David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 82898 | Since last entry: 162 | This month: 4250 I decided not to write the “Jason gets the heebie-jeebies as his situation sinks in on the way out of town” scene and skipped straight to a squalid hotel in New Jersey four days later. I actually wrote more than 162 new words, but I also tightened up the “escape from the UN” scene a bit. I do wonder if I shortened it up too much, but, well, those words are gone now. 8:00 meeting tomorrow. Time for sleep now.

Word count: 82736 | Since last entry: 704 | This month: 4088 Had a good, productive weekend at home. Laundry, shopping, critiques. Saw a movie. Went to the gym. Spent far too much of Saturday installing a new DSL modem and wireless access point — now I can access the Internet from anywhere in the house on the little sub-laptop I use for writing. (This may be a mistake — one of the advantages of this gizmo as a writing tool has been that it lacks the distractions of the Internet. But its little browser is so slow and antiquated that it shouldn’t be all that tempting.) Finally sat down to do some writing at about 8:30 Sunday night, and wrote until 11:30. Much too late, will regret it tomorrow, but I did get to one of the key scenes I’ve had in my head for months: the scene were Jason has to give up his wristwatch computer, with all his personal data on it. This scene represents the breaking of all links with Jason’s earlier, normal life — now he is a complete outlaw. I did make one change from the way I’d originally envisioned the scene. Now it’s Jason who tells Sienna that they both have to give up their computers, rather than the other way around. This makes him more of a protagonist, and anyway he’s the one who would have the technical knowledge to realize that they have to do this. This may or may not be the last scene of Remembrance Day. I had been thinking about one more scene, on the train heading out of town, where the events of the day sink in, but given what I wrote tonight I’m not sure that’s either needed or plausible now. Will consider it tomorrow.

Word count: 82032 | Since last entry: 557 | This month: 3384 Finally got Jason and Sienna out of the UN, huzzah. Having spent the last chapter and a half on one day (a very significant day, to be sure) I’m shortly going to be shifting gears to cover more than a month in the second half of the current chapter. The trick is going to be to keep Jason busy enough that he doesn’t realize how emotionally messed-up he is. There’s plenty for him to do, though.

Word count: 81475 | Since last entry: 783 | This month: 2827 I just killed two red-shirts and a major secondary character (well, he’s not dead yet, but he’s not at all a well cat) in a gunfight — the first such action in this book. I hope I didn’t make any major firearms or wound errors, but one of my critiquers is a Vietnam vet, so if I got anything wrong I’m sure I’ll hear about it. The shooting itself was over in a couple of seconds realtime; tonight’s 783 words (a bit less than an hour and a half of writing) cover at most three minutes of the fight and its immediate aftermath. Here’s a funny thing. I’m a pacifist, solidly anti-handgun, and before starting this novel I had never even fired one. But my Writers of the Future prizewinning story was about a commando and a terrorist, and featured several gunfights. One of the WotF staffers was surprised when he met me — after reading my story he thought I’d be some kind of big, burly military guy (I’m five-foot-five, 140 pounds). So, as unconfident as I am, I know I can write a convincing gunfight, especially with friends to check my technical details. Jason and Sienna are now almost out of the U.N. They’ll be bursting onto a New York sidewalk — bloody and carrying guns — in a few dozen words. They don’t have a car. How the heck am I going to get them out of this? (Okay, I have some ideas…)

Word count: 80692 | Since last entry: 324 | This month: 2044 Having barely escaped one confrontation with guards, Jason and company run smack into another. Am I milking the situation too much? Maybe — if so, I can easily cut some incidents. I don’t want a James-Bond-style “slip unnoticed past the guards,” though — that seems unrealistic. But something is going to have to snap soon.

Word count: 80368 | Since last entry: 775 | This month: 1720 On the way out of the UN, Jason and company encounter a security guard. They almost manage to bluff their way past. Almost. I haven’t shot anyone yet in this novel (well, not onstage), but I think it’s going to happen soon…

Word count: 79593 | Since last entry: 606 | This month: 945 Still haven’t got Jason out of the UN — it’ll be another thousand words or so at this rate. The situation is sticky; it’ll be difficult to get him out in a plausible way. But this also means that the situation is fraught with dramatic tension, which is a good thing. Emotionally, too, Jason’s in a quagmire, but I hope to keep him so busy he hasn’t got time to cope with it. I got my critique comments on chapter 7 yesterday. Sara pointed out that there needs to be a big, specific reason in the Taurans’ history for them to do one of the things they do — an excellent point that I had not considered, and incidentally a possible hook for “making the aliens more alien” in the second draft. Even though she has threatened to beat me with a sack of oranges, I’m still so glad to have her comments.

Word count: 78987 | Since last entry: 339 | This month: 339 I am ashamed. This is the first time I’ve written a thing in almost three weeks, and I only managed five paragraphs. I’m clearly not going to have a new chapter done for Saturday’s crit group meeting. Woe. What have I been doing instead? I had a reading and signing (with Jay Lake) at a local bookstore, which went well. I attended a friend’s wedding. I went to Phoenix for a square dance convention. I had relatives in town for a couple of days (my niece’s having surgery at a local hospital — which was postponed, so they went home but will return next week). I’ve gotten some reading done and seen some movies. Not much, really — I’ve kept up with the writing through busier times. Mostly I’ve just been feeling mopey — lacking the energy to start anything either at home or at work. This feeds on itself, of course: not accomplishing anything leads to a sense of futility, which makes it harder to accomplish anything. But they say it’s easier to “do” yourself into “feeling” better than it is to “feel” yourself into “doing” better. So thanks to Kate for encouraging me to write tonight — something is better than nothing — and I will try to write something tomorrow as well. Excelsior!

Word count: 78648 | Since last entry: 179 | This month: 4127 Basically all I did was copy the outline for the next chapter into a new file. But: well begun is half done, as they say.

Word count: 78469 | Since last entry: 1602 | This month: 3948 Nearly finished chapter 7 on Friday, and printed out and copied what I had, then wrote the last few hundred words and the summary of the previous chapter Saturday morning. Got everything printed out and copied with over an hour to spare. Luxury. Also got my critique of chapter F. In general, they liked it, though one person threatened to pummel me with oranges if I let Jason have a crisis of conscience in his next chapter. I knew this was going to be a tricky bit… I’m finding the process of writing to be rather oppressive right now. This might have something to do with the fact that I have raised the pressure on both main characters to Marianas Trench levels — it really sucks to be them right now. Unfortunately, being them is something I have to do in order to write about them. (At Clarion, Geoff Ryman said that writing is more like acting than directing.) This hasn’t been a problem with short stories, but for a novel I find myself going to that dark place for months at a crack. And it’s going to continue until September or October at this rate… But. Chapter 7 is done. On to chapter G! And I’m not going to let myself leave so much until the last minute this time. I’m not officially doing the Shadow Clarion Challenge, but I’m going to continue to try to write every day during the next 6 weeks.