John Passarella Author Blog

Today ended up as a double deadline day, or rather double beat the deadline day. About a week or so ago, I received the first pass galley pages for KINDRED SPIRIT (JUNE 2006) for review and corrections with a February 16 deadline. This will probably be my last chance to make changes to the book before it goes to press, although a second pass galley is not completely out of the question. I finished a day or so early and overnighted the pages with changes to my editor at Pocket Books.

My other deadline was self-imposed. Since my son, Matthew, is scheduled to begin radiation treatments (5 days per week for 6 weeks) starting the 16th, I wanted to finish the first draft of my current novel, Shimmer. This novel had been put on hold for various reasons at various stages during the 2.5 years I’ve been working on it. I even put this novel on hold while I wrote a complete other novel, ANGEL: MONOLITH, back in late 2003 and early 2004. I was 62,000 words into this new novel and I thought I had a chance — if I kept my nose to the grindstone for a good month straight — to reach the finish line (THE END line?) before Matthew began his radiation treatments.

The self-imposed deadline worked as I finished this one a day early as well. I wrote for 24 days straight without a single day “off” and I wrote 155 pages, or about 40,000 words to complete the first draft. Now the work begins on the revision/polish/etc before I can submit this one to my agent.

So today was a day of endings (my work on KINDRED SPIRIT) and beginnings, i.e., the first draft of SHIMMER. It was a little strange to be working on a final product of my novel writing at the same time that I was finishing the very early stages of another one.

Until next time,
-Jack

My next novel, Kindred Spirit, is scheduled for a June 2006 release from Pocket Books. Should be in stores late May. It’s been a while since my last novel, Wither’s Legacy (OCT 2004) came out and news has been scarce, but now it feels as if everything is happening at once. I decided to start a blog — restart, actually, since I began one back in 2003 using Blogger — using WordPress. I’d like to do more modifications to this WordPress theme but I’ve been too busy to spend a lot of time with it.

I’m overdue for my next author newsletter. I actually thought this blog might take over the role of the newsletter once I got the hang of it. I’m also getting the urge to revamp the site a bit as well, but again, time constraints are keeping me from some of these things.

2005 was a rough year for my family. My twelve-year-old son underwent three brain surgeries and is getting ready for six weeks of radiation therapy. The good news is that his doctor is hopeful the radiation will kill the remaining tumor in his brain stem.

Other good news is that I’m back into a daily writing schedule even if it takes place after midnight each night! I’m nearing the end of the novel-in-progress which has been in progress than any other novel I’ve ever worked on.

I ran a contest on my site and at signings to have a reader’s name used in the book. This was the book for that. And I have all the names submitted online (although I lost the book signings list when we moved to a new house), and because of the delay I’m hoping to pick more than one name.

As far as Kindred Spirit news, I have the cover posted on the site along with the Pocket Books Catalog page description of the book. Currently, I’m in the middle of reviewig first pass galley pages to mark corrections before final printing. Yet another time constraint preventing me from doing some of the stuff above. But the first pass galley pages have to take priority; they’re do i about a week.

Also this week, I received a JPG of the Italian edition of Wither’s Rain, which is due out May 2006.

Here’s a small version of the Kindred Spirit Cover…

And a thumbnail image of the Italian Wither’s Rain cover…

That’s all for now…

-John “Jack” Passarella