David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Today was interesting. At work, it was almost like Christmas as the long-awaited Macs arrived. I must confess I was surprised — I’d been figuring that someone, somewhere in the purchase order approval chain, would say “we make Windows software — I don’t care if they’re ‘Designers’, they can’t have Macs!” But, despite my skepticism, there they were: three shiny (very shiny!) new dual-processor Power Mac G5 Towers with half a gig of RAM and 250 gigs of disk each, plus three boxes of assorted software. And so the day was spent in setting up, configuring, installing, and tweaking. (Um, can anyone tell me how to make IntelliJ Idea use Command instead of Control for its keyboard shortcuts?) Then, at home, I finally got off my duff — well, no, actually I got on my duff — and started editing “Titanium Mike.” Shortened the first scene by about 200 words (in the first 800) and made the Mike story a bit more outlandish. The edits on the next scene are going to be trickier. But I’m editing again! I hope to have this one in the mail by the end of next week.

In the last week, I’ve mostly divided my time between work and being sick. The project at work, time- and energy-consuming though it is, is coming together nicely and I’m pleased with my part in it. At this point my greatest fear is that our fine design might prove to be too much to implement. I wish we were in the same city as the implementers. And then I come home at 7pm or so, read or watch TV a bit, and fall into bed. I just don’t have enough energy or brainpower for anything more. I’m so glad I’ve got Kate to take care of me when I get like this. In the last couple of days I’ve been much less sick. I’m still blowing my nose a lot, but the sore throat, aches, and fever are mostly gone. So I have had enough energy to put a bunch more music into my iPod (including several discs of Broadway show tunes — still not convinced they will work well in rotation, but it’s worth a try), see the new Harry Potter movie (I have some problems with the plot, but I applaud the filmmakers’ decision to exclude those beastly Dursleys from the film), and read the new Iain Banks novel, The Algebraist, which I picked up at the Worldcon. I had heard some disappointment at this one, but for myself I found it a cracking good read with inspiring scope and complexity. I don’t get nearly as much time as I would like for reading these days, so I should feel glad that I managed to read a whole novel that wasn’t required for anything. But I still feel like a total slug. Perhaps I shall accomplish something useful later this week. But for now… going to bed early has a lot of appeal.

Wow, it has been a while since I’ve posted. Well, I’ve been very busy with real life… barely time to read email, and definitely not enough time to read my friends’ online journals, never mind writing in my own. Here’s a brief, brief update.

• I finished the revisions on my novel before World Fantasy Con, though I had to stay up until 3am to do it. I haven’t heard anything from the editor yet except an acknowledgement of receipt. If it doesn’t sell after all this I will be Annoyed.
• Lise Eisenberg from New York was our houseguest for several days before OryCon. Great conversation, good eats, but in trying to open my wireless network to let her in I managed to bring the whole thing down — it took me until 2am to get it working again.
• I had to get up at 4am for my flight to WFC. On Saturday morning of the con I was able to announce in the dealers’ room, in all sincerity, that I was tireder than the whole rest of the convention… put togithir!
• I must have had a good time at WFC, because I didn’t go to any programming at all (except for the one panel I was on and my reading, both of which had quite respectable audiences — oh, wait, I did also attend the Monette/Bear/Lake readings Sunday morning). Basically I spent the whole con schmoozing in the halls, the parties, and the bar. Now, when I say “schmoozing,” I really mean “hanging out with writer friends” more than “sucking up to editors,” but there was also a certain amount of the latter. And I really wish there was something I could wear that would look as sexy on me as Elizabeth Bear’s corset did on her.
• Came home to find that Kate, Lise, and Dave Howell had had a good time without me at OryCon, ending with an amazing series of mishaps that I will let one of them relate. Sounds like their convention was a lot more… eventful than mine. Both Lise and Dave stayed at our house for a day or two after the convention. Wonderful to see them both, to be sure, but it was nice to get the house back.
• All through this time I’ve been working 9-10 hour days at the day job. We’ve made some difficult decisions about which projects to defer, but we still have tight deadlines on the one major project that remains on our plate, and when that is done we will be behind the 8-ball on the other projects we’ve deferred. Work will probably remain quite heavy well into next year.
• What with all the strange people I’ve hugged and the massive sleep deficit I’ve rung up in the last couple of weeks, it’s not too surprising that I’ve come down with a cold. Nothing serious, but it does slow me down a bit.

So that’s what’s up with me. If I owe you an email or a phone call… please be patient, I’m treading water as fast as I can.