David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Editing hours: 2.4 | Since last entry: 1.4 | Percent complete: 7% I have picked up two NaNoEdMo buddies, pollyc and deedop. Much appreciated, and there’s always room for more. Packed for Potlatch, SF convention in San Francisco, tonight. Also continued the new scene with Clarity moving toward the UN… about 500 new words. But it’s the hours that count this month, not the words. Clarity must not whine. Must not whine. Must not whine. And neither will I. I will edit on the plane tomorrow, I will edit on the plane coming back, and I will steal an hour or two for editing each day during the convention as well. This is my NaNoEdMo pledge, and if you are going to be at Potlatch I’d appreciate it if you’d hold me to it.

Editing hours: 1.0 | Since last entry: 1.0 | Percent complete: 7% Tonight I printed out the unicorn story and stuck it in an envelope, watched Lost (Hurley rocks!), and updated my website with the excellent Locus review of “Tk’Tk’Tk” — and still got in an hour of editing. And so NaNoEdMo gets under way! Most of tonight’s work was new text, moving Clarity from the Manhattan Platform toward the UN. To make it more difficult for her I decided to make it rain. Hard. This involved adding rain to the Jason chapter, later in the book, that takes place on the same day. Which made me realize that I have to coordinate the two chapters hour by hour. I wound up writing a detailed timeline of the day, and changing the times of some of Jason’s events to make it all work. Fortunately, this is the only day in the whole novel that has to coordinate this tightly. The “percent complete” figure above represents the fact that I am currently editing page 15 of 221. There’s a certain amount of hopping back and forth, but I plan on going through the novel in order and on any given day there’s going to be a focus, or locus, of editing, so I hope that tracking the position of this locus through the book will be some kind of indicator of progress. We’ll see if this idea actually holds water.

Editing hours: 0.0 | Since last entry: 0.0 March is National Novel Editing Month (no, really, it’s true: see http://www.nanoedmo.org/), and it couldn’t come at a better time for me. I really need a kick-start. So I am going to tackle the NaNoEdMo challenge: 50 hours of editing on my novel during the month. With any luck that will be sufficient to complete the darn thing and send it on its way. Since NaNoEdMo works on hours of editing rather than word count, each participant needs a “buddy” to verify their editing hours. I’m looking for one or more buddies, and offering the same in return. Anyone want someone to help goad them into editing? Anyway… today being the first day of NaNoEdMo, I kicked it off by… not editing on my novel at all. But I did do editing! I revised the unicorn story (if my edits meet with my co-author’s approval I’ll get it in the mail tomorrow) and I edited my galley proofs for Greenberg anthology Gateways. (In the whole story there was just one misplaced comma. How did that get in there?) However, I won’t count those 3 or 4 editing hours because they were not on my novel. So I go into the month already 1.6 hours behind the desired daily average. Oh well. In other writing news… since my last journal entry, “The Last McDougal’s” sold to Asimov’s and reprint “At the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club” (which originally appeared in the OryCon 25 program book) was accepted by the non-paying website Infinity Plus. “The Last McDougal’s” is my twentieth sale! Also, my story “Tk’tk’tk” in the current (March 2005) issue of Asimov’s got a good review in the Internet Review of Science Fiction and (I’m told, but haven’t seen it yet) another good review in Locus. Asimov’s is also offering the first part of the story as a teaser on their website right now. Yoicks, and away!

Word count: 120661 | Since last entry: -256 | This month: 2708 Where did the weekend go? Didn’t do anything special, even though it was my birthday today… just the usual weekend round of chores and errands, but three days instead of two. All gone now. Voom. I spent my writing time this weekend working on the first Clarity chapter. In order to put Vigor’s death on stage I first had to remove the frenzied phone call from the end of the scene in the potato field. But once I’d done that, the remainder of the scene didn’t have a lot going for it… it had almost no emotional impact, didn’t establish Clarity’s story problem, and basically existed only for expository purposes. Obviously this scene didn’t have much going for it before, but removing the sting from the tail pointed that out clearly. So I thought “can I get rid of this scene completely, and open with Clarity in New York?” But though that idea had a lot of appeal, the existing scene sets up a lot of stuff that will be needed later: it establishes Garrett, and shows Clarity’s love of flight (in a scene that at least one of my first-readers really loved), and shows Clarity interacting with ordinary humans and establishing her sympathy for them. In New York she’s completely surrounded by her own people and that would be harder to convey. This scene also introduces a lot of details about the Cetans that would have to be redone in a different way in New York — basically making this a complete new chapter. So I rewrote the scene to have a lot more interior dialogue, in which we establish how long it has been since Cedar Point, and how Remembrance Day is a forgiveness holiday for the Cetans, and how much tension there is between Clarity and her father (which will never be resolved, bwah hah hah). To do all this I focused on her shoes. Yes, her shoes. There was a throwaway line in the very first draft about Clarity wearing Nikes, and I decided to use that as a symbol of all the ways in which she fails to conform to Cetan norms. I think it works. But. I’m still not convinced it’s the best way to introduce Clarity. I may break down and eliminate the entire scene (after spending the whole weekend rewriting it, argh) and create a new scene in New York that carries only the key information from the old scene, with more emotional punch. I know I can do it; I’ve learned a lot in the nearly two years since I wrote this chapter for the first time. But it’d be a lot of work, so I’m resisting. I think I can reuse a lot of the existing sentences and paragraphs, but it might be quicker to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. Either way I think it’s likely to be several days of work. The one thing I absolutely can’t introduce in New York is Garrett. But maybe I should put him on the phone and Clarity’s father dying on stage, instead of the other way around. Must ponder some more. I think I need a day or two to convince myself it’s worthwhile.

Word count: 120917 | Since last entry: 588 | This month: 2964 Finished up the revisions to the first Jason chapter, in which Jason creeps about to steal the biocomputer. Raised the tension in the creeping-about scene by adding a couple near-misses of being discovered. Also went back and re-edited the scene with Honor and Jason some more. It’s amazing how much cascading effect can occur from dropping one sentence — since Clarity’s sept name was revealed for the first time in that sentence, and I couldn’t find anyplace else in the chapter to slip that information in naturally, later sentences referring to that name had to be rewritten as well. It’s improving. It’s coming along, slowly. I persevere. Thanks to Kate for going off square-dancing and encouraging me to stay home and write. 588 net words doesn’t seem like much but I know the change is significant.

Word count: 120329 | Since last entry: -538 | This month: 2376 I spent much of this evening massaging one little fragment of a scene, in which Jason encounters Clarity’s old friend Honesty at the Platform. This is the first appearance of a Cetan (formerly Tauran) on stage and it has to carry a lot of weight. I’m trying to slip in a few sentences of exposition, so the conversation doesn’t have to do all the work, but I keep taking expository sentences out and putting them back in because I keep waffling over whether or not the scene is clear enough without them. It doesn’t help that I’m trying to establish details that didn’t even exist before this revision, so I’m not 100% sure of them myself. At the last minute I cut an entire small scene (which explains my -500 words for the day) because I determined it was, indeed, no longer necessary. But I’m not quite finished with the scene before the cut yet. Needs more massage. And, as always, the cat needs vacuuming. First must obtain cat…

Word count: 120867 | Since last entry: 199 | This month: 2914 Spent the evening on revisions, alternating between the novel and the unicorn story while emailing the story back and forth with Sara. Once she approves this final version, it’s off to critique. On the novel, I’ve nearly reached the end of a scene, and I think I can now cut most of the following scene. Next I’ll have to amp up the danger and difficulty of Jason’s break-in at the Platform, which may take some doing… I want it to be plausible, and as he’s not a professional spy it can’t be that hard. To bed now. I was at work from 7am to 6pm today, with an 8am dentist appointment tomorrow. Bleah. But Kate’s breathing machine has arrived, with dramatically effective results. Finally she gets a good night’s sleep! The mask is rather isolating — I don’t get to kiss her good-night — but she’s breathing so easily now that it’s worth it.

Word count: 120818 | Since last entry: 2715 | This month: 2715 Well, it appears to be about two weeks since I last posted. Sorry. I have been writing, honest (as you can see by the wordcount above), but on those days when I was writing I was too busy to post and on those days when I was not writing I was… er, also too busy to post. The main thing that has been consuming my energy of late has been the day job, where I still am nearly full-time on each of two projects (a situation unlikely to change any time soon). I have been too brain-dead on most weekday evenings to do much more than watch television, a rare activity for me. Mind you, the new Battlestar Galactica is actually very good. Lost, on the other hand, after a strong start, is beginning to annoy me with its increasingly elaborate tricks to keep the characters from learning anything at all about the mysteries of the island. The 2700 words above represents about 800 additional words on the novel and 1900 words on the unicorn story — which is now complete, yay. I need to crit it soon and send my suggested changes to Sara. I feel pretty good about it; it’s definitely a story that neither of us could have written by ourselves. I think the main character could be emotionally strengthened, the antagonist made more sympathetic, and more sensory detail added, but one thing’s for sure: this is a unicorn story unlike any other unicorn story you have ever read. The 800 words on the novel represents a complete redraft of the first bit of the first Jason chapter, which used to be the Prologue and is now Chapter A. This draft focuses on Jason’s grief and anger over his parents and replaces exposition with emotional description. (One of my themes for this rewrite is: Add Emotion Through Description. I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone, and so far I think it is working.) At this rate it will take me at least several more writing days to complete the new Chapter A, and then I have a heavy new scene to write in Chapter 1 in which Clarity goes to New York and sees with her own eyes when Vigor falls ill. This is the third time I’ve written the beginning of this novel, but it really is getting better each time. After that will come a thorough revision pass on the whole thing. Probably won’t get it in the mail by my birthday as promised, but soon, I tell you, soon. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate revisions? I got some late comments from a couple of my first-readers, which indicated that they would have been lost without the time map at the top of each chapter. I’m also finding it really hard to nail down the chapters in time with sufficient precision to prevent confusion. Despite Dean’s feedback, I might put the time maps back in. I also might compromise and put a single time map at the beginning. I wonder what the procedure is to include a map in the manuscript? Is it a numbered page? Apart from the novel, this has been a week full of good writing news. I got an email from David Hartwell looking to buy “Charlie the Purple Giraffe” (from the June 2004 Realms of Fantasy) for his Year’s Best Fantasy anthology; the same story was also mentioned in the Locus Recommended Reading List and has picked up two Nebula recommendations. And “Tk’Tk’Tk” (from the March 2005 Asimov’s) garnered me two fan emails today, plus several very positive comments on the Asimov’s message board (“a very memorable story”… “one of the more powerful SF stories in recent memory”… “an intensely visceral read”). Plus Gardner Dozois mentioned me twice in his Year in Review column for Locus. So I am a very happy writing puppy. Apart from the revisions, that is. Japanese class tomorrow night. 7 AM teleconference with India, followed by offsite customer visit, on Tuesday… bleah. More writing Wednesday, maybe.

Word count: 120476 | Since last entry: 1818 | This month: 4044 Nothing on the novel today, but a very productive day on the unicorn story with Sara (with a bonus of a fine dim sum lunch at a new place on Division — Wong’s King, I think it’s called, and it’s definitely a keeper). This collaboration thing is tons of fun and I think the story is turning out great. It’s something that neither of us could possibly have written alone. Two more sessions like that, I think, and it’ll be done. I only hope we can get it in below 7500 words — below 5000 would be better. One other note: as I was driving home from work the other day the “MAINT REQD” light on the dashboard came on, which the owner’s manual claims means the car needs an oil change. But I got the oil changed just over 1000 miles ago, and I happened to notice that the light came on as the odometer passed exactly 5000 miles, which made me suspicious. And indeed, when I took the car to the friendly local neighborhood car mechanic who’d changed the oil, he confirmed my suspicion that the car just needed to be told it had had its oil changed — but since they don’t have the shop manual for the 2005 Corolla yet, they had no idea how to do it. The two of us together managed to find it, buried in the back of the owner’s manual: turn off the ignition, then turn it on while holding down the trip-odometer reset button for five seconds. Ah, the joys of car computers. (But wait! There’s more! Some luxury cars with Bluetooth cellphone integration may be vulnerable to computer viruses…)

Word count: 120476 | Since last entry: 523 | This month: 2226 It took me almost the entire afternoon today to write, rewrite, edit, trim, rearrange, polish, tweak, and finagle what turned out to be only about 500 net new words, but I think the new prologue is done. I think it’s good, too — I got that little twinge at the back of my throat that’s close to tears, and that means I hit something that really hurts. I think one reason it took so long is that I had to back up and take a running start at the Cedar Point disaster a couple of times before I could actually write the scene. But once I found the entry point… yow. It just came pouring out. Basically I just introduced a new character, built her up, and killed her off in a little over a thousand words. But she’s not just a throwaway — she links to Jason and makes him more sympathetic and his motivations clearer. The act of writing this prologue also helps me get a handle on Jason in a way I never quite managed before. So although it took a lot longer to write than 500 words normally would, I think it’s worthwhile. Especially because it’s the beginning of the novel and it has to hook the reader. Thanks, Dean!