related to Powers Squared.

First on the list was the newsletter, The Hound Dogs' Howl. Most of the writing had been done, but there is always Paul and Trevor's recommendation and, of course, editing. Luckily, I sent myself a test email, since several of the links were holdovers from last month's. Anyway, it is sent out.

Next, I thought I'd start the process of getting proofs made of the four books we're planning to release this year, "Mission Istanistan" Parts 1 and 2, and "Family Affair" Parts 1 and 2. And, of course, nothing is as easy as it should be. Gallery pages were too large on one site and then there is waiting for proofs to be approved and billing to take place, so I'm not done yet.

On our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared, we had Rik Offenberger, the Editor-in-Chief of First Comics News and G-Man Comics on as our guest. For the most part, the people you meet in the indie comics space are really great people. And Rik is one of the best. He's always been very supportive of Powers Squared and it was nice to have him on the show. He's one of the better guests, in that he also promotes his appearance, which also helps. If downloads on Podbean are any indication, it's our best performance since last October's "Eyeshield 21 21th Anniversary Celebration". You can listen to it on our website or wait to watch it when it hits YouTube on Wednesday.

I also finished a review of The Holdovers for Trophy Unlocked, a film we watched last night on Amazon Prime. While I perfer to see films in a theater, renting it for $2.99 beat out driving to a theater when it was supposed to be raining. I don't know when it will go up but I imagine soon, since it's nominated for several Academy Awards. The Saturday Morning Review this week was Trevor's review of  Ernest & Celestine: A Trip to Gibberitia, a French animated feature from 2022.

On the subject of Trophy Unlocked, I predict the blog will reach a million views later this month. That's quite an accomplishment, I think, and I'm happy and proud to be a part of it.

That brings me back to my other writing, which I did do this week, though mostly it was the new story idea I've been working on. I had a couple of thoughts for chapters, so I wrote those up. Skylar is not being forgotten.

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

A Week in Writing #493 - Let's Talk Powers Squared

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

I'm in sort of a Powers Squiared mood this week. I've been working with, meaning reviewing and giving comments to, our artist, who is working on an issue I wrote, currently called "The Great Escape". We're going two pages at a time, so two more were drawn this week and so far, I can say, I'm happy with the results.

We had a team meeting this week on our podcast, On the Air with Powers Squared. If you're unfamiliar, it's a chance to get everyone who is working on Powers Squared together virtually to talk about what's new with the book. This week, we also had an unboxing of our Volume 2 trade. I got physical copies so that we could see what they would look like when they get printed, though, for a time they are going to be exclusive to LibraryPass.

As always, you can listen to the podcast on our website or at most of the major platforms, also listed on the website. On Wednesday, the video appears on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared).

Paul and I also sat down on Friday afternoon to apply for copyrights on the next four issues that we plan to release this year. It's the final step before we start setting dates for release.

I'm also mentiong Powers Squared this week because next week is the Hound Dogs' Howl newsletter and I want to encourage/ask you to subscribe by enrolling at SRCC, which is free; plus you get a free digital copy of issue #1 as a gift.You can do this at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc.

This week, I wrote a review of Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, which came out on Friday, for Trophy Unlocked. We watched it Saturday afternoon and the review appeared today. If you've read my other reviews, this one is pretty much spoiler free; I don't want to spoil the fun when a film is still out.

The Saturday morning review was Paul's for The Boy and the Heron, which we saw last weekend. This week also saw the return of the Wednesday Game Day with Paul's review of The Last Kids on Earth and the Staff of Doom video game.

This brings me back to Skylar and while I did do some work on it, I spent some time also working on the bit I've written for the next story, in which J.D., the hero of the books, is hired to find a girl who ran away from home 15 years ago.

This coming week, I need to finish the newsletter and work more on Skylar since the path seems clear. I should also work on the next query letter, as I want to get back into that come February; I don't have enough frustration in my life.

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

A Week in Writing #492 - Working

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

I can actually report that I did work this week on Skylar. I tried to make a point of it, trying hard to get through a chapter every night. Still have more editing to go but I am working on it, so I wanted to get that out front for a change. I don't know when I'll finish but I am working on it.

Work continued this week on some edits for Issue 20. I think we're getting closer, I need to make new .pdfs before we apply for copyrights, so we're behind schedule on that, but these things need to be right before we move on to the next steps.

Meanwhile, working with our artist on pages for Issue 26, so that seems to be going along fairly well.

One last mention of Powers Squared, we had our 12th Comic Book Club on this week's On the Air with Powers Squared. Julia Canon and Rachel Wells joined Trevor, Paul and myself to discuss Bone: Out from Boneville, written and illustrated by Jeff Smith. It's always fun to have guests on the show. You can listen to it on our website: https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps (or a variety of other platforms) or wait until next Wednesday to watch it on our YouTube channel (@powerssquared) at https://youtu.be/mJwCx6pP4dc.

This week's Saturday Morning Review, was Paul's review of The Last Kids on Earth - Book One (Film), which appeared on Netflix in 2019. It served as a pilot for the other two seasons of the series. He is also working on a review of The Boy and the Heron, which we saw in the theater over the weekend.

The review I wrote this week was for 7th Heaven (1927) which was nominated during the first Academy Award for for Outstanding Picture, losing to Wings for that honor. I was surprised that there was so little information available about it, especially on my go-to website, the AFI Catalog. I was disappointed that the entire synopsis they proved was only one paragraph in length and they had very little information about the production of the film. I like the opportunity to write a better synopsis than is already available and I think I did a pretty good job with it here. I've gotten complaints before that I'm too thorough, but I figure if a film is almost 100 years old and hard to find to watch, someone should tell the story. Not sure when it will appear.

Well, more to do. So, this week I want to finish the .pdfs for Powers Squared and register for copyrights and work more on Skylar as well.

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

A Week in Writing #491 - Resizing

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

I don't normally lead with the podcast but I think the one we did on Friday might be of interest. Our guest was Doug Neff, the co-author of Epic Win! The Geek's Guide to the Journey From Fan to Creator; the book that is sort of responsible for this weekly blog. We had him on the show a couple of years ago and had him come back to talk about obstacles for creatives and solutions to work around them. If you're writing a comic book or making a video, you might find it interesting. You can listen to it now on our website:  https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/oaps, or watch it when it drops on our YouTube channel @powerssquared on Wednesday. The link will be https://youtu.be/cR20Ghxstho. While you're there, if you like the content, you can always subscribe and ring the bell so you'll never miss a video. And a comment wouldn't be bad either.

Most of the week, or at least several hours Monday through Thursday, was spent resizing about 92 pages of future Powers Squared pages for the next four issues. We haven't set on dates yet, but the first will probably come out in March. More to come on that.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that Powers Squared was going to be available on LibraryPass in January. Well, that day has come and our first trade, Volume 1, The Adventure Begins is now available at https://lpfullcontent.librarypass.com/publishers/product_lines/277.

LibraryPass is a service provided to high schools and colleges that allows readers to digitally check out books, include comic books. So, if you know someone at those levels, tell them to ask their librarian to choose Powers Squared.

On to other writing, my review of Illicit from about three years ago went up as the Saturday Morning Review on Trophy Unlocked. I also wrote new one for a film called Leap Year (1921). I picked the film for the obvious, 2024 is a leap year, but this was one of Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle's Paramount films that was shelved after he was charged with manslaughter in connection with the death of Virginia Rappe. Charges he was acquitted on in 1922, by the way. You should be able to read it on the 29th of February.

I was able to spend sometime this week with Skylar. I'm trying to get through a chapter a day with editing. So, I can say I'm actually working on it for a change.

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

A Week in Writing #490 - Getting Stuff Done

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

In last week's post, I felt like I took the week off, though not really. This week, I worked on several projects, including the newsletter The Hound Dog's Howl; a new issue of Powers Squared, a review for Trophy Unlocked, and, yes, actually work on Skylar.

We've begun work on issue #26 for Powers Squared currently called "The Great Escape". It picks up where Issue 18, "Mocha and Raven, Part 3" left off, at least as it concerns Dr. Atlas, the book's main villian. Our artist, Julia Canon, is working on the first eight pages and we gave her some feedback on the pages she had submitted so far.

On the subject of Powers Squared, I spent part of the week working on the monthly newsletter, including doing a write up about twins in the No More Heroes video game franchise, Travis Touchdown and Henry Cooldown. That's really the hardest part of the newsletter, doing a write up on twins, and usually ones I know next to nothing about starting out.

The final note about Powers Squared is my weekly plug for On the Air with Powers Squared. This week's topic was about characters, like Mickey and Minnie Mouse from Steamboat Willie going into public domain. And while we're not lawyers, we tried to dicuss some of the things you can and cannot do with those characters. There's a link in the newsletter to the audio podcast and the video comes out on Wednesday the 10th here if you can wait until 2:30 PT.

The review I was working on, and finished for that matter, is a silent film called Too Many Kisses (1925). The film had been considered lost, but a 16mm print was found and the film has been restored. I had tried to record the film when it was on TCM sometime back, but something happened to the recording, let's say I accidentally deleted it. I ended up buying the Blu-ray from the Film Preservation Society. I'm not sure when it will appear on Trophy Unlocked, but I do know that the first review this year on the blog was Paul's review of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. He had read the book recently and we were able to watch the film during our unofficial Movie Day (Dec 26).

I am happy to report that I did actually work on Skylar this week. I'm still in rewrite mode, but it feels good to make some progress on the book.

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