David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 37918 | Since last entry: 2974

Just back from the Nebula Awards weekend in New York City. It was too brief — Kate says that next time we’re going to come back for a month.

On Thursday we saw a show (“Curtains”), a musical featuring David Hyde Pierce (“Niles” on Frasier) as a stagestruck cop investigating a series of murders backstage at a musical on its Boston tryout in the 1950s. Silly fun, and interesting in that every song and dance, with the exception of one dream sequence, is one in which the characters are actually supposed to be singing and dancing, a neat trick that most musicals don’t even attempt. But the show managed not to be very memorable, which as Kate points out just goes to show how good the really good musicals really are.

Friday we took the subway to Chinatown for dim sum with our old New York friend Lise Eisenberg. Walking from the subway stop to the restaurant we kept meeting Asian women who sidled up to us and muttered “passes, passes,” which confused us no end, until Kate realized (based on something we read in the most recent issue of True Story Swear to God) that they were offering “purses, purses” — counterfeit designer handbags. Then a black man sidled up and offered “relics, relics” — or, I realized after a moment, “Rolex, Rolex” — similarly counterfeit. But a New York street hawker offering counterfeit holy relics is perhaps a story idea…

After dim sum (marvelous, by the way, though they didn’t have spoo) we hiked down streets with names like Baxter and Hester, known to me as Jewish names but now part of Chinatown, to a place where we could get real, fresh bialys and bagels. Then we caught a bus, the scenic route around the tip of Manhattan, back to our hotel.

We woke up from our nap just in time to wander down to Borders (which has a marvelous ceiling) for the big multi-author book signing (I, having no book to sign, chose not to participate). There we ran into Tempest Bradford and her friend Carol, who introduced us to Risotteria, New York’s only gluten-free restaurant with over twenty different kinds of risotto, and Cones for exceptional artisan gelato. Yum. Back to the hotel in time for the ceremonial presentation of certificates and pins to the Nebula nominees (“Everyone to the third floor! Watch the nominees get pinned! To the third floor!”).

The next day we nearly had breakfast with Esther Friesner, but there was nothing at our chosen restaurant for her husband Walter (who is deathly allergic to eggs) so we went our separate ways. After breakfast we wandered along the Hudson River to see the delightful and somewhat disturbing Tom Otterness sculptures in Nelson A. Rockefeller Park. Kate went off from there in search of flea markets, while I returned to the hotel for the day’s programming. But on the way I found myself walking around three sides of the World Trade Center site, and encountered a small exhibition of photographs. It’s basically nothing more than a construction site now, but still freighted with meaning. Many of the people I saw there were crying. I’m glad I stopped for a bit.

I’m also glad I got to see “World Enough and Time”, a new episode of the original Star Trek. Everything except the actors in this lovingly fan-produced episode was exactly the same as before — including the slightly hokey script and acting. But it was a really good episode, starring George Takei as the 60-year-old Sulu. The effects were much better than the original.

Then Jo Walton snagged me for lunch. We went off for a nice slice of pizza with our New York friend Vicky Rosenzweig and her husband Andy, and got back just in time for the so-called “Publishers’ Summit” panel, during which I was able to reassure Jo that Farthing is romantic in the same way that the movie The Addams Family is romantic: it has a married couple who are deeply in love the whole way through, which is rare in fiction.

I managed to avoid the SFWA Business Meeting, but after it was over I found myself in the bar with Gardner Dozois, Ellen Datlow, Nancy Kress, Robin Wayne Bailey, Josepha Sherman, Tom Purdom, Richard Curtis, and probably a few others I’ve missed, talking about Deep Secrit SFWA Business. I kept my mouth shut then, and I will now too.

Back to the room for another nap, then we got all dressed up for the Nebula Awards reception and banquet. It was obvious from the very dense crowd that the majority of the people here had been seduced by the tourism side of the force during the day, because there were easily three times as many people here as I’d seen in one place at any other time. Met many friends old and new in the crowd, including Jae Brim from Writers of the Future. We had some difficulty finding a place to sit for the banquet, but wound up at the Realms of Fantasy table with Shawna McCarthy, her husband Wayne Barlow (yes, the artist Wayne D. Barlow), and Peter David. During the very long banquet and award ceremony Wayne and I geeked about great toys from the 1960s, including Major Matt Mason, Horrible Hamilton, the Colorforms Aliens, and the Zeroids.

Sunday morning we got up, packed up, checked out, and had just enough time for a visit to the Museum of Modern Art. Wow. Just wow. Dali, Picasso, Van Gogh, Magritte, and Mondrian, not to mention gallery after gallery of great industrial design, but I think our favorite piece was a dark room in which the only light came from a classic cartoon mouse-hole cut in the baseboard, while slightly disturbing cartoon sound effects played. The title: “Waiting for Jerry.”

Then home.

Not a lot of writing in the last week but I am still making progress. But now I must to bed.

Word count: 34944 | Since last entry: 1516

Woke up at 5am in Phoenix yesterday morning, thanks to USAir stranding me on the way home from Palm Springs, but made it home in one piece and got to work by noon. The rest of yesterday was a bit of a sleep-deprived blur. Rather unfocused today as well, but did go to the coffee shop and wrote over 500 words in the company of Karen, Mary R, and Kate who came along to knit while we wrote.

On the plane I was reading Carnival by Elizabeth Bear and feeling rather inadequate. My stuff is so linear and straightforward by comparison, lacking both the stylistic pyrotechnics and the drop-the-reader-in-head-first headrush of the Bear. But Kate reminds me that my first (still unpublished) novel has an insanely complicated timeline, and although my style is rather vanilla some people do seem to like it.

Tomorrow we’ll be at John Scalzi’s reading at Powell’s in Beaverton; hope to see some of you there!

Word count: 33428 | Since last entry: 493

Only Jay and myself at the coffee shop tonight, and we only overlapped for about an hour. I stayed for another half-hour after he left, but didn’t quite make 500 words for the night.

Sometimes I wonder if I am just throwing in incidents to take up space. This chapter was exceedingly thin in the outline. But each thing follows naturally from what preceded. I really need to be building up Rachel’s backstory and inner life more, though.

A snippet:

“You have to go slow,” Rachel said. “I’m not familiar with this place.” She held the child’s expressionless eyes with her own as the alien translated, willing her to understand. Surely some glimmer of comprehension must come eventually — she must remember at least a little of her own people’s language? But the girl only repeated her gesture. “Please, child. At least tell me your name.”

The girl watched the alien as it translated. Then she turned her eyes to Rachel, and spoke directly to her. “Keelie,” she said. Though the name was strange, it was the most human sound Rachel had heard from the girl, and she took some hope from that.

“Keelie,” Rachel repeated.

The girl gave a downward jerk of her chin, then waved Rachel forward again. Rachel picked up her bag and walked toward her. Daniel in the lions’ den, she reminded herself as the slugs slithered away from her feet.

After I got home from that, Kate and I watched Monday’s episode of Drive, which our VCR failed to tape, on my Mac via MySpace. Truly it is the future.

By the way… Does anyone know where the original phrase “ink-stained wretch” came from? A quick Google suggests that it is a known phrase but doesn’t hint at its origin.

Word count: 32935 | Since last entry: 0

In honor of Earth Day this weekend we ripped out some excess plants in the back yard. And in honor of International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, here are some stories of mine you can read on the web for free:

• Tk’Tk’Tk at Asimov’s (Hugo winner)
• Babel Probe at Darker Matter
• I Hold My Father’s Paws at Infinity Plus
• At the 25th Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club at Infinity Plus
• Fear of Widths at Infinity Plus

Enjoy!

Word count: 32935 | Since last entry: 810

Kate is back from Disneyland, having had a great time there with the eight-year-old neice. Today I got a haircut, did a few other chores, had lunch with Katy, a square-dancing friend who just popped in as long as she was in town for other reasons, and had a delightful dinner at Mother’s with Bo and Don, a couple of other square-dancing friends. Then we watched Drive (I agree with Abigail that it lacks soul and texture, but I’m willing to give it time to grow on me) and I wrote another couple hundred words.

On the other hand, today I received another rejection. This was my 191st rejection (including 5 editor and 2 agent rejections on the novel, but not counting 10 cases in which the market folded before replying to my submission). I immediately resubmitted the story elsewhere. Excelsior!

Word count: 32125 | Since last entry: 2625

Generally speaking, my life has been largely consumed by the day job. But we just met a major milestone this week, and things should be somewhat less crazy for a little while now… we enter a period of bug fixing before the first beta release in May.

As you can see from the wordcount above, I have not let work keep me away from writing completely. I haven’t been writing as often or as long as I would like, but I have been making intermittent progress and I hope to have a chapter ready in time for the next crit group meeting. Yesterday at the coffee shop was a very good night’s work; I introduced my two viewpoint characters to each other for the first time.

A snippet:

The new person was only a little taller than Keelie, but broader and rounder in the chest and hip and thigh. It — she — she looked as though she would be soft and warm and pleasant to touch.

Keelie drew closer, enthralled by the new person’s eyes. The dark centers were surrounded by a colored ring, like Keelie’s but brown instead of blue. They flicked from side to side, sudden light quick movements like startled twin birds, moving in perfect unison. An amazing, unnatural coordination like nothing Keelie had ever seen.

Did Keelie’s own eyes move like that?

I also had a stimulating and highly intellectual conversation in the bar afterward.

I had the last chapter (the one I finished at Rainforest Writers) critiqued this weekend, and the reactions have been very, very positive. The main issue is that Rachel, my Earth-human viewpoint character, is not as strong as Keelie, the one raised by aliens. This isn’t surprising, given that Keelie is the protagonist and Rachel is basically there to provide a more familiar perspective for the reader, but I have a few things in mind to make her stronger. Even so, it’s not like the last novel where everyone hated Jason; they absolutely love Keelie and Rachel suffers only by comparison.

Apart from plugging away on the novel I have no writing news to report. I’ve had several rejections, and I’m rapidly running out of markets for some of the stories that are still circulating. There are only really about four or five viable pro-level markets for a 7100-word hard SF adventure. And when the rejections are so consistent, especially given that I’ve rewritten that story from the ground up to try to address the same issue that’s still that story’s main problem, it seems destined for the trunk. I could really use another sale right about now.

We went to Minicon. It was an okay convention. I really enjoyed the panels I was on, I hung out with some of my bestest fan friends, I ate far too much good food, and I enjoyed a fine music party in the Tor suite on Sunday night. But the con was only about 3-400 people, and rattled around in a hotel that once hosted Minicons ten times that size. As underpopulated as it was, it was surprisingly easy to miss people. I might not go next year.

At the moment Kate is in California, where she’s treating our eight-year-old neice to Disneyland. From the phone calls so far they’re having a blast. I wish I could be there, but on the other hand I’m just as happy to not be dealing with the child. (Nothing wrong with her… I just don’t deal well with kids.)

Much more to report, but that’s enough for one blog entry.

Word count: 29500 | Since last entry: 554

Full house at the coffee shop tonight: Jay, Karen, Mary, the other Mary, and Grant. I’m kind of the second shift, since I show up after dinner (around 7:30 most weeks) and most of the rest arrive much earlier and some take off for dinner around 8:30. But I stayed for another hour after that, kept plugging away, and wound up with over 500 words for the evening. That’s good, for me.

A snippet:

Keelie slumped to the floor, the wet and knotted dressing pressing uncomfortably between her legs, and let her head sag into her hands. “What are we going to do?”

“You must go to G’ni tomorrow. Tell her to call off the search immediately and return your money.”

Not looking up, Keelie shook her head. The filth of her forehead ground against her palms. She stank of sweat and illness. “She won’t give the money back.”

Reesa sighed again. “No, I doubt she will. But you must ask.”

I think I need to work on Rachel’s backstory. I realized today I don’t even know who her parents are. No wonder she’s so much less interesting than Keelie.

Word count: 28946 | Since last entry: 283

Last month was a wretched month for writing, apart from the Rainforest Writers Village. 3 rejections, no sales, and I only wrote on 12 days in the whole month. I went into last weekend with a firm commitment to get back to the writing… and managed to blow it off, starting off April with a big fat zero. No foolin’.

I did a bunch of chores over the weekend, things that needed to be done like dishes and laundry and backing up the PC, and resubmitted a couple of rejected stories. And I opened up the chapter I’d finished at Rainforest Writers and stared at it a while with intent to edit, but all I managed to do was convince myself that the two expository lumps I’d thought I could excise were really there for a reason. Total word count change: 1.

Tonight, I came home from work all tired and down. Apropos of a recent discussion about combobulation, decombobulation, and recombobulation, I described myself as non-combobulate (which is, at least, a step better than non-combobulant). But I didn’t let it stop me from pitching in and co-nurturing a nice vegetarian dinner of African stew with greens, peanut butter, and pineapple. (No really, canned crushed pineapple. The recipe came in the basket from the organic farm and it’s delish.) And after that was eaten and the leftovers put away, I made myself sit down and start a new chapter. Less than 300 words, but it’s a start. With luck I’ll be able to finish this chapter on the plane to/from Minicon (see my Minicon programming schedule to see why I don’t expect to get any writing done during the convention itself).

Good news on the travel front, though. In the last couple of days plans have come together for two trips I hadn’t expected to be able to make: a square dance event in Palm Springs and the Nebula Awards weekend in New York. (New York City! Editors! Publishers! Agents!) Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I went from nothing to plane, hotel, and registrations in hand for both events in about an hour each. My credit card’s smokin’.

We’ll be in New York May 10-13 and hope to catch a show on Thursday night. We’re considering Curtains. Any other recommendations?

Word count: 28663 | Since last entry: 7477

Back from the Rain Forest Writers Village writing retreat — four days in the woods, writing and hanging out with writers. It was awesome and relaxing. I wrote a lot (159 words Thursday night, 2221 words Friday, 2379 words Saturday, and 1418 words Sunday for a total of 6712 words for the weekend) and finished the chapter I’d been working on just five minutes before closing ceremonies started.

The chapter’s too long and too heavy on the exposition, but I have time to whack it back a bit if that’s what I choose to do. Which I may.

A snippet:

If only Keelie could find a doctor of her own kind. “Reesa told me you’d heard a rumor about a new ship. Maybe they can help.”

G’ni leaned forward with a rustling sound and pitched her voice low. “I wouldn’t be asking too many questions about that.”

“Why not?”

“Bad feelings are gathering around this ship. The rumor goes that this type of ship was seen just once before, over fifteen years ago. The people offended nuum and the Drur were forced to destroy them.”

Keelie’s chest tightened. She was not quite fifteen years old. “Were there any survivors?”

G’ni spread her hands, a gesture indicating ignorance or equivocality. “Some say no. Some say there were a few. Enslaved by the Drur, perhaps. It’s certain that no one has seen any of them for many years.”

Attendees at the retreat included Jay Lake, Louise Marley, J.C. and Barb Hendee, Susan R. Matthews, and about two dozen others, all writers (except for a couple non-writing spouses such as Kate). I knew about half of them already. There was a whiteboard with word count for the weekend, and several people also posted their progress on socks. For some reason all of the knitters present were working on socks. It got to the point that some writers noted “2300 words, 0 socks” as their progress for the day.

Apart from the writing (with early-bird, night-owl, and, um, middle-bird sessions) there were a few laid-back programming items such as How To Find An Agent and Overcoming Writers’ Block Using Runes. I skipped almost all of those in favor of more writing time. In between sessions there was much eating, with Jay and writers Barb and J.C. Hendee as special guest cooks.

The resort itself was charming and rustic, though we saw very little of it on account of the continuous rain, ranging from drizzle to downpour. It was what we’d expected, being in a rain forest and all, but it was still a great relief when the sun came out on Sunday morning and we saw the mountains on the far side of Lake Quinault for the first time. Up until that point the world apparently ended in a gray blur at the water’s edge.

One other highlight of the weekend was the Ranch House BBQ, on highway 8 at about mile post 15, which Jay has mentioned as having the best barbequeue outside of Texas. We stopped there on the way up, just to try the food even though we’d already had lunch. We stopped there again on the way down, even though we’d already had lunch. It was that good.

Jay has posted some photos from the weekend in his journal.

Big props to hosts Patrick and Honna Swenson for putting together a fabulous weekend!

Word count: 21186 | Since last entry: 1154

Had a nice time at Potlatch. Got to take some of our out-of-town friends to some of our favorite restaurants. Appeared on some programming. Had a reading. A good time was had by all.

Apart from that my life has pretty much been eaten by the Day Job. We’re just a few weeks away from the Feature Complete milestone and I’ve had a lot of questions to answer, bugs to fix, and email to deal with. We also had a bunch of customers in on Tuesday and Wednesday, with another bunch of customers due in next Tuesday and Wednesday, and there was plenty of prep work and wrap-up for that. And it’s annual review time, with the concomitant paperwork. And I have two other projects (one big, the other minor) that are supposed to be done by the end of the quarter. Which is two weeks from today.

It’s nice to be wanted, but I’m getting a bit crispy around the edges. I’ve been falling behind on my personal email and blogging (reading as well as writing), I have three rejected manuscripts to put back in the mail, and I haven’t done any writing since before Potlatch — too brain-dead in the evenings. Nor tonight either.

Nonetheless, many writing-related things have happened without any effort on my part:

• Illustrator Rachel Stoleru posted a cute picture inspired by “Titanium Mike”;
• “Tk’Tk’Tk” was translated into Hebrew in the webzine Bli-Panika;
• “Titanium Mike” is also being translated into Hebrew, in the print magazine The Tenth Dimension;
• “Tk’Tk’Tk” will be translated into Romanian, in the fan-produced (but very slick-looking!) magazine Helion.

I am a very lucky guy.