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 #497 - Monday Was a Great Day

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

I had one of my best days as a writer on Monday. Not only did I finish the review, X-Men: The Last Stand, but I also rewrote the script for "Billy and Raven", a one-shot related to Powers Squared, wrote about 1500 words on my new story and read one of my son's short stories; something I was very overdue at doing. And if that wasn't enough, my entire family built the Megablocks set "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles", which was 681 pieces and took three hours to build.(Note: I'd still be building it if I was doing it if my sons hadn't done the heavy lifting.) Not bad for a free day from the office.

I tried to duplicate the 1000 words again on Tuesday, and sort of barely made it, on Wednesday, I just fell short of 600. None of this, mind you, had anything to do with Skylar, but I have been thinking about making some changes in her backstory, so it's not like I've forgotten that book, it's just that I've had ideas for this newer story.

I still have to write a review this week for X-Men: First Class. Trophy Unlocked will be doing a series of X-Men movie reviews leading up to the release of Deadpool and Wolverine later this year. Only one review this week: Trevor's review of PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie was the Saturday Morning review.

Started working, over the weekend, on the next Hound Dogs' Howl, the Powers Squared newsletter. Still time to sign up for it at https://powerssquaredcomicbook.com/srcc. I also need to write a press release or two for upcoming releases. If you're at all curious about the issues, below is a graphic showing when they'll be released through the rest of the year. They'll all be available through The Campus Store as they come out.

Speaking of releases, made the mobi files for the issues this year. I'm not sure why, but it always takes more than one try to make an issue using the software. Sort of frustrating, but the last three went pretty quickly. Paul and I posted the first issue this afternoon, so it will be available for pre-order in a day or so. We also posted the next issue on GlobalComix, so everything seems to be moving forward.

We had our monthly team meeting on Friday for On the Air with Powers Squared, and we all agreed to give Billy and Raven a one-shot. You never know, it might catch on. You can listen here now, or watch the video on our YouTube channel on Wednesday at 2:30 pm PT.

I had to resend the second trade to Library Pass this week. Apparently, the first one failed (?). Next week, we'll get more into the Library Pass when our guest will be Moni Barrette, the librarian we've been working with there. We go Live at 6 pm PT on Friday at twitch.tv/powerssquared.

Just so it's no surprise, no queries yet. Still have some thinking and homework to do on that before I launch into a new soul-sucking round of that.

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

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.