David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 20919 | Since last entry: -52

A relaxed but fairly productive weekend. Got a bunch of mundane chores done, watched Neverwhere, looked over the galley proofs of “Primates” for Asimov’s, and did a quick editing pass over the novella and sent it to my critique group. I didn’t make a lot of changes (other than changing several names); I’m still very very close to it. Which is why we do critique. Amazingly, despite the thing’s length I have a long list of additional stuff I wanted to get in but couldn’t find a place to do it. Maybe this thing does want to be a novel.

Also, I just got word that UK webzine Infinity Plus has accepted “I Hold My Father’s Paws”, and it should be available online in about June. If you can’t wait until then or you’d rather have it on paper, you can order a copy of Issue 31 of Albedo One.

Word count: 20971 | Since last entry: 573

First draft’s done. (Throws confetti.) Almost twenty-one thousand words — that’s three or four normal short stories. The next one will be shorter, I swear.

A snippet:

“Peri and I leaned on each other, watching her go. ‘We’d better haul in that parasail before it blows away,’ Peri said to me after a while. ‘Start setting it up as a tent.’ Her arm was warm across my shoulders. I’d forgotten how much taller she was than me.

“‘In a minute,’ I said. ‘I’m enjoying the view.’

“We stood side by side, watching the sun rise over our new home.”

The panel tonight at the Mt. Hood Community College library with Jay Lake, M.K. Hobson, Ken Scholes, Doug Lain, Josh English, David Goldman, and Damian Kilby went off well. We were very nearly outnumbered by the audience, who listened attentively and asked perceptive questions despite being mostly non-genre readers. I did too much of the talking, as usual. If you’ve been following Jay’s LJ you’ve gotten a good taste of the kinds of things we talked about.

One of the questions was about the difference between writing novels and short stories. As it happens, I just wrote a couple of paragraphs on that very subject for the Clarion alumni newsletter, which I quoted, and I include them here in hopes you will find them worthwhile.

For me, writing short stories is like building intricate little puzzle boxes. I can put them together out of little scraps of whatever wood I happen to have lying around, and if a piece doesn’t fit I can take the time to file or carve or sand it until it’s right. It doesn’t require a detailed plan, just a general idea of what I want it to turn out like. And if it doesn’t work — if the chisel slips or the wood has an unexpected knot, or I think it’s fine but no one wants to buy it — I can sigh and set it aside and move on to the next.

Writing a novel is more like building a house. It takes months or years. You don’t have to have a detailed plan when you start, but if you don’t, you must be aware that you may find yourself having to rip out the foundation and re-do it before you can move in. Whether or not you have a plan, you’ll have to order large quantities of wood and nails and glue and paint — probably more than you will be able to use (but, with luck, you can use some of the leftover bits to make puzzle boxes). It’s so big that you can’t possibly get all the little fiddly bits perfect, so you shouldn’t even try, but there is plenty of cabinetry and finish work where you can show off your craftsmanship skills. But if it doesn’t work — and there are a million ways it can fail, many more than for a little puzzle box — you’ve wasted a year of your life and you’re stuck with this enormous eyesore that no one wants. Even if it does work, after you’ve moved in you’ll constantly be hitting your head on the doorway that’s too low or catching your clothing on a railing that needed more sanding. Either way, you’ll vow that either you’re never going to do this again or that you’ll get it right the next time. Maybe both.

Word count: 20398 | Since last entry: 334

Received in the mail today: a copy of issue 31 of Albedo One, containing my Aeon-Award shortlisted story “I Hold My Father’s Paws.” They very kindly put my name first on the cover, although one of the other stories in the same issue was the one that won the award. I suspect I have editor Roelof Goudriaan, a friend from way back, to thank for this. You can order your own copy here: http://homepage.eircom.net/~albedo1/html/a1__magazine.html

Also, my Hugo-nominated story “Tk’tk’tk” is now available for all to read, for free, in its entirety, on the Asimov’s web site: http://www.asimovs.com/_issue_0604_5/tk.shtml

Aaaand… I’m almost done with the first draft of the novella. One or two more nights of writing should do it.

A snippet: “Supporting each other, we shuffled to the airlock — the one that had been Epsilon sys lock before we’d torched it off and joined it to the growing assemblage of the crew lander. There we found, to our surprise, that we were already breathing Bianchon’s atmosphere. The crude welded seam joining the lock to the hull had parted from the stress of the landing.”

Word count: 20064 | Since last entry: 1432

Had a haircut today, and the person after me in the chair also happened to be a writer, and we spent an hour talking about mother-rapin’ and father-stabbin’ and all kinds o’ groovy things. I came home all jazzed up.

I’ve really been hitting my stride, wrapping up and writing some tough scenes that have been in my mind since the beginning. This is where all the secrets come out and the new beginning begins.

A snippet:

Peri was silent for a long time. Finally she said “We have to break it to them one at a time. Bring them in on the secret only when they’re ready.”

“I’ll accept your judgement on that. But when the time comes… I want to be the one to tell Thad. He told me the truth I needed to know, even though it hurt both of us, and I feel I owe him the same.”

Just one more scene left to write, an epilogue. Then I should probably give the whole thing a thorough self-edit before sending it for critique.

Once that’s done I have galley proofs on “Primates” and line edits on “Titanium Mike” before I get back to the new stuff. “Primates” will apparently be in the September issue of Asimov’s, which isn’t all that long from now.

Word count: 18632 | Since last entry: 1340

The day job is kicking my ass. And I seem to have picked up some minor bug — something that makes me a little phlegmy and a little achy and a little hoarse. Nothing much, to be sure, but enough to slow me down.

However, yesterday the car was in the shop for an oil change, so I took the train to work. Wrote almost a thousand words. I should do that more often. Somewhere around Millikan way my little novelette became a novella. (Throws confetti.)

At this point I seriously doubt this story will ever sell. It’s so long that only the big three magazines would even consider it, and even they buy very few stories this length. It’s got too many rivets for Asimov’s or F&SF, and it’s got gay and transsexual characters which Stan Schmidt doesn’t like (not to mention that some of the science is, frankly, a little rubbery). But, having put so much effort into the damn thing, I mean to finish it, for myself if nothing else. Probably a couple thousand words to go. Once it’s done I may write an essay here about what this story is really about, and why it’s important to me.

After that? I have line edits to do on “Titanium Mike” for F&SF, then some critique comments to incorporate on the Jupiter story so I can start sending it out again. And then it might be time to start on the next novel. Or possibly one more short story first. Something fantasy, just as a change-up. We’ll see.

Must sleep now.

Word count: 17292 | Since last entry: 1391 Only minimal writing for most of this week, with one missed day, but I got in nearly a thousand words today. Unfortunately, the piece shows no sign of stopping any time soon (though the very last subplot has now been introduced), so it seems that it will be a novella rather than a novelette. Oh well. And it’s clearly going to need an immediate revision pass once I’ve completed the first draft. A snippet: “The grainy image on the big monitor showed why Alpha was so late. One of the four sails that was supposed to catch the light from the boost lasers, then drop off for coast phase, was still attached — bent and twisted into a crumpled C shape. The sail had probably jammed on initial deployment, and had cut the module’s thrust during boost phase by twenty percent or more. There was some concern that the jammed sail could cause problems during the first aerobraking maneuver, as Alpha slammed into Moliere’s atmosphere at interstellar speed. But simulations showed that it would most likely come off as the module’s aerobraking balute inflated, and if it didn’t do that it would probably simply burn away early in the maneuver.” Apart from the writing, we’ve seen movies Transamerica (good, but not as polished as I’d expected from the buzz), V for Vendetta (excellent, the changes from the comic book made it stronger), and The Mummy on DVD (silly) and play Crowns (a marvelous production, I was especially impressed with the set and lighting). I’ve also suffered another recurrence of the awful fungus infection that attacks the same two toes on my right foot every year or two. Prescription antifungal ointment and Burow’s solution seem to be doing the job this time. Some upcoming dates you might want to know about:

• I’m a guest pro at the Wiscon writers’ workshop, in Madison. This is the 30th Wiscon and it promises to be a real blow-out. The deadline for submissions is April 1 and you must have a membership to the convention (which is already sold out).
• On the evening of April 6, from 7 pm to 8:30 pm, I’ll be appearing in a panel discussion at Mount Hood Community College in Gresham, Oregon. The topic will be “Getting published and the relationship between writers, books and readers” and the panel is also scheduled to include local authors Jay Lake, David Goldman, M.K. Hobson, Damian Kilby, Doug Lain, Ken Scholes and Josh English. All good people.
• The voting deadline for the Locus Awards is April 15. Anyone can vote (I had said elsewhere that only Locus subscribers can vote, but I was wrong) and you may, if you wish, write in anything you want in any category.

Word count: 15901 | Since last entry: 593 My story “Tk’tk’tk” from the March 2005 Asimov’s is a nominee for the Hugo Award! I’m not expecting to win, but it really and truly is an honor just to be nominated. And, heck, I wasn’t expecting to be nominated either, so anything can happen! The Hugo ballot will be posted on the LACon web site shortly. I anticipate that the whole story will be posted for everyone to read for free on the Asimov’s web site soon too. Until then, you can read the first part of the story. Thanks to Dave Clark, Kevin Standlee, and Kevin Roche, who mentioned the story on the Emerald City Hugo recommendations list. I’m sure this was a significant factor in its reaching the ballot. And, by the way, the story title is pronounced “tick-tick-tick.” (P.S. Squeeeeeeeeeee!)

Word count: 15308 | Since last entry: 781

Busy weekend, many chores done. We’re going to have to forego Minicon again this year, because my late uncle Ben’s memorial service is that weekend. I made all the arrangements yesterday, cancelling all the Minicon travel reservations and making new reservations for Sacramento instead. It will be nice to see the family, anyway.

I’m not at all convinced that this story is going in the right direction, but if I keep up my average of about 300 words a day and if my guesstimate that it’s in the high novelette or low novella word count range (about 17,500 words) is correct, it might conceivably be done by next Saturday, in which case I could get it critiqued at the next crit group meeting. Those are both pretty big ifs, but even if I miss that date it is beginning to feel like it’s coming to a conclusion.

When I first created my WWW home page in 1998, before I even started to think about writing fiction, most of the content on the page was my fannish writings and art projects (architecture, cartoons, and costumes/props). I’ve barely touched that content since then, as the writing-related content has grown and grown. But still, it continues to attract readers.

A couple of days ago, for example, I got a note from someone who’d found the page about my Rocketeer costume, asking for more details on how I’d built the rocket pack. I got it out of the attic — it still looks good — and took some new digital photos, which I sent to him along with some text. And, since I’d done the work, I also posted it as a sub-page of the Rocketeer page.

And just today, I got another email from someone who’d found my Analytique of Phnom Bakheng. He’s working on a Phnom Bakheng Conservation Master Plan (I have no idea if this is the real thing or just a school project) and he wants to use the image in his report. I gave my permission and said I’d try to scare up a better scan than the one I have posted.

It’s amazing the things that happen when you put content up where people can find it.

Word count: 14527 | Since last entry: 1142

For some reason, I’ve been terribly slug-like at work for the past couple of days. I have a freaking enormous to-do list and I’m not making much progress on it at all. I’ve been attending meetings, to be sure, and they’ve been productive, but I have so many other things that need to happen in between and I just can’t get motivated. I haven’t been going to the gym, either. Bad me.

The writing’s been going well, though. I wrote almost a thousand words in one sitting yesterday… a long, serious conversation that I’ve been thinking about since well before I started this draft. This is the point where the main character finds out that his problems are much, much worse than he even suspected they were. This is where he has to either start digging himself out — by becoming a different person — or give in to despair.

Today after square dancing I went back and nipped and tucked that conversation a bit. It’s still a bit infodumpy, and I’m afraid it might not be emotional enough. I had originally envisioned it as a huge screaming argument, but given the tone of the scenes that led up to it, it turned into more one of those long sad talks that leaves both parties crying. But they’re both Guys, so neither of them is going to admit it.

A snippet:

Thad hooked an elbow around a nearby structural element. He started to speak, hesitated. Tried again.

“You died just a week before scan number two — almost six months after your last scan. You know that, right?”

I just looked at him.

“Haven’t you wondered what happened during those six months?”

I considered the question. “Not really. No more than any of the rest of the two years I don’t remember.”

He turned away from me, spoke to the transparent plastic of the wall. “Chaz, this is going to hurt you. But you deserve to know.”

“Okay, let me hear it.” I wasn’t really ready to hear any bad news, but this was the first time in months anyone had even started to talk straight to me and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slip by.

Word count: 13385 | Since last entry: 601

“Titanium Mike Saves the Day” sold to F&SF!

My second sale of the year, and my second sale to Gordon (the first was “Tale of the Golden Eagle”, of course). I am quite chuffed. I knew it was good news when I saw the envelope: it was an F&SF letterhead envelope, not my SASE, which meant a check or at least a rewrite request.

Of course, this does put a crimp in my Cunning Plan to increase my number of stories in circulation :-)

As it happens, at this moment of happiness I am driving my character deep into the pits of despair. Writing is more like acting than it is like directing…

A snippet: “The slowly rotating sun warmed my skin as I floated among the peas and peppers, curled in a ball and shaking with pent-up tears that would not come. The air here was foul and heavy. My life stank like shit.

“Once I had thought that being selected for the Clarion crew was the greatest thing that could ever happen to me. How had it come to this?”