David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 984 | Since last entry: 360

Wednesday, May 14: I will be reading from and signing Space Magic, my first collection of short stories, at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton, Oregon at 7:00 PM.

Tuesday, May 20: Another Space Magic signing, at Panther Bookstore in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 12:00-2:00 PM.

Friday-Sunday, May 23-15: Wiscon, at which I will be appearing on the following panels:

• Saturday at 4:00 PM: “The ‘Real City’ of Urban Fantasy” with Ellen Kushner, Richard Bowes, Karen Healey, and Julia Starkey.

• Sunday at 1:00 PM: “Get Out Your Secret Decoder Ring” with Catherynne M. Valente, Lesley Hall, Janine Young, and Tisha Turk.

• Sunday at 2:30 PM: “Like Quills upon the Fretful Porcupine” (Reading) with Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, and Ellen Kushner.

There will also be a Space Magic launch party at Wiscon, Friday night at 9:30-ish in Suite 611. Wheatland Press is sharing a party with Electric Velocipede and Scribe Agency and Farago’s Wainscot, ’cause the more the merrier!

If you can’t make it to any of the above, Space Magic can now be pre-ordered from Amazon.com and should be available from Wheatland Press shortly.

Word count: 624 | Since last entry: 624

Apparently if I’m not writing, I’m not blogging either. But I’m back on the horse, producing words for a theme anthology with a deadline that seemed luxurious when I got it but has shrunk to only a couple of weeks. More deadlines loom meyond that. Aiee!

I’m back from the Nebulas, as well. I did not win, alas, but it really is an honor to be nominated, and I can’t fault the voters for selecting Karen Joy Fowler’s “Always.” But even if I didn’t win the shiny, I was the best-dressed guy at the banquet in my new vintage tux (which I inherited from a recently-deceased writer known to many of you). Unfortunately, my camera died just before the trip and no one else has posted a picture of the tux online yet. But I hope that it will be in the next Locus and Jayme Lynn Blaschke has posted a fine photo of me and Kate. You can also see me accepting my nomination certificate and a group shot of the nominees. We had a good time in Austin hanging out with such notables as Jennifer Pelland and Mary Robinette Kowal and eating, well, like Texans on vacation (I gained about five pounds over the long weekend).

The sting of losing the Nebula has also been lessened somewhat by the arrival of a contract from Ellen Datlow: “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” will be reprinted in the anthology Nebula Awards Showcase 2009. I also have some other good news that I hope to be able to share with you shortly.

While we were in Austin, Kate sprang a very accurate faux Amazing Race clue envelope on me, directing Team Bento to drive 30 miles to the town of Spicewood, Texas. We soon found ourselves at Cypress Valley Canopy Tours, where we were fitted out with harnesses and helmets for a trek through the treetops by zipline! (Technically it was neither a Roadblock nor a Detour, since we didn’t have any choice and both of us did the same thing, but what the hell.) I hadn’t expected to find so many large trees in Texas, but the tour was fun and educational (zipping from tree to tree as we float down the mighty rivers of British Columbia) and too short. Again, camera died so no pictures. I love my sweetie.

One last thing before I fall over: my friend Katy King pointed out a strong coincidental similarity between this XKCD strip and my story “Fear of Widths” (saying “I like your version better”). I am amused.

Heading to Austin for the Nebulas, where I expect to lose to Karen Joy Fowler, but it really is an honor just to be nominated. I realize from reading Jennifer Pelland’s blog just how blase’ I’ve been about the whole thing so far. My heart will probably start to pound when we sit down for the banquet.

Sorry for the last couple of weeks’ radio silence. I’ve been distracted. Haven’t done a lick of writing or editing since the novel workshop, though I’ve nibbled around the edges — collecting notes, outlining, writing character sketches for a short story. I may be in the same sort of post-novel funk/recharge period that Elizabeth Bear has mentioned.

Most of the last couple of weeks, it seems, has been spent on the bathroom remodel. The bathroom seems to be even harder than the kitchen (or perhaps it’s just fading memory of how hard the kitchen remodel was) because the room is so small — everything is a game of inches. For example, there’s exactly 37″ between the door and the toilet, and that is where the sink must go. There are plenty of 39″ wide sinks (consoles and vanities) and plenty of 30″ wide sinks (mostly pedestals) but not much in between. However, I recently realized that the current wall at 37″ might be movable, by at least a couple of inches, which might allow us to use a 39″ Villeroy & Boch that looks great. But even if it can be made to fit, will that impinge on one’s elbow too much when sitting on the toilet? And we haven’t even begun to decide on colors yet.

Other items I would have blogged about in the last two weeks if I’d been paying attention: Rob Vagle and Ximena Hernandez’s wedding in Eugene (the most amazing wedding I can recall, it was staged as a silent melodrama complete with sneering mustachio’d villain), a couple of science fiction writers’ events at the Mount Hood Community College library (at which I got to spend much time with Camille Alexa among others), performances of Sweeney Tood and A Streetcar Named Desire, and a square dance in Palm Springs.

I have miserable airport karma in Palm Springs. I’ve been there maybe ten or twelve times in my life, and on at least four of those occasions I’ve had some kind of “issues” getting there and back. Last year I was stranded in Phoenix overnight. This year, when I got to the airport I found that I could not get a seat assignment for my PSP-LAX flight because it was overbooked, and I was told I would only get on the flight if someone with a seat volunteered to be bumped. I asked if there was any alternative, and after some kerfuffle one of the gate agents suggested that they were already sending some other people (who had been in the same situation and failed to get on the previous flight) to LAX via taxi. So they put me in the same cab.

A taxi. From Palm Springs to LAX.

It was a $300+ fare, but it was United’s nickel and, because technically I volunteered to be bumped from my flight, I got a free round trip ticket too. (I’ll be using that to get to Albuquerque for Taos Toolbox in June.) There was some traffic, but I got to LAX in time for my connection and made it home fine. I don’t know if the other people made their connection, which was a lot tighter. If they missed it, I feel bad because they were delayed a few minutes waiting for me.

One last thing before we board: if you’re in Portland, don’t forget that I have a reading and signing of my first collection of short stories, Space Magic from Wheatland Press, at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing on May 14, 2008 at 7pm. I hope to see you there!

Back from the Oregon Coast and the novel workshop led by Dean Wesley Smith. My novel was very well received and there was much writerly schmoozing. More details to come.

While at the coast, I received word that I have been accepted into the Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop. This is a NASA-funded “crash course” in modern astronomy for SF writers. Copyediting goddess Deanna Hoak, Paul Witcover, and the incomparable Mary Robinette Kowal are also attending.

I also got an email from my mother, who has set up a signing of my collection Space Magic at Panther Bookstore in Milwaukee in May 20, right before Wiscon. Local boy makes good!

The project is finally complete! All 19 back issues of our tiny little fanzine Bento are now available online, at http://www.bentopress.com/bento. All issues are available in HTML format, and all but the first 3 are available in PDF format as well.

Mind you, the onine edition doesn’t have all of the illustrations. I will try to get more of them scanned in in the future, but don’t hold your breath.

Please let me know if you spot any formatting or other problems.

So we’re still trying to declutter the house.

One of the things I want to get rid of is this big pile of stuff upstairs.

One of the biggest components of that pile is the old PC which we replaced with a shiny new iMac in October. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of old computer hardware but that PC (and its monitor, keyboard, etc.) are still there because there is some data on it that I have to get off of it before I can send it away.

The biggest piece of the data is 16 out of the 19 issues of Bento, which are in FrameMaker binary format. FrameMaker is not available for Intel-based Macs (it’s a Classic app), and there’s just about nothing that reads FrameMaker binaries other than FrameMaker itself, so if I’m going to get those issues of Bento out of FrameMaker and into something else (like, say, posted on bentopress.com) it will have to be done on the old PC. (I could install Windows on the Mac, of course, but I don’t want to have to maintain a Windows environment. Too much work to keep it updated and secure.)

So I’ve spent most of the last three days turning those old Bentos into PDF, PostScript, and HTML format. This is an unfortunately manual process, especially the HTML part. FrameMaker does have an HTML export option but both the usability of the workflow and the quality of the emitted HTML are crap. So I’ve been going through and inserting the HTML codes by hand.

A big part of this process is doing the opposite of a lot of the things I did when I created these issues in the first place: turning em-dashes back into –, un-curling quotes, and so on. (I could turn them into the equivalent HTML codes like ’ but that would be error-prone and even more work.) It’s tedious and repetitive and takes longer than I’d hoped, but once I have done that, the rat will begin to gnaw the rope, the cat will begin to chase the rat, the dog will begin to chase the cat, and I will finally be able to get rid of this fershlugginer PC.

The good news is that I get to re-read thirteen years of Bento. There’s some good stuff in there. It will be posted to the web soon, once I’ve finished (just an issue and a half to go) and Kate has proofread it.

Meanwhile, we’ve been having fun with people from Seattle. Dave Howell crashed on our futon Thursday night, Hal O’Brien is there tonight, and we just came back from a lovely Thai dinner with Janna Silverstein (Jay Lake, Adrienne, and Bronwyn were there too, along with Robin Catesby, Dave Howell, and Karen Abrahamson from Vancouver BC). And tomorrow is Kate’s birthday.

At Potlatch thepussinboots handed me a bunch of pictures based on my stories “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” and “Babel Probe.” This is one of the coolest things that can happen to a writer, I think. Click on each one to see it at a larger size.

Looks like it’s been over a week since I blogged, and I don’t even have the excuse of an Easter-weekend convention. I guess if I’m not writing, I have nothing to say. It’s not that I’ve been completely unwriterly, but I’ve been spending my writing time reading for the upcoming novel workshop. I have completed critiquing 7 chapters-and-outlines and am now slogging through my one full novel assignment, an 800-page naval adventure. Fortunately I am enjoying that one.

The author of the naval adventure is, meanwhile, reading my novel, as are Dean Wesley Smith, my agent, and a few of my writer buddies. I hope they don’t ask for major changes. The first novel was recently rejected by a small press and is off to another even smaller. Also, I was disappointed not to make the Hugo ballot, and I don’t hold out much hope for winning the Nebula (by the way, if you are a SFWA member, remember that the Nebula voting deadline is 3/31). In this situation it’s a bit more work to retain the necessary optimism. Writing requires a combination of great sensitivity (for writing and revision) and a cast-iron ego (for submitting and rejection).

Being in town for Easter, for the first time in who knows how long, we went to our neighborhood Easter brunch. Lots of people there from blocks around, many of whom we don’t know, but the food was great and we had a fun time.

We talked with several people at the brunch about bathrooms. Yes, having failed to learn our lesson from the kitchen remodel, we’re going ahead with the bathroom. It’s a smaller room, so should be easier, right? On the other hand, doing without a kitchen for eight weeks might just be a tad easier than doing without our one-and-only bathroom for the same time. (You know the story about which body part is in charge and why, right?) We have already found — and purchased — The Perfect Tub. Despite the fact that we don’t even have a signed contract with our designer yet, or more than a vague idea of a floor plan, this 1930s tub we found at Rejuvenation was just too wonderful (and rare!) to pass up.

Apart from that I’ve been running a lot of errands and doing a lot of to-do list items, including some decluttering (not enough, must get back on the stick about that). I also have met with my financial adviser, tax guy, trainer, hairdresser, and doctor. They all tell me everything is in pretty good shape for a guy my age. Later this week we have several out-of-town friends visiting, and next week Missy the organizer will show up for another day of decluttering. The days, they really are just packed.

Word count: 129179 | Since last entry: 787

“The Dark Behind the Stars,” my second novel, is now a finished manuscript! This is the first time I’ve printed the whole thing out. (I bought a Brother HL-5250 to do it, since the HP 1022 I wanted doesn’t seem to be made any more…) Copies will shortly be on their way to my agent and other beta readers.

Word count: 128392 | Since last entry: -24

The -24 words above is hilarious. I have been writing very head-down this week and have chopped off the entire last half chapter, replacing it with a new chapter-and-a-half. And this just HAPPENS to almost exactly equal the word count the last time I blogged. In point of fact I’ve removed almost 5000 words and written the same number of entirely new words. I hope to have a new complete draft ready to send to my beta readers today or tomorrow.

In the last week I also saw the excellent touring production of Twelve Angry Men, with Richard Thomas as Juror Eight, and have done a bit of decluttering. I’ve also been mildly sick. Not too surprising given the number of sick people at Potlatch.

The main reason I’m blogging right now is that I posted the following as a comment in kmckiernan‘s blog, and I thought it might be helpful to others.

For tracking story submissions I use an Excel spreadsheet with a separate sheet for each story. The name of each sheet is the story’s filename (titles change, but I keep the same base filename for all versions) and has the following columns:

• Date Out
• Sent To
• Date Back
• Days Out
• Response
• Comments

Each row represents a submission (well, technically a state change, because I also have rows for Wrote, Critiqued, and Edited for each story). The Days Out is automatically calculated from the Date Out and Date Back (or, if Date Back is blank, the current date). The Response field has the following values:

• ? – Awaiting Response
• R – Rejected
• D – Withdrawn
• X – Other Non-Sale (e.g. market closed)
• W – Rewrite Requested
• A – Accepted
• P – Published
• T – Trunked

I also have a Summary sheet with a macro that pulls together all of the rows in every sheet into a single sheet (adding the name of the sheet, which is the story title, as an additional column at the beginning). I use AutoFilter on this sheet to display only those rows where the status is Awaiting Response, and that’s my summary of stories out and how long they’ve been wherever they are.

One important thing about my spreadsheet is that each sheet includes not only past submissions but future ones. The first few rows of each sheet have Wrote, Critiqued, and Edited in the Sent To field (with start and end dates and no Response value). The remaining rows are all markets, in the order in which I intend to send this story. I make up this list as soon as the story is finished. When I send the story out, I fill in the Date Out field. I use the Days Out field in my Summary sheet to see how long it’s been out and to prompt me to query.

When I get a response, I fill in the Date Back and Response fields, and if the response is a rejection I just look down one row to see where I’m going to send it next. (If I already have a story at the next market, I move the next open market up a row and send it there instead.) This helps me to keep stories in submission. I rarely have a story sit around for more than a day or two. If the response is an acceptance, I remove the remaining markets and replace them with rows for Contract, Check, Galleys, and Publication for tracking the story through production.

Here’s an actual example:

 Date Out Sent To Date Back Days Resp Comments 16-May-06 [wrote] 26-Jun-06 41 22-Jul-06 [crit group] 05-Aug-06 14 16-Aug-06 [revised] 17-Aug-06 1 18-Aug-06 F&SF 28-Sep-06 41 R "Many thanks for sending [this] my way, but I'm going to pass on this one. As it happens, I just bought a post-Katrina New Orleans ghost story." 28-Sep-06 Asimov's 16-Jan-07 110 R "The story is quite sweet, but I'm afraid it doesn't quite work for me." 16-Jan-07 Strange Horizons 27-Mar-07 70 R "This has some moving and evocative moments, but the whole thing with the ghosts feels too straightforward to me." 31-Mar-07 Realms of Fantasy 26-Sep-07 179 R Queried after 6 months and got this back: "I emailed Shawna about this one but never heard back. I'm fairly certain she passed on this one." 07-Oct-07 Glimmer Train 14-Dec-07 68 R Marked as "Complete" (i.e. rejected) on their online status form 14-Dec-07 Weird Tales 06-Jan-08 23 R "I'm not convinced it all worked for me, particularly the ending." 06-Jan-08 Brutarian 68 ? 1/16/140 Interzone Aeon Lady Churchill's Black Gate Talebones 

The story is currently at Brutarian and has been for 68 days. The notation “1/16/140” is the minimum, average, and maximum response times for that market posted at the Black Hole market list.

The Comments field in the actual spreadsheet includes the entire response (usually I can just paste this in from the rejection email); I’ve included only a representative snippet above.