David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 7916 | Since last entry: 3670

15 days in a row of 500 words a day. I believe I’ve heard it takes 30 days to “set” a new habit. One thing I hope to do differently in the future, though, is to stop leaving the writing until the very end of the day (I got in the habit when I had a day job, of course, but there’s really no reason to do it now). The Internet gets kind of quiet and lonely in the late evening here on the West Coast, especially on a weekday. Europe and most of North America is asleep and there’s not much west of here but ocean.

At least I’ve finally figured out where this story (currently titled “Teaching the Pig to Sing”) is going. At nearly 8000 words already, with one or two major scenes yet to go, it’s way too long, but once it’s done I’m pretty sure I can easily cut a couple thousand words. I’ve been reluctant to trim as I go, since I’m trying to make wordcount. I’m also going to slice and splice and rearrange to get the information on the page before it’s needed (rather than “oh by the way, did I mention that…”) and properly build tension. The great thing about writing, as opposed to life, is that you can go back and change the past to make the present what you want it to be.

It’s been an interesting experience, learning about the world and the characters while writing the story. I think I prefer my usual technique of completely outlining before beginning the draft, though.

Heading to Seattle tomorrow for belated holiday get-together with Kate’s family; we also hope to see the Lucy exhibit.

(Even though it’s just a short drive, I’m still a little twitchy about travel after the problems we had coming back from Germany.

We’ll be okay.)

Word count: 4246 | Since last entry: 519

Yoga class today; first one since November. It’s good to stretch and move in those ways again. We’ve also moved up from a level 1 to a level 1-2 class, with a fun instructor I really like. The only downside is that it’s almost too many people for the space, but I bet some people will drop out as the term goes on.

On the recommendation of 21st Century Geeks, we’ve been watching Leverage on TNT. Lightweight, lots of fun, sharply written, reminds me of a non-SF version of Firefly. Others have compared it with The A-Team but I never watched that.

Tonight marks eight days of writing 500 words every day, though I know that’s not much by some people’s standards and I suspect that once I finish this story I will edit out just about everything I wrote tonight. I didn’t outline this story before I started (a downside of the “must write 500 words of actual prose every day, notes and outlines don’t count” plan… might need to re-think that detail) and that means a certain amount of false starts, blind alleys, rewriting, and cutting. I think I know the climactic scene now, but I’m still not sure how to get my protagonist into the situation where the climactic decision is forced, nor which way he’ll jump (well, I have my suspicions but I don’t yet know why). This is a different process for me and it’s probably a good thing to try something different every once in a while, but it’s kind of frustrating.

Also frustrating is waiting for submission responses to arrive and publications to appear. Why does publishing have to be soooo sloooow? I want my instant gratification, and I want it now!

Word count: 3727 | Since last entry: 559

The story keeps chugging along (the streak now stands at seven days). It’s still awfully talky and I am certain the first draft will be far too long for the story’s weight, but I can already see places to trim it. I also begin to see a possible ending, though not how to get there.

Kate thought the new hot water heater was set a bit too high, and I agreed, so I went to turn it down. The temperature control knob is labeled as follows: a dot, LOW, another dot, another dot, a triangle, A, B, C, VERY HOT. I turned it down from B to A.

We’re looking into health insurance options. I had resisted the idea of a Health Savings Account, but after our insurance broker explained how it works it might actually be simpler (no claims to process… you just pay all your medical bills with the HSA debit card) and, as long as we stay generally healthy, cheaper. Has anyone reading this used an HSA? Any opinions on US Health Group as an insurer? The other option is a conventional plan with ODS. Any opinions on them?

Word count: 3168 | Since last entry: 2657

I’ve been horribly discombobulated since we returned from our trip. While we were in Europe, and then stranded in Washington, my regular life was on hold… we weren’t even doing the usual holiday things. I was, for example, looking at my email but setting all the action items aside for later. We had so many false starts and disappointments on the way home, followed by additional bad weather once we finally got here, that somehow I never really got back to my everyday life.

In the past couple of days I’ve tried to address the issue by making to-do lists each day and trying real hard to do everything on them — on the theory that the best way to make yourself feel good is to do stuff. Results have been mixed — I’ve accomplished some stuff and when I’m doing it I feel more in control. But three weeks away from home have made those to-do lists so daunting that even good progress feels inadequate (and I haven’t made good progress every day).

I have managed to stick to my 500-words-per-day goal (thus making my streak six days long and counting), though most days I’ve left the writing until the last thing and haven’t finished writing until midnight or later, struggling to keep my eyes open. The story so far is awfully talky (the viewpoint character is tied up, so there’s not a lot of scope for action) and I’m not certain where it’s going. Oh well, that’s what rewrite is for. Better to have a shitty first draft than nothing.

I’ve been spending more time than I really should on Facebook, mostly searching my friends’ lists of friends for people I know (I’ve managed to accumulate almost 300 friends in just a few days). I’m favorably impressed with the user interface, but the overall experience is somewhat lacking. There are lots more people I know on Facebook than LJ, but the site seems to encourage a broader, shallower interaction than LJ, with brief status updates, links, photos, and cute little applications as the currency rather than the essay-based blog culture of LJ. Facebook started out as a student thing, of course, and in many ways it reminds me of high school writ large, with crowds of users poking each other in the lunch room, scribbling on each other’s locker walls, and vying to amass the largest collection of charm bracelet charms or baseball cards. There’s a lot to do with your friends on Facebook, but it’s all very facile. I suspect I will settle into a mode like the one I have on LinkedIn, where I maintain my network but don’t participate much, and I will continue to have LJ as my primary social networking site. (Unless LJ implodes, of course, which frankly I doubt will happen.)

Oh well. With any luck I will be fully recombobulated soon.

Word count: 511 | Since last entry: 511

On a New Year’s Day a bit more laid-back than our usual, as Kate’s still too sick for parties (though definitely improving), I took care of a number of chores, went for a walk, and attended a brunch (by myself) at the home of a former work colleague. Dinner was take-out Thai. I whacked back the email a bit (and if you’ve sent me any mail in the last month, my apologies for lack of response). And then, finally, at the very tail end of the day, I stopped procrastinating and sat down and wrote. First words of fiction since October, I think. This is the story I’d wanted to write for the “Federations” anthology, but what with one thing and another (most of which, I must admit, were completely under my control) I didn’t even begin it until after the deadline. And I’m not sure where it goes from here. But still, it’s another story and it’s finally under way.

That’s one day in a row. Let’s see how long we can keep the streak going.

Count me among those who are more than happy to see the back of 2008. Although most of the year was very good for me, the last month or so has been a real train wreck. Illness and weather conspired to deprive us of both Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’m only now beginning to recover from Post-Travel Stress Disorder brought on by our unplanned week in DC on the way home from Germany. We’ve also had some hassles with health insurance, and the ongoing financial meltdown has taken a psychological toll. I haven’t written a word of fiction since October.

However, when I went to prepare David’s Index, my annual numerical summary of my writing year (which I started doing in 2003 and has since become a meme), I discovered that I’d had a really good writing year up until then. I finished and submitted my second novel, The Dark Behind the Stars. My first short story collection, Space Magic, was published by Wheatland Press. I gave a reading at Powell’s, which was a huge success. And “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” was nominated for a Nebula Award. (It didn’t win, but it will appear in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2009.) I attended the Oregon Coast Novel Weekend, Taos Toolbox, and Launch Pad writers’ workshops, and I was the Short Story Guest of Honor at RadCon.

This year I wrote more stories and sold more stories than in any year since 2003. It was also a better-than-average year for publications, with “Firewall” in Transhuman, “Falling Off the Unicorn” in Space Magic, “Sun Magic, Earth Magic” in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven” in Realms of Fantasy, plus “Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely” (reprint) in The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy, appearances in two podcasts, and translations of “Titanium Mike” into French and Czech. Six stories are on deck to appear in 2009.

We remodeled the bathroom. It wasn’t a pleasant experience, but the result is gorgeous. We also worked with a professional organizer several times this year, and the house is now much less cluttered. There’s more work to be done, to be sure, but it’s been a great stress reliever and gives a huge sense of accomplishment.

We traveled a lot. I mean a lot. I spent at least one night in: Kennewick (where we were stranded for five days by an ice storm); Washington DC (square dance); Pasco (SF convention); Seattle (SF convention), then Victoria BC, then Seattle again (square dance); Lincoln City (writing workshop); Eugene (wedding); Palm Springs (square dance); Austin (Nebula Awards); Milwaukee and Madison (SF convention); Taos (writing workshop); Cleveland (square dance); Laramie (writing workshop), then Denver (SF convention); Montreal (SF convention); San Francisco (square dance and a reading); Seattle (SF convention); Calgary (SF convention); and finally our vacation in Germany and Austria: Nuremberg, Regensburg, Passau, Linz, Melz, Vienna, Munich, and Washington DC (where we were stranded for six days by an ice storm). It was fun, but I don’t think we’ll be doing as much travel in 2009, and I certainly hope for better weather.

(We did have a good time in Germany and Austria, honest, though the disasterous trip home does tend to color my memories of the experience. Trip report coming soon.)

My resolution for 2008 was to write a thousand words a day, every day. That lasted about two months, but it did get my novel finished in time for the April workshop.

My resolution for 2009 is inspired by the fact that we did not get to celebrate several major holidays at all in 2008: In 2009, I will celebrate the major holidays. By “celebrate” I mean put up decorations and share a festive meal with friends. By “major holidays” I mean the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving (Vancouver fly-in counts), Winter Solstice, and something in the vicinity of the Spring and Fall Equinoxes (hey, any excuse for a party).

I also intend to write every day, exercise three times a week, watch what I eat, and keep the house clean and decluttered, but those are just goals, not Resolutions.

Happy new year, everyone, and best wishes for a peaceful and prosperous 2009.

Since my last post…

• The December Internet Review of Science Fiction was posted, including Greg Beatty’s long and thoughtful review of Space Magic. “[T]his collection makes it clear that David D. Levine is a writer to watch.”
• The December Locus arrived, including Gardner Dozois’s review of Transhuman: “There are probably no award-winners in [this anthology], but there is a respectable amount of good solid core SF. Best story here is by David D. Levine, but there are also good stories by Mark L. Van Name, Paul Chafe, Sarah A. Hoyt, Wen Spencer, and others.” I’ll take it.
• Locus also included the annual Forthcoming Books section, which told me that both Gamer Fantastic and Witch Way to the Mall will be published in July 2009. I’d been wondering when those were coming out. Also, Transhuman is going to be reissued as a mass-market paperback in April 2009.
• There was also a photo of me and Lou Anders at World Fantasy Con on page 5. In color, no less!
• I received my contributor’s copies of the February 2009 issue of Realms of Fantasy, including my story “Joy is the Serious Business of Heaven.” I love, love, love the illustration they gave it.
• The audio version of “Sun Magic, Earth Magic” (ably read by BCS editor Scott H. Andrews) was posted at Beneath Ceaseless Skies. It’s also available from iTunes.
• A five-minute video of me blabbering incoherently, recorded by Bill Johnson of Willamette Writers at OryCon, was posted on YouTube. I thought it would be an interview, but once the camera was rolling I was informed that, no, I should just talk about whatever I wanted. I had nothing prepared. *cringe* Other writers fared better.
• I learned that Aeon Magazine, the next issue of which was going to contain my story “The True Story of Merganther’s Run,” is suspending publication. I think this is the first time I’ve “killed” a market. However, the story is supposed to appear in an anthology, The End of an Aeon, some time in 2009.

(Sorry to use bullet points in a blog post, but I was a technical writer for 15 years and sometimes I revert to type.)

In addition to all that, there have been several Real Life issues which are annoying and mildly worrying. We have options, though, and there’s nothing to get too concerned about, I hope. I have a list of seven “items I am waiting for”, three of which have notations such as “aargh!” next to them.

We leave for Germany today. Um, did I mention that? Our itinerary:

• December 5-6: fly Portland to Frankfurt
• December 6: Nuremberg
• December 7-14: Cruising the Danube on the Viking Spirit (stopping at Nuremberg, Regensburg, Passau, Linz, Melz, and Vienna)
• December 14-16: Vienna
• December 16-20: Munich
• December 20: fly Munich Portland

I’ll post from the road if I can.

My fever broke overnight, and Kate’s on the mend as well. We’re still not 100% but we were recovered enough to have a nice Thanksgiving luncheon of turkey pilaf, with pumpkin custard for dessert later. Apart from that we had a quiet day of reading and watching Torchwood. So, although we’re missing our friends, it wasn’t such a horrid Thanksgiving after all.

I am grateful for Kate, for our lovely home, and for being generally in good health and able to do whatever we want (though we have just been quite sick and couldn’t do what we wanted because of it, that was a temporary aberration).

Well, now I’m sick too. Not as sick as Kate was — I haven’t thrown up, at least — but I’m feverish, achy, and completely lacking in energy and appetite. So we’re putting Lise on a cab to the train to Seattle and will stay at home for the weekend. We may or may not have anything resembling Thanksgiving dinner, depending on how we feel tomorrow.

Happy turkey day to those who are in a position to celebrate it.

Pout.