David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 65055 | Since last entry: 335 | This month: 8008 Put Jason on the ferry to the Platform, where he can observe the aliens and the impact they have had on human culture (and be disgustipated at the whole spectacle). This is part of my original concept for the book, but didn’t come out at all in the first draft of the early chapters. Realized today that at some point, if I’m being honest, I’ll have to drop either the original Prologue or the new Chapter Zero from the total word count, which will result in a decrease in word count. Waah! My lovely word count! But it’s way late and I’m not going to do it now. So there.

Word count: 64720 | Since last entry: 463 | This month: 7673 Chopped back a couple of paragraphs from yesterday and wrote forward for a while, continuing to try to put in exposition necessary for the first chapter without going into too much detail. I still think I’m stating too much that should be implied, or left until later. I’m also wobbling on a tightrope of Jason’s emotions — the Cedar Point disaster was the day before yesterday, he hasn’t slept since, he has just broken up with his alien lover, and he has gone all the way over to hating the aliens and wanting them off his planet. I know that a broken love can turn to a terrible hate — I’ve experienced it myself, though only on the receiving end — but writing that moment convincingly is hard.

Word count: 64257 | Since last entry: 278 | This month: 7210 I’m finding it much harder to write the first chapter the second time around. The first time, the whole thing was as new to me as it was to the readers. I had a general idea of the world, but I was creating many of the details as I wrote about them for the first time. But now I know too much, and I remember all the critiques I’ve received in which it’s clear that (some) readers don’t understand (some aspects of) the world I’m trying to create. So I find myself cramming in every missing detail, where in the first draft I was able to create a great atmosphere of mystery and raise a lot of questions. So I didn’t write much today, and I think I may scrap it all tomorrow. But, as the mouse said to the elephant, I’ve been sick. With luck I’ll be better soon. Maybe then I can write more effectively.

Word count: 63979 | Since last entry: 278 | This month: 6932 After considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth, I’ve decided the next thing I will write is a new first chapter. Currently titled Chapter Zero, it will become the new Chapter A and all the other lettered chapters will move one down the alphabet. It replaces the Prologue (since writing the original Prologue, I have learned that some readers skip Prologues and some editors don’t like them), uses some of the same text, and serves many of the same purposes: to introduce the aliens, the Platforms, and the rest of this future world. The major difference is that the new Chapter Zero is focused on Jason rather than Sienna, and Jason is engaging in dangerous, self-directed physical action at the beginning of the book rather than passively taking direction from Sienna. In the new chapter, Jason takes the ferry to the Seattle Platform on the day after Cedar Point. He’s just broken up with Clarity (the continuation of the scene shown in flashback, from Clarity’s PoV, in chapter 5) and is setting out to do some damage. At this point he doesn’t know exactly what he’s going to do, but he’s going to break some rules and do some things he never would have done before (and by “before” I mean both “before this point in his life” and “in the previous draft”). He’s grieving and angry in equal measure, looking to hurt the Taurans as badly as they’ve hurt him. However, I’m not completely sure what he’s going to do either — I have some ideas, but I need to sleep on them. I hope this will make him a better character for the whole rest of the book. If nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to work in some physical description of the Taurans (and Jason’s emotional reaction to them), which is lacking from the current early chapters. Not a productive day at all — less than 300 words and most of them rewritten rather than new — but I kept my resolution to write something every day. More tomorrow.

Word count: 63701 | Since last entry: 2223 | This month: 6654 Finished chapter 6, in a marathon morning of writing that ran right down to the wire: I finished typing just 30 minutes before crit group. Whew! Despite the speed with which I finished the chapter, I feel pretty good about it. I even remembered to spell-check it this time. Wrote three scenes today: Honor and Raptor arguing about whether or not to take extreme measures with the humans (showing the depths of rancor between Wind Mountain and Green Hills clans), Clarity dealing with a ship that’s refusing to land but insists on being refueled for an immediate trip home (setting up an important revelation), and a brief nasty cliffhanger ending. Then I got my critique of chapter E (despite the fact it said chapter D, with the wrong date, at the top of the first page — oops!). People generally agreed that it was a travelogue chapter in which not much happened, but on the other hand it was engagingly written and conveyed some necessary information. Sara had some good hints about how to improve some of the character relationships. Everyone thought Commander Smith was unconvincing; he seemed too eccentric to have risen to the top of the organization. Since the chapter may be too long for its weight anyway, I might just drop him — I don’t think he’ll be figuring in the story again. But you never can tell! I failed to note yesterday that I passed 60,000 words. Quite a milestone. Even though I have finished my chapter, I will NOT NOT NOT allow myself to slack off now. I am going to write something tomorrow, because my goal for the month is still to write every day. It might be the next chapter, or it might be a new prologue, heading toward a revised three-chapters-and-outline for the John T. Lupton “New Voices In Literature” contest (deadline 4/5, with a $12,500 prize for fiction and another for non-fiction). If I write 500 words every day for the next 3 weeks, that’s 10,500 words — enough for both a new prologue and a new chapter! But tonight I am going to bed early.

Word count: 61478 | Since last entry: 1493 | This month: 4431 Good progress tonight: wrote a scene in which Clarity faces death, but talks herself out of it. Cheated a bit by having her refer to common history that didn’t exist until I made it up. I may have to go back and put in a few references to it in a previous chapter. Or maybe it can stand on its own — it’s in keeping with her character. Lots more chapter to go, though. Early start tomorrow!

Word count: 59985 | Since last entry: 501 | This month: 2938 I must confess I cheated a little tonight. I had to undelete one sentence to get the count of new words over 500, for a gold star for the day. I’ll delete that sentence again tomorrow. Tonight, with Garrett’s help, Clarity and Chris have a discussion about Jason and what happened between when he broke up with her and when Chris broke up with him. Chris doesn’t know much, really, but he gives Clarity one name: “Miguel.” At this point no one in this plot thread knows what that name means. Mwah hah hah. Tomorrow, things turn violent. What fun.

Word count: 59484 | Since last entry: 604 | This month: 2437 A good evening’s writing, the first scene in the novel where Clarity is together with Jason’s ex-boyfriend Chris. It’s shaping up into a surprisingly awkward situation; although both of them sign, Chris only knows ASL and Clarity only knows trade sign. This made it hard to write about as well as awkward for them. Fortunately, I had an idea to fix the problem, by bringing back Clarity’s personal translator Garrett, who hasn’t been seen since chapter 1 — a character I was considering bringing back later in this chapter for other reasons anyway. James D. Macdonald has said that writing a novel is like a game of chess: in the early game you move pieces into positions of power, and in the middle game they start using that power. He recommended that even if you don’t know what’s going to happen in the middle of your novel, you should try to move the characters around at the beginning… they may find themselves in positions of power unconsciously (either because you know at some level that it is such a position, or because you realize later how to use them from the positions they are in). I think I may have just seen an example of that. When I left Garrett stranded at an airfield in rural Washington at the end of chapter 1, I didn’t think we’d be seeing him again at all…

Word count: 58880 | Since last entry: 424 | This month: 1833 I have decided to try to write at least something every day this month. I had hoped to make a thousand words tonight, but a little is better than nothing. Tonight’s writing was a real slog. I spent nearly an hour on one paragraph, trying to describe Clarity’s relationship with Chris while they were both going out with Jason — hard enough by itself, but I was also trying to avoid using the word “relationship” more than once. I finally gave up and used it twice, and “share” twice as well. Those 400 words were almost all interior monologue, as Clarity flies her father’s aircraft to Seattle and broods about what she’ll find there. I’m worried about lack of action, but I have an action scene planned for when she arrives… For now, to bed.

Word count: 58456 | Since last entry: 1409 | This month: 1409 …is paved with my good intentions to write for the past week. But I
got back in the saddle tonight, with firm intentions (there’s that word again) to write at least a little every day this month. Part of the reason I didn’t write at all in the last week was a surprise business trip to Texas. I did have a computer with me, and I spent a couple hours doing a detailed and revised outline for the current chapter and the next one in the same plot thread, but wrote no new prose. This is some of that “staring out windows” that makes the actual writing go more easily (not that you could tell, since I was sweating rocks this evening, but I’m sure I sweated fewer rocks than I would have without the detailed outline). But between critiques for Potlatch and conversation with my seat-mate I got no writing done on either flight. And then came Potlatch, which was swell but not exactly condusive to writing. I also ate like a pig on both trips, and I’m feeling guilty about that too. All die. Oh the embarrassment. Must do better in next life!