David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 50267 | Since last entry: 100 | This month: 2872 Went to Eric Witchey’s “Tales in the Mail” party in Salem today, in a car with Jay Lake, Robin Catesby, and Jay’s energetic daughter Bronwyn. The group put over 40 stories in the mail, and 4 of them were mine. Two of those were old stories that have come back recently, and I wanted to talk with folks at the party about where to send them. The others were the Uncle Teco story from OryCon — which I have been meaning to send to Analog for months, and the party got me to get off my duff and do it — and the Hell story, which I spent some time (but not much) at the party revising, and just put in the e-mail a few minutes ago. Yesterday’s critiques of the Hell story were generally positive, though a couple of people said “Hell-as-bureaucracy has been done before, and this isn’t a spectacularly new take on the idea”… though at this point there’s not much to be done about that. There were also some requests to develop the new demons more, amp up the concept of “bad ideas” (which is what they’re manufacturing), and beef up the ending, all of which I addressed with an additional sentence here and there. Like it says above, about 100 additional words. Basically, I felt the story was in good enough shape to send out even if it’s not exciting and new. (I hope the anthology hasn’t already bought a bunch of “Hell-as-bureaucracy” stories, because with three theme anthologies about Hell open in the last couple of months there are going to be a heck of a lot of Hell stories hitting the magazines soon.) Yesterday I also got chapter D critiqued. One person said “this is great, I’m really hooked now, why couldn’t you get me this hooked before?” — a compliment, but also a critique that it’s hard to know what to do to address. The revised Prologue might help. Oh well, the important thing for now is to keep writing.

Word count: 50267 | Since last entry: 2070 | This month: 2772 It’s now just after midnight Friday night (technically, it’s early Saturday morning) and, having spent the whole evening writing, I have finished chapter 5. A chapter in a week, woo hoo! Okay, it’s not the longest chapter I’ve written. But at 5300 words it isn’t the shortest either, and it does contain everything in the original outline, plus the additional items I mentioned on the 29th. And I think the quality is in the same ballpark as earlier chapters. I actually wrote about 2200 words tonight, since I started off by cutting a 150-word chunk (Clarity meets with the tailor) that wasn’t really needed. Clarity’s misery level is rising exponentially now, with a triple whammy at the end of the chapter: she’s made an enemy, the last desperate attempt at containing the plague has failed, and one of her few human allies has just been killed by persons unknown. I’m glad I’m not a fictional character. (I’m not, am I?) Tomorrow I print out the chapter and get it duplicated, and then take it to critique. (No beer for them this week, hah!) Next up: a story for the Gateways anthology, which I brainstormed on the StepMill at the gym today. Let’s see if I can do that and another chapter for the next crit group meeting. Sunday will be spent putting tales in the mail, including revising and mailing the Hell story. Might even get something in for the zeppelin antho, at this rate!

Word count: 48197 | Since last entry: 702 | This month: 702 My New Year’s Resolution this year is extremely short and simple: Finish The Novel. (Not my shortest resolution ever; that would be “Watch Casablanca“.) By “finish” I mean finishing the first draft, revising it once, preparing the submission package, and submitting it somewhere. I also would like to keep in touch with friends more. We usually go to two different parties on New Year’s Day, including Marc and Patty’s, at which Kate and I met 19 years(!) ago, but we stayed home today: a Snowstorm Of Unusual Size has paralyzed the city. So we read the paper, did dishes, and watched TV (including a couple of episodes from the Firefly DVD set I got Kate for Christmas). I also did my critique for Saturday. I would have felt awful if I’d stayed home all day and not gotten any writing done. Instead, I feel only slightly awful for writing less than a thousand words. However, I feel like the chapter (currently 3200 words) is going to be fairly short, so even though I’m pooping out now there’s still a chance I’ll finish up by Saturday. It may depend on the weather tomorrow. Most of today’s writing was about Clarity’s new suit. Despite what you may think, it’s a significant character moment for her. But I hope I’m not going overboard on it.