David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

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!

Word count: 57047 | Since last entry: 1202 | This month: 6780 Okay, so I haven’t written in almost a week. Some nights there was a movie or a lecture or something, and though I always intended to do at least a little writing when I got home it just got too late. Other nights I worked late or worked on the OryCon web page or some other form of cat vacuuming. Yesterday some friends took me out for a birthday dinner. But today (my actual birthday) I decided I would spend the day writing. And I did. So how the heck did it take the entire day to write one lousy scene? Well, for one thing it turned out to be a substantial scene, more than twice as long as I thought it would be. The chapter as a whole came out to be the second-longest in the book so far. I’m not quite sure how this happened, given that the chapter has only one point in the original outline. Perhaps that’s exactly how it happened — it’s easy to write lots of words when there’s nothing to say. I suspect some of it will come out in revision. But that still doesn’t explain why it took me all day to write 1200 words. Let’s see… I started late and took a lot of breaks, but I finished the chapter by 2:00. Then, since I wasn’t rushing out the door for crit group, I took the time to read over the chapter and polish it a bit. Then I updated the “What Has Gone Before” to include the previous chapter. I had to go back and add a little to an earlier chapter too, as long as I was in there, because I’d missed a major plot point before. Then when I went to print the chapter I found I needed a new print cartridge. I had the cartridge already, but I still had to re-align the print heads. So when I took the printed chapter to the local cheap copy shop… it had already closed for the day. Damn. I came home and made up envelopes for my critique group, put on the stamps, got appalled at the amount of postage I had just used, and decided to drive to work and make the copies there rather than pay Kinko’s prices for the copying. That took half an hour each way. Finally I took the envelopes to the main post office (it now being too late for pick-up before Monday afternoon at most other locations), and on the way home I bought a new print cartridge. And that’s how it takes a whole day to write 1200 words. All the more reason to finish the next chapter before the next crit group meeting, to avoid all that postage and envelopes and post office and stuff. I hope to get started writing tomorrow, because I now have only two weeks until the next meeting. But the way things have been going so far this week, I’m not betting on it. Happy birthday to me, anyway. Hah!

Word count: 55845 | Since last entry: 704 | This month: 5578 Wrote most of the drive from New Jersey into New York City today, with Jason’s Seattlite perspective on the city and a few hints of how it has changed under the influence of the Taurans (but not more than hints yet, because he’s in a moving car). Didn’t quite finish the chapter yet — there’s still one more twist to go — but since I blew my Saturday deadline another day or two won’t make that much difference. Rather depressed about Saturday’s critique. Despite the nice things people have said, I know that a main character who is insufficiently engaging can kill a book. Yes, it’s a learning experience, and I’ll do better next time. But I don’t want to have spent over a year of my spare time on an unsold novel. I just have to hope I can fix it in revision. Unfortunately, I know that I tried to address the Wiscon critiques of Jason and his world (“the world is not nasty enough to justify his actions”) before sending those chapters to my local critique group, and they had the exact same comments. These problems may be structural, to the novel and to me. What to do? In the meantime, I will just continue writing. Finish the damn first draft and see what we’ve got then.