David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 32125 | Since last entry: 2625

Generally speaking, my life has been largely consumed by the day job. But we just met a major milestone this week, and things should be somewhat less crazy for a little while now… we enter a period of bug fixing before the first beta release in May.

As you can see from the wordcount above, I have not let work keep me away from writing completely. I haven’t been writing as often or as long as I would like, but I have been making intermittent progress and I hope to have a chapter ready in time for the next crit group meeting. Yesterday at the coffee shop was a very good night’s work; I introduced my two viewpoint characters to each other for the first time.

A snippet:

The new person was only a little taller than Keelie, but broader and rounder in the chest and hip and thigh. It — she — she looked as though she would be soft and warm and pleasant to touch.

Keelie drew closer, enthralled by the new person’s eyes. The dark centers were surrounded by a colored ring, like Keelie’s but brown instead of blue. They flicked from side to side, sudden light quick movements like startled twin birds, moving in perfect unison. An amazing, unnatural coordination like nothing Keelie had ever seen.

Did Keelie’s own eyes move like that?

I also had a stimulating and highly intellectual conversation in the bar afterward.

I had the last chapter (the one I finished at Rainforest Writers) critiqued this weekend, and the reactions have been very, very positive. The main issue is that Rachel, my Earth-human viewpoint character, is not as strong as Keelie, the one raised by aliens. This isn’t surprising, given that Keelie is the protagonist and Rachel is basically there to provide a more familiar perspective for the reader, but I have a few things in mind to make her stronger. Even so, it’s not like the last novel where everyone hated Jason; they absolutely love Keelie and Rachel suffers only by comparison.

Apart from plugging away on the novel I have no writing news to report. I’ve had several rejections, and I’m rapidly running out of markets for some of the stories that are still circulating. There are only really about four or five viable pro-level markets for a 7100-word hard SF adventure. And when the rejections are so consistent, especially given that I’ve rewritten that story from the ground up to try to address the same issue that’s still that story’s main problem, it seems destined for the trunk. I could really use another sale right about now.

We went to Minicon. It was an okay convention. I really enjoyed the panels I was on, I hung out with some of my bestest fan friends, I ate far too much good food, and I enjoyed a fine music party in the Tor suite on Sunday night. But the con was only about 3-400 people, and rattled around in a hotel that once hosted Minicons ten times that size. As underpopulated as it was, it was surprisingly easy to miss people. I might not go next year.

At the moment Kate is in California, where she’s treating our eight-year-old neice to Disneyland. From the phone calls so far they’re having a blast. I wish I could be there, but on the other hand I’m just as happy to not be dealing with the child. (Nothing wrong with her… I just don’t deal well with kids.)

Much more to report, but that’s enough for one blog entry.

Word count: 29500 | Since last entry: 554

Full house at the coffee shop tonight: Jay, Karen, Mary, the other Mary, and Grant. I’m kind of the second shift, since I show up after dinner (around 7:30 most weeks) and most of the rest arrive much earlier and some take off for dinner around 8:30. But I stayed for another hour after that, kept plugging away, and wound up with over 500 words for the evening. That’s good, for me.

A snippet:

Keelie slumped to the floor, the wet and knotted dressing pressing uncomfortably between her legs, and let her head sag into her hands. “What are we going to do?”

“You must go to G’ni tomorrow. Tell her to call off the search immediately and return your money.”

Not looking up, Keelie shook her head. The filth of her forehead ground against her palms. She stank of sweat and illness. “She won’t give the money back.”

Reesa sighed again. “No, I doubt she will. But you must ask.”

I think I need to work on Rachel’s backstory. I realized today I don’t even know who her parents are. No wonder she’s so much less interesting than Keelie.

Word count: 28946 | Since last entry: 283

Last month was a wretched month for writing, apart from the Rainforest Writers Village. 3 rejections, no sales, and I only wrote on 12 days in the whole month. I went into last weekend with a firm commitment to get back to the writing… and managed to blow it off, starting off April with a big fat zero. No foolin’.

I did a bunch of chores over the weekend, things that needed to be done like dishes and laundry and backing up the PC, and resubmitted a couple of rejected stories. And I opened up the chapter I’d finished at Rainforest Writers and stared at it a while with intent to edit, but all I managed to do was convince myself that the two expository lumps I’d thought I could excise were really there for a reason. Total word count change: 1.

Tonight, I came home from work all tired and down. Apropos of a recent discussion about combobulation, decombobulation, and recombobulation, I described myself as non-combobulate (which is, at least, a step better than non-combobulant). But I didn’t let it stop me from pitching in and co-nurturing a nice vegetarian dinner of African stew with greens, peanut butter, and pineapple. (No really, canned crushed pineapple. The recipe came in the basket from the organic farm and it’s delish.) And after that was eaten and the leftovers put away, I made myself sit down and start a new chapter. Less than 300 words, but it’s a start. With luck I’ll be able to finish this chapter on the plane to/from Minicon (see my Minicon programming schedule to see why I don’t expect to get any writing done during the convention itself).

Good news on the travel front, though. In the last couple of days plans have come together for two trips I hadn’t expected to be able to make: a square dance event in Palm Springs and the Nebula Awards weekend in New York. (New York City! Editors! Publishers! Agents!) Thanks to the magic of the Internet, I went from nothing to plane, hotel, and registrations in hand for both events in about an hour each. My credit card’s smokin’.

We’ll be in New York May 10-13 and hope to catch a show on Thursday night. We’re considering Curtains. Any other recommendations?

Word count: 28663 | Since last entry: 7477

Back from the Rain Forest Writers Village writing retreat — four days in the woods, writing and hanging out with writers. It was awesome and relaxing. I wrote a lot (159 words Thursday night, 2221 words Friday, 2379 words Saturday, and 1418 words Sunday for a total of 6712 words for the weekend) and finished the chapter I’d been working on just five minutes before closing ceremonies started.

The chapter’s too long and too heavy on the exposition, but I have time to whack it back a bit if that’s what I choose to do. Which I may.

A snippet:

If only Keelie could find a doctor of her own kind. “Reesa told me you’d heard a rumor about a new ship. Maybe they can help.”

G’ni leaned forward with a rustling sound and pitched her voice low. “I wouldn’t be asking too many questions about that.”

“Why not?”

“Bad feelings are gathering around this ship. The rumor goes that this type of ship was seen just once before, over fifteen years ago. The people offended nuum and the Drur were forced to destroy them.”

Keelie’s chest tightened. She was not quite fifteen years old. “Were there any survivors?”

G’ni spread her hands, a gesture indicating ignorance or equivocality. “Some say no. Some say there were a few. Enslaved by the Drur, perhaps. It’s certain that no one has seen any of them for many years.”

Attendees at the retreat included Jay Lake, Louise Marley, J.C. and Barb Hendee, Susan R. Matthews, and about two dozen others, all writers (except for a couple non-writing spouses such as Kate). I knew about half of them already. There was a whiteboard with word count for the weekend, and several people also posted their progress on socks. For some reason all of the knitters present were working on socks. It got to the point that some writers noted “2300 words, 0 socks” as their progress for the day.

Apart from the writing (with early-bird, night-owl, and, um, middle-bird sessions) there were a few laid-back programming items such as How To Find An Agent and Overcoming Writers’ Block Using Runes. I skipped almost all of those in favor of more writing time. In between sessions there was much eating, with Jay and writers Barb and J.C. Hendee as special guest cooks.

The resort itself was charming and rustic, though we saw very little of it on account of the continuous rain, ranging from drizzle to downpour. It was what we’d expected, being in a rain forest and all, but it was still a great relief when the sun came out on Sunday morning and we saw the mountains on the far side of Lake Quinault for the first time. Up until that point the world apparently ended in a gray blur at the water’s edge.

One other highlight of the weekend was the Ranch House BBQ, on highway 8 at about mile post 15, which Jay has mentioned as having the best barbequeue outside of Texas. We stopped there on the way up, just to try the food even though we’d already had lunch. We stopped there again on the way down, even though we’d already had lunch. It was that good.

Jay has posted some photos from the weekend in his journal.

Big props to hosts Patrick and Honna Swenson for putting together a fabulous weekend!

Word count: 21186 | Since last entry: 1154

Had a nice time at Potlatch. Got to take some of our out-of-town friends to some of our favorite restaurants. Appeared on some programming. Had a reading. A good time was had by all.

Apart from that my life has pretty much been eaten by the Day Job. We’re just a few weeks away from the Feature Complete milestone and I’ve had a lot of questions to answer, bugs to fix, and email to deal with. We also had a bunch of customers in on Tuesday and Wednesday, with another bunch of customers due in next Tuesday and Wednesday, and there was plenty of prep work and wrap-up for that. And it’s annual review time, with the concomitant paperwork. And I have two other projects (one big, the other minor) that are supposed to be done by the end of the quarter. Which is two weeks from today.

It’s nice to be wanted, but I’m getting a bit crispy around the edges. I’ve been falling behind on my personal email and blogging (reading as well as writing), I have three rejected manuscripts to put back in the mail, and I haven’t done any writing since before Potlatch — too brain-dead in the evenings. Nor tonight either.

Nonetheless, many writing-related things have happened without any effort on my part:

• Illustrator Rachel Stoleru posted a cute picture inspired by “Titanium Mike”;
• “Tk’Tk’Tk” was translated into Hebrew in the webzine Bli-Panika;
• “Titanium Mike” is also being translated into Hebrew, in the print magazine The Tenth Dimension;
• “Tk’Tk’Tk” will be translated into Romanian, in the fan-produced (but very slick-looking!) magazine Helion.

I am a very lucky guy.

Word count: 20032 | Since last entry: 177

Went to start chapter 4 and discovered that the quickie outline I wrote has Keelie doing just about nothing in her half of this chapter. But I can’t move the action of chapter 5 forward because Keelie has to wait for Rachel to do her thing in the other half of the chapter first. Must find something for Keelie to do that isn’t just stalling for time. I have some ideas.

Meanwhile, “Titanium Mike Saves the Day” has been reviewed in SFRevu (“a great little piece”) and Tangent Online (“an entertaining and engaging work”).

Word count: 19855 | Since last entry: 784

Writing at the coffee shop tonight, first time in months. Engaged in naughty writerly gossip, but did not succumb to peer pressure and accompany Jay and Karen to the bar, staying behind to keep butt in chair and hands on keyboard. Finished chapter 3. Go me.

A snippet:

“I’m afraid something’s come up,” Gideon’s voice replied. “With the aliens.”

A harsh jolt straightened Rachel’s spine. “What’s wrong?” When she’d left the alien ship a few hours ago it had seemed that everything was clear. They would be permitted to move to a closer orbit, nearby some other alien ships, as long as they agreed to subject themselves to an inspection for weapons. Since they had none, this was no barrier. But even after days of negotiations, hours spent training and tuning the translation software, and restating every point five different ways, her deepest fear was that something important had been lost in the gulf of interspecies communication.

“Nothing’s wrong with the negotiations,” Gideon clarified. “But… well, I think you should hear this in person.”

Rachel swallowed. “I’ll be right there.”

Also, today’s mail brought my author copy of the Spring 2007 issue of Robot, with the Italian translation of “Tk’Tk’Tk.” The coolest thing about these foreign translations is that most of them have interior illos. Most US magazines don’t have interior illustrations any more, and it is very very cool to see all the different artists’ interpretations of my story. (Photos coming soon.)

Finally, the first issue of the new online SF magazine Darker Matter is now available, with my story “Babel Probe”. You can read it now, for free!

Word count: 19071 | Since last entry: 308

I have never been so jetlagged before in my entire life. Nearly a solid week of fogginess, bleariness, incoherency, and bone-cracking yawns. Some nights I fell over at 9 and slept heavily for ten hours. Other nights I lay awake staring at the ceiling for I don’t know how long. I finally returned to a semblance of coherency this weekend, and kept very busy with various missed chores. Still very very far behind on all of them.

One thing I did this weekend was to go to the gym, for the first time in nearly three weeks. Now, although I’m less tired, I ache.

Tonight, for the first time since before the trip, I wrote. Yay me.

Another rejection today. Now I have three stories that need to go back in the mail. Bleah.

Going to bed now…

Word count: 18763 | Since last entry: 0

Back in one piece from Thailand, but very very jetlagged. Nothing worthwhile accomplished today.

The mail received while we were gone included:

• Copies of the April 2006 issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction, including my story “Titanium Mike Saves the Day”
• Copies of the March 2006 issue of Portti Science Fiction, including the Finnish translation of “Tk’Tk’Tk.” I got my name first on the cover and a great interior illo, in color no less. Also in the package was my check for the translation, which seems to be typical for foreign sales.
• An offprint from the Czech translation of “Tale of the Golden Eagle” from the February 2006 issue of the Czech edition of Fantasy & Science Fiction.
• No acceptances or rejections. However, I did receive two rejections by email.

I did not do any writing or critiquing, and not much reading, on the trip. We were, as Kate says, on vacation. Despite which, we were extremely busy. Detailed trip report is definitely forthcoming, but format and distribution mechanism are an open question.

Word count: 18763 | Since last entry: 998

Last work day for a while today. In the afternoon, as I found myself considering various tasks through the lens of “can I finish this today?” and spending the last hour of the day shutting everything down and making ready for a long absence (not all that long, really, only a week and a bit) I would describe my attitude as… detached.

I’m a bit nervous about the trip, actually — worried about my health and Kate’s, and concerned because I have never before traveled to someplace where I had so little comprehension of the local culture and language. The sheer magnitude of the voyage — a full twenty-four heartbeat hours of travel each way — is also daunting. I have never in my life traveled so far from home. (Frankly, it’s not possible to get much farther from home without leaving the planet.) But that very alienness and distance guarantees a unique experience. It’s going to be a heck of a ride.

There may be wi-fi, here and there, but I don’t expect to blog until I return. I’ll try to take pictures and keep a diary, but knowing me I’m not making any guarantees. The experience is the point, not the record of the experience.

Any feelings of foreboding I have were not ameliorated by the movie we went to see tonight, Children of Men. A brilliant movie, a spectacular tour-de-force of worldbuilding and violence. Coming home from that movie I flinched at a car coming out of a side road, and I had to remind myself aloud that I was in the real world, where most people are friendly and want to help us. When we got home we made hot chocolate to remind ourselves that our real lives are rich and sweet.

I’ve spent the last couple of evenings packing rather than writing. I’m not quite finished packing, but I’m going to bed now. We leave tomorrow mid-day, and arrive in Singapore on Monday.

One last thing before I go: There’s an interview with me on the Sci-Phi Show podcast (http://thesciphishow.com/). You can find it at http://thesciphishow.com/audio/tspsoc29.mp3. I’ve only listened to half of it, but it sounds really good! I’m all, like, professional or something.

Take good care of the place while I’m gone, and I’ll see you in a week.