Drawing parallels

In my backyard is a half-acre of woods filled with vines, brambles, poison oak and poison ivy. It has become my goal to eradicate these nuisances, so for the past several months I have been dousing them with weed-killer. This morning I spent two hours in 100-plus-degree heat spraying the nocuous liquid all over the place. By dusk, the leaves already were sagging. It's brutal work, but the end result will be a worth it.

Also for the past several months, I've been knee-deep in the revision process of the last four books of my series. I'm improving phrasing, weeding out extraneous words, polishing and beautifying sentence after sentence. It's brutal work, but the end result will be worth it.

See how a writer's mind operates?

Looking good!

I've seen my cover and back page and am very pleased with both. They are simple yet elegant (kind of like me ... cough, cough!) -- and in my opinion, very effective. The designer at Rain did a nice job.

The cover illustration is the same one you see on my blog. It was drawn by Don Morris, a longtime friend of mine who is an ultra-talented and highly successful artist, both for the St. Petersburg Times and as a freelancer. Thanks Don, so much, for your very generous contribution to my series. You're one of the good people in this world.

Next comes one final look at the proof copy, then The Death Wizard Chronicles are off to the printer.

Fun times!

Standalones vs. series

Recently I've had a couple of people ask me: Which is more difficult to write? Six standalone novels or a six-book series?

To be honest, I've only written one standalone novel in my life (a horror story back in the early 1980s that wasn't published), so I'm not the best person to ask. But it seems to me there are two ways to look at it.

When you write a standalone novel, you have to create its own world and its own peculiar set of characters, so doing so six times would seem more difficult that doing it one time for a series. In other words, once your world and characters are created in a series, then all you have to is riff off them like Carlos Santana (okay, so I like Santana). You're using the same world in Book Six that you used in Book One. This argument would indicate that writing a series is easier than the standalones.

There is, however, at least one way I can think of that a series is more difficult. The need to finish things is inherent in the human species. We don't sweep one corner of the kitchen floor and then stop. We sweep it all, and then mop it, and then dry it, and then put everything back in its place. When you're 250 pages or so into a standalone, the light at the end of the tunnel already is in sight. But when you're 250 pages into a series that will surpass 2,500, well ... you get the picture.

Currently, I'm revising Book 5 of the series. Though I continue to adore my story and characters, there's a part of me that's saying, "Man, just how long is this frickin' tunnel?!"

Anyone care to riff off this one?

Also, please check out my online interview at http://www.allieboniface.blogspot.com. Thanks again, Allie! It's a great service you're providing for other writers.

Friday Feast #153

Appetizer
Describe a toy you remember from your childhood.

I was obsessed with G.I. Joes. Had at least 20 and played with them for hours on end.

Soup
On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being highest) how observant are you?

If I set my mind to it, I'm a strong 9. After all, I was a journalist for 25 years. But I can get lazy and fall to a 6 or so, if I'm not careful.

Salad
Where would you rather be at this very moment?

I would rather be on an expensive cruise in the Caribbean with just my wife -- while my kids remained at home with a dependable babysitter.

Main Course
When was the last time you learned something new?

I learn something new every time I write, which is every day.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: I have ____________ but I haven’t ____________.

I have a bright future as a novelist, but I haven't made it yet.

On Oct. 27, St. Pete ... here I come!

I received exciting news tonight via email. I have been invited to speak and do a book signing at the prestigious Times Festival of Reading in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Oct. 27, 2007. I lived in St. Petersburg for more than 40 years and worked at the St. Petersburg Times for 25, so I'm no stranger to the area.

The nationally acclaimed festival attracts more than 15,000 book lovers, and each author typically speaks for 25-30 minutes. This is followed up by a Q and A session and then a book signing.

A lot of big-name authors attend this event, so this is huge for me as a debut novelist. If you're going to be in St. Pete on that Saturday, please drop by and say hello!

The proofs are here

Rain has sent me the proofs, at least a week earlier than promised. I'm looking at them now. This is fun! And I should be seeing the cover by the end of the week. Tick ... tick ... tick ... It won't be long now.

Killer cat update

For those of you who have been following the tale of the killer feral tomcat that's been attacking our cat Woody (and breaking into our house in the middle of the night), I have news ... potentially, big news. After at least a month of no recorded attacks, my cat was chased into our house by the beast just after dusk last night. An hour or so later, I put out my shiny Ace Hardware animal trap baited with a fresh can of tuna and then went back inside to continue my editing of Book Five. When I checked back on the trap around midnight, I amazingly found a scraggly tomcat locked inside.

My wife and I are 90 percent certain that we've caught the culprit. The only thing that confused us was that he was quite calm in the trap, not the snarling monster we have battled (while in our underwear) in the past. This morning, we took him to our local humane society, where we were told that he appeared to be diseased. Despite all the trauma this cat has caused our family, it still was sad to leave him there. His future isn't bright, to say the least.