David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 61095 | Since last entry: 1805

I’m sitting in a coffee shop in San Francisco, nursing a cappuccino and hunched over my laptop like a real San Francisco hipster. We’re here for Fogcon, at the end of a week that started with Potlatch in San Jose.

Potlatch was a lovely, laid-back convention which featured, as it usually does, many fine conversations and meals with old friends. (Armenian Gourmet for the YUM!) Tom Whitmore and I hosted the “Tough Guide to the Post-Apocalypse” discussion as an icebreaker on Friday evening, where I typed up a running transcript of the discussion, including a few snarky asides (e.g. “Darth Alfalfa: ‘I am your fodder!'”), which was projected on a big screen. The panel didn’t go exactly as planned, but it was still a good start to the convention — though now I want to write up an actual “Tough Guide to the Post-Apocalypse.” Maybe for Bento. I also conducted a writers’ workshop session with four fine manuscripts, and ring-led the author readings on Saturday afternoon.

For some reason this particular Potlatch was focused on very long talks with one person at a time, old friends and new. It’s good to go deep sometimes. I also attended sessions on Earth Abides, the convention’s book of honor, and on the future of Potlatch. There will be a Potlatch 21, in Seattle, next year, chaired by Jack Bell.

After the con we piled into our rented Grand Marquis tuna boat, along with friends Kate and Glenn from Seattle, and took off for the coast. The main impetus for this trip was a visit to Hearst Castle, which I’ve long wanted to see but which is just too far from either San Francisco or Los Angeles to be done as a day trip from a convention, but with a whole week between conventions we had time to do the Central Coast in some depth.

We took two of the four available tours of Hearst Castle and also saw the 45-minute IMAX movie about Hearst at the visitor’s center. The movie, with its focus on Hearst and complete absence of information on his wife and girlfriend, reminded me of the L. Ron Hubbard museum (which presented Hubbard as a solo genius with no co-workers or family), an impression which was reinforced by the theatre gift shop stocked with nothing but hundreds of copies of the DVD of the movie we’d just seen. The castle itself is, of course, extraordinary, both architecturally and for the astonishing collection of artifacts housed within it. One room holds four of the five surviving panels of a 10-panel tapestry that may have once hung at Versailles. Copies of these panels hang in the Louvre, and this room was where Hearst’s sons liked to play touch football. Amazing what you can do with way, way too much money.

We also visited Cannery Row, the Monterey Bay aquarium (Otters! Seahorses! Octopus! Flamingos! Diving murres! Jellies! Sardines! Mackerel! And a big-ball-o-fish!), and the National Steinbeck Center (“to which all the regional Steinbeck Centers report”); walked on several very picturesque beaches; and observed elephant seals from a safe distance (“HRWAAANK!”). In between those experiences we ate many fine meals. Especially notable was the Salinas City BBQ, a very modest place where each simple item on the plate was exceptional of its ilk. Probaby not worth the drive from San Francisco but if you should happen to visit the Steinbeck Center I’d highly recommend it for dinner. Go early, they sell out.

I was surprised to find cell phone coverage and free wi-fi nearly everywhere we went. Thanks to which, I discovered that someone from Australia was accusing me on Twitter of impersonating a New Zealand earthquake survivor, and threatening to expose me to the media. WTF? But after a couple of days she apparently realized she had me mixed up with someone else and apologized for the whole incident.

After much driving through lovely and characteristic seaside towns (Cambria was particularly fine), scenic and vertiginous coastlines, rolling hills, spectacular mountains, and verdant farmland — all with excellent sunny weather — we turned inland and headed to San Francisco for Fogcon. Suiting the convention’s name, the weather turned to a heavy mist, then a light drizzle. We dropped off our tuna boat and checked into the convention hotel, where fans are just beginning to trickle in.

This morning we awoke to news of the Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami. Many of the beaches we walked on this week were probably inundated today, and I’m very glad we decided to depart the coast yesterday rather than today. My thoughts and hopes are with everyone affected by this disaster.

And I’ve done almost no writing this week. Such is life.

Word count: 59290 | Since last entry: 4492

As you can see from the word count above, I’m very close to 60,000 words on my YA novel, with a target of 70,000 words. I hope to finish the first draft by the end of the month, then let it rest for a few weeks before giving it a self-edit pass and then sending it to trusted beta readers. I would like to have it in submission by the end of June but that might be overly ambitious.

Meanwhile, my story “A Passion for Art,” which originally appeared in Interzone 228, has been podcast at StarShipSofa, narrated by my old pal Randal Schwartz (AKA Merlyn) and with a keen illustration by Robyn Moir.

And my novelette “Pupa” from the September Analog has been included on the Tangent Online Recommended Reading List for 2010, with three stars (the maximum possible). “Pupa” was also listed in the Locus Recommended Reading List and was recommended for the Hugo by a couple of BASFA members. I’m really excited by the reception this story has received and if you’d like to read it you can do so here: “Pupa” by David D. Levine.

In other news, I’ve got new glasses. Not just one pair but two: one for distance vision and the other for computing and other close-up work.

I learned from the difficulties Kate has had with her reading glasses (never remembering which pair she was wearing) and made sure to get frames that looked and felt very different (wire frames for distance, plastic for close-up). Both are progressive (multifocal) but the close-up pair have a smaller range of focal lengths so the usable area at short distance is much bigger. Now I can see my whole 27″ iMac screen in clear focus! It’s great.

The distance pair are from a different lens manufacturer from my previous ones and also offer a larger usable area than before. They will take some getting used to but both pairs are a big improvement over my previous ones.

Word count: 54798 | Since last entry: 2564

Today is my fiftieth birthday.

Spent the day at home, doing pleasant but ordinary things. Got a couple of nice presents, with one more on the way, and a call from my dad. Also, by coincidence, received some other good news, including a larger-than-expected check for the Italian translation of my Wild Cards story. In the evening we saw a fine documentary about cinematographer Jack Cardiff, followed by an excellent dinner at Nel Centro.

I’m okay with turning 50. I have been thinking lately about the benefits of maturity; I find that I am more likely to have the solutions to problems, or to have avoided the problem in the first place, which makes me calmer, happier, and more stable than I have ever been before. This has been a very good year so far and I have no reason to anticipate that the rest of the year will be any different. I have no money worries, I’m in excellent health, and I know that I am beloved.

I wish the same to all of my friends.

Word count: 52234 | Since last entry: 655

This coming weekend is Radcon, in Pasco, Washington, and I’ll be on the following program items:

Friday 2:00 pm, Executive: Interational Space Happenings
What is everyone else doing as far as satellites, space exploration, space stations and missions to other planets and moons?
Dubrick, Daniel; Levine, David; Nordley, Gerald David

Friday 4:00 pm, Emerald: The Urban Monster
A guide on how to blend in to the masses in this modern day and age. A must for monsters of all types.
Briggs, Patricia; Burk, Jim; Lake, Jay; Levine, David

Friday 5:00 pm, Silver Front: Charades
Last year we started with one audience member but by the end had filled the room. Join David Levine and Lizzy Shannon for an hour of hilarity.
Bonham, Maggie; Burk, Jim; Gregory, Roberta; Levine, David; Nagle, Pati; Ross, Deborah J.; Shannon, Lizzy

Saturday 1:00 pm, Garnet: The End of Manned Spaceflight in America?
With the current space policy, are we seeing America abandon manned space flight?
Dubrick, Daniel; Gregory, Hugh; Levine, David; Nordley, Gerald David

Saturday 3:00 pm, Sage: Steampunk Medicine
Many of the commonsense practices of today, such as requiring doctors to wash their hands between patients and general sanitation in the hospital, were “invented” in the Victorian era. Radical new ideas such as germ theory challenged the established ideas of miasmatic theory of disease. Come explore this period of change and innovation, the conflicts that erupted and how people such as Florence Nightingale and Dr. I gnaz Semmelweis changed the world.
Bruscas, Chris; Garrison, Miki; Hill, Laurel; Levine, David

Saturday 6:00 pm, Emerald: What Makes a Successful Critique Group?
One of the most helpful things in a writer’s toolbox can be other writers! A good critique group is a win-win situation in which all the participants become the best writers they can be. However, a bad critique group experience can be very discouraging, indeed. What makes a successful critique group?
Bolich, Sue; Held, Rhiannon; Lake, Jay; Levine, David; Silverstein, Janna

Sunday 10:00 am, Bronze: The Formidable Woman
What makes a formidable woman character formidable? What makes a woman character a woman? Can a man write an accurate woman character?
Alexander, Alma; Briggs, Patricia; Cherryh, CJ; engh, MJ; Kenyon, Kay; Lake, Jay; Levine, David

Word count: 51579 | Since last entry: 2272

Not much to blog about recently. Mostly I’ve been plugging away on the YA novel. I just passed 50,000 words, with a target of 70,000, so I should be done with the first draft by the end of the quarter, as scheduled. I’m not entirely happy with it, but I hope I will be able to fix the problems I see myself putting in when I revise it.

While I’m chugging away here, my previously published stuff is making good progress:

• “Written on the Wind”, my fourth published story, has been given a fine audio version, read by Mur Lafferty, at Escape Pod. You can also read the full text of the story at the Escape Pod website, and there’s a lively discussion of the story on the podcast’s message board.
• I recently learned that the Italian translation of Wild Cards 1 is of the new edition, so it does include my story “Powers”. I don’t yet know what the title of the translated story is.
• My story “Pupa” from the October 2010 Analog made the Locus Recommended Reading List!

Word count: 49307 | Since last entry: 1936

As you may recall, my MDRS-88 crewmate Diego Urbina was selected to participate in the Mars-500 project, a full 520-day simulated voyage to Mars and back. He and five other guys have been locked in a tin can in Moscow for 250 days now, and their simulated spacecraft is now in simulated orbit around simulated Mars. They have just docked with the landing module, which was sent ahead and has been waiting for them in Martian orbit full of supplies they will use on the long trip back. In a few days, Diego and two of his crewmates will undock and descend to the Martian surface for ten days of Mars exploration.

I’ve been following Diego on Twitter and the following series of tweets was just so lovely I had to share it:

still moving stuff to the martian module, getting ready to start the hard orthostatic intollerance test

it simulates what happens when you transition from 0g to martian gravity

last night was the last one in the orbital module, tonight I’ll start sleeping with head down @ 12 deg

and wearing in the day pants that confine blood to the upper body, 3 days later I remove the pants and see what funky things happen

oh but let me tell you more about an orthostatic intollerance test in the words of the expert in charge:

“Orthostatic test can be accompanied by deterioration of state of health, occurrence of weakness, dizziness…”

“…a short breath, a nausea, sweating and, as a last resort, development of an unconscious condition”

people in the street just call it “falling in love”

Also, here’s a cool five-minute video from the ESA about Mars-500 and its current status.

Word count: 47371 | Since last entry: 4880

As you may know, I’m a big fan of writers’ workshops. Workshops are a great way to find the weak spots in your writing, hone your critical eye, learn techniques, and make contacts (and friends) in the field. And now is the time to apply for this year’s major workshops.

Clarion West is a six-week intensive “boot camp for writers” in Seattle, June 19 through July 29, 2011. I am a Clarion West alum and I found it almost overwhelming but incredibly valuable. This year’s instructors are Paul Park, Nancy Kress, Margo Lanagan, Minister Faust, L. Timmel Duchamp, and Charles Stross, and the deadline for application is March 1. If you apply before February 10 there’s a discount on the application fee. You can read about my Clarion West experience over here.

Clarion is the spiritual predecessor of Clarion West and offers the same six-week intensive experience, June 26 to August 6, 2011. Sometimes known as Clarion Classic or Clarion East, it’s moved around over the years and is now located in San Diego. This year’s instructors are Nina Kiriki Hoffman, John Scalzi, Elizabeth Bear, David Anthony Durham, John Kessel, and Kij Johnson, and the deadline for application is March 1.

Taos Toolbos is a two-week master class for more experienced writers and is focused on the craft of the novel. It’s held in a ski lodge in Taos Ski Valley, July 10-23, 2011, and this year’s instructors are Walter Jon Williams, Nancy Kress, and Jack Skillingstead. I went to Taos Toolbox in 2008 and you can read my blogs about it over here.

Cascade Writers is a three-day workshop held at the Ocean Crest Resort on the Washington coast, July 21-24th. This year’s instructors are Beth Meacham, Jay Lake, and me! The deadline for application is May 15.

The Alpha SF/F/H Workshop for Young Writers is a ten-day workshop for writers ages 14-19, held at the University of Pittsburgh’s Greensburg Campus. This year’s instructors include Ellen Kushner, Tamora Pierce, and me! Plus others to be named later. The deadline for application is March 1. For more information, check out Ellen Kushner’s post and be sure to read the comments!

These aren’t the only workshops in existence, of course, but they’re the ones that have a special place in my heart for one reason or another.

If none of these work for you, check with your local or regional science fiction convention. Many of them have short (one day or less) workshops as part of their program. I will be leading workshop sections at Potlatch and FOGcon, and probably at Wiscon, Renovation (Worldcon), and OryCon as well.

Word count: 42491 | Since last entry: ?

I see I haven’t blogged since January 2. Sorry about that.

I’ve been having a busy, complex, and fulfilling life. Been plugging away on the YA novel, 500 or so words a day most days; I’ve missed three days so far this year but I said I wasn’t going to be doctrinaire about it.

I got my first acceptance of the year: SF short story “Into the Nth Dimension” to DAW anthology Human for a Day. Also some rejections. Did you know that Clarkesworld has two different form rejection emails? Like Realms of Fantasy‘s “blue form of death” and “yellow form of promise,” one’s more encouraging than the other, but the difference between them is pretty subtle. The more promising one includes the words “your story was close” instead of the other one’s “your story isn’t quite what we’re looking for right now.”

Some of the rejections have carried more sting than others. I’m very frustrated by the publishing industry right now but I’m trying to channel that frustration into productivity rather than despair. Sometimes it’s hard.

A lot of Kate’s and my time this month has been spent working on a big non-writing-related semi-secret project. We expect to hit a major milestone on it this week. It will continue to occupy a big part of our time for most of the rest of this year.

We’re also doing a lot of travel planning. Even though we are not planning to leave North America, it’s going to be another big travel year. Right now we’re working on nailing down flights, car, hotels, and other details for the Radcon/Madrona Fiber Arts weekend (February); Potlatch, FOGcon, and the week in between (March); Kate’s trip with our niece to Disneyland (April); my “endowed speaker” gig at Buena Vista University in Iowa (April); a research trip on the tall ship Lady Washington (April or May); and a trip to Eastern Oregon (June).

I’m going to be doing a lot of teaching/workshopping/mentoring this year. In addition to the trip to Iowa, where I will be delivering the annual Stollee Lecture and working with English students and faculty (my Clarion West classmate Inez Schaechterle is an English teacher at BVU), I’ll be a workshop group leader at the Cascade Writers Workshop in July (where there are still seats available, by the way); I’ll be doing writers’ workshops at Potlatch and FOGcon; and I was just invited to appear as a guest pro at the Alpha Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror Workshop for Young Writers in Pittsburgh. I wouldn’t be surprised if I did writers’ workshops at Wiscon, the Worldcon, and OryCon as well.

Kate and I have been watching the DVDs of Day Break, a 2006 TV show that was canceled after five episodes although a full season of 13 was completed. It’s a taut, smart show about a cop being framed for murder in contemporary LA who is, for reasons as yet unknown, living the same day over and over. We really liked this show on its frustratingly-curtailed broadcast run and are looking forward to finally finding out how it ends. We also watched episode 1 of Portlandia, which — although it skewers Portland in a loving and painfully accurate way — was too slow-paced and disjointed to be really funny, so we won’t be buying the remaining episodes from iTunes.

We’ve also seen some local theatre, including Captured By Aliens!, a late-night semi-improvised serial comedy about six contestants on a reality show who discover that they have actually been abducted by aliens. We saw the first week’s show and it was a complete hoot, a bit amateurish but full of heart and brains. We will unfortunately miss week 2 (January 28-30) but plan to attend the week 3 show on February 4. The series concludes with week 4 (February 11-13).

There’s also been a lot, and I mean a lot, of day-to-day Stuff To Do, so much so that I’ve actually been feeling rather oppressed by my ever expanding Things To Do list. Which is absurd, given that I’m retired and can spend my days exactly as I wish, but there it is. I had an important realization about this last night, though.

Throughout my working career, on every single project I ever participated in, we spent a huge proportion of our time developing requirements, whacking the requirements down to something that could be implemented within the time and resources available, tracking performance against plan, whacking the deliverables down yet again as the actual work involved became apparent, and deciding which of the thousands of acknowledged bugs could be “deferred” (which, more often than not, meant “never fixed”) in order to ship something resembling the promised functionality on something resembling the promised schedule.

Acknowledging that there simply wasn’t enough time in the day to do everything we wanted to do, no matter how important it might be, was always a big and unavoidable part of my working life. And yet somehow I think that in my personal life I should be able to get it all done. I don’t have a program manager to help me track my progress and reassess the feasibility of my goals, and I don’t have a lot of externally-imposed deadlines to force me to cut down the deliverables and finish something, so the to-do list just grows and grows and grows. I’m not yet sure how I will incorporate this insight into my daily life, but I think it’s significant.

Apart from all that… I have no money problems, I am in great health, and my personal relationships are going well.

I can’t complain, but sometimes I still do.

Kate says “if that’s another year-in-review post I’m cutting you off.” But it isn’t; it’s current affairs.

We saw a lot of movies this holiday season, in theatres and on DVD and on TiVo. It was almost like being sick, when I tend to curl up in my bathrobe on the couch in the parlor and just watch and watch. But more fun than that. Here are my thoughts on those films, in no particular order.

Tron: Legacy. What an irredeemable mess. The plot made no sense whatsoever; picking at plot holes is like shooting slats in a barrel (at least the fish move). Even the flashy action sequences, like the Tail Gunner / Star Wars crossover aerial battle, were boring. We knew going in that it wasn’t going to be good, but I still wanted to see it in 3-D because, you know, Tron! But it really failed to live up to expectations. The best thing about it was the quotes from the previous film.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. A delightful, surprisingly complex science fiction film, which went a lot farther than movies usually do into the implications of the posited technological change. Thoughtful and highly satisfying.

The King’s Speech. One of the best movies I’ve seen this year, combining high stakes with a very small and human story. Brilliant performances by the leads; sure to be an Oscar contender.

A Town Called Panic. This played at the Hollywood Theatre for several months this summer but we only just now saw it on DVD. A bizarre, surreal film in which tiny plastic toys are animated in a way that looks and feels childish but has an adult sensibility. The fact that it’s all in French pushes it completely over the top. Recommended.

The Lives of Others. A drama about a member of East Germany’s Stasi secret police who eavesdrops on a dissident playwright; a gimpse into a world that has vanished; a story of conscience and consequences. Thoughtful but not gripping.

The Empire Strikes Back. Comfort viewing. This is the first time I’d seen the special edition, and though some of the added special-effects shots entering Cloud City were brilliant the overall effect of the changes was just distracting and the new readings of Boba Fett’s lines were awful. Otherwise it held up pretty darn well.

Titan A.E. The first time I’d seen this Don Bluth animated film since its original theatrical release. The plot and characters are simplistic and kind of nonsensical, and the songs were eye-rollingly bad, but it handled zero gravity, vacuum, and truly alien aliens better than almost any SF movie I can think of. The destruction of the Earth, the fight in the hydrogen swamp, and the extended sequence in the ice rings are each worth the price of admission themselves. This stupid little film has been surprisingly (perhaps appallingly) influential on my own work.

The Emperor’s New Groove. This is what you’d get if Chuck Jones directed a Disney movie. I laughed out loud.

The Tempest. Generally a win, but Caliban (whose line readings I could barely understand) and the weird kaleidoscopic sequence in the middle were just baffling. I’m glad I saw it anyway.

I tend to take my new year’s resolutions pretty seriously. Some years they’ve been a little frivolous, like the year my resolution was to watch Casablanca, but even then I did make sure to do it. They’re usually pretty concrete, and measurable, and designed to be achievable though a bit of a stretch. A legacy of my years at Intel, I guess.

My resolution for 2010 was to read the Aubrey-Maturin books by Patrick O’Brien, in order. I knew up front I wouldn’t be able to read all twenty-and-a-bit of them in one year, but I intended to read as many of them as I could. Well, that’s what I did, and “as many as I could” turned out to be three: Master and Commander, Post Captain, and HMS Surprise, plus a little bit of the fourth (The Mauritius Command). Fairly pathetic, really, but I gave it my best shot. I intend to continue plugging away at them until I’m done, along with all the other reading I want to do.

In 2011 I need to get back on the writing horse in a big way, after the many Mars-related and travel-related disruptions of 2010. They were enjoyable and valuable disruptions, to be sure, but they did interfere with the word count. So my new year’s reosolution for 2011 is: finish and submit my current novel and make a good start on another novel.

To break down the elephant into smaller, more chewable chunks, I intend to attack this resolution as follows:

• Complete the first draft of the current novel by the end of the first quarter (March 31);
• Have the current novel critiqued, revise it, and submit it to at least one publisher by the end of the second quarter (June 30);
• Write at least 30,000 words on a second novel by the end of the third quarter (September 30);
• Have at least 60,000 words of draft on the second novel by the end of the year.

In support of these goals, I intend to write at least 500 words, preferably 1000, every day. Though I’m not going to get doctrinaire about it like I did in 2009; if I miss a day, that’s life.

I know these goals are laughably unambitious by the standards of some of my writer friends, but for me they are a stretch. However, I think I can achieve them, with good quality, and if I can do this it’ll be my best novel-writing year ever. Wish me luck!