David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Editing hours: 0.0 | Since last entry: 0.0 March is National Novel Editing Month (no, really, it’s true: see http://www.nanoedmo.org/), and it couldn’t come at a better time for me. I really need a kick-start. So I am going to tackle the NaNoEdMo challenge: 50 hours of editing on my novel during the month. With any luck that will be sufficient to complete the darn thing and send it on its way. Since NaNoEdMo works on hours of editing rather than word count, each participant needs a “buddy” to verify their editing hours. I’m looking for one or more buddies, and offering the same in return. Anyone want someone to help goad them into editing? Anyway… today being the first day of NaNoEdMo, I kicked it off by… not editing on my novel at all. But I did do editing! I revised the unicorn story (if my edits meet with my co-author’s approval I’ll get it in the mail tomorrow) and I edited my galley proofs for Greenberg anthology Gateways. (In the whole story there was just one misplaced comma. How did that get in there?) However, I won’t count those 3 or 4 editing hours because they were not on my novel. So I go into the month already 1.6 hours behind the desired daily average. Oh well. In other writing news… since my last journal entry, “The Last McDougal’s” sold to Asimov’s and reprint “At the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco’s Homebrew Gravitics Club” (which originally appeared in the OryCon 25 program book) was accepted by the non-paying website Infinity Plus. “The Last McDougal’s” is my twentieth sale! Also, my story “Tk’tk’tk” in the current (March 2005) issue of Asimov’s got a good review in the Internet Review of Science Fiction and (I’m told, but haven’t seen it yet) another good review in Locus. Asimov’s is also offering the first part of the story as a teaser on their website right now. Yoicks, and away!

Word count: 120661 | Since last entry: -256 | This month: 2708 Where did the weekend go? Didn’t do anything special, even though it was my birthday today… just the usual weekend round of chores and errands, but three days instead of two. All gone now. Voom. I spent my writing time this weekend working on the first Clarity chapter. In order to put Vigor’s death on stage I first had to remove the frenzied phone call from the end of the scene in the potato field. But once I’d done that, the remainder of the scene didn’t have a lot going for it… it had almost no emotional impact, didn’t establish Clarity’s story problem, and basically existed only for expository purposes. Obviously this scene didn’t have much going for it before, but removing the sting from the tail pointed that out clearly. So I thought “can I get rid of this scene completely, and open with Clarity in New York?” But though that idea had a lot of appeal, the existing scene sets up a lot of stuff that will be needed later: it establishes Garrett, and shows Clarity’s love of flight (in a scene that at least one of my first-readers really loved), and shows Clarity interacting with ordinary humans and establishing her sympathy for them. In New York she’s completely surrounded by her own people and that would be harder to convey. This scene also introduces a lot of details about the Cetans that would have to be redone in a different way in New York — basically making this a complete new chapter. So I rewrote the scene to have a lot more interior dialogue, in which we establish how long it has been since Cedar Point, and how Remembrance Day is a forgiveness holiday for the Cetans, and how much tension there is between Clarity and her father (which will never be resolved, bwah hah hah). To do all this I focused on her shoes. Yes, her shoes. There was a throwaway line in the very first draft about Clarity wearing Nikes, and I decided to use that as a symbol of all the ways in which she fails to conform to Cetan norms. I think it works. But. I’m still not convinced it’s the best way to introduce Clarity. I may break down and eliminate the entire scene (after spending the whole weekend rewriting it, argh) and create a new scene in New York that carries only the key information from the old scene, with more emotional punch. I know I can do it; I’ve learned a lot in the nearly two years since I wrote this chapter for the first time. But it’d be a lot of work, so I’m resisting. I think I can reuse a lot of the existing sentences and paragraphs, but it might be quicker to rewrite the whole thing from scratch. Either way I think it’s likely to be several days of work. The one thing I absolutely can’t introduce in New York is Garrett. But maybe I should put him on the phone and Clarity’s father dying on stage, instead of the other way around. Must ponder some more. I think I need a day or two to convince myself it’s worthwhile.

Word count: 120917 | Since last entry: 588 | This month: 2964 Finished up the revisions to the first Jason chapter, in which Jason creeps about to steal the biocomputer. Raised the tension in the creeping-about scene by adding a couple near-misses of being discovered. Also went back and re-edited the scene with Honor and Jason some more. It’s amazing how much cascading effect can occur from dropping one sentence — since Clarity’s sept name was revealed for the first time in that sentence, and I couldn’t find anyplace else in the chapter to slip that information in naturally, later sentences referring to that name had to be rewritten as well. It’s improving. It’s coming along, slowly. I persevere. Thanks to Kate for going off square-dancing and encouraging me to stay home and write. 588 net words doesn’t seem like much but I know the change is significant.

Word count: 120329 | Since last entry: -538 | This month: 2376 I spent much of this evening massaging one little fragment of a scene, in which Jason encounters Clarity’s old friend Honesty at the Platform. This is the first appearance of a Cetan (formerly Tauran) on stage and it has to carry a lot of weight. I’m trying to slip in a few sentences of exposition, so the conversation doesn’t have to do all the work, but I keep taking expository sentences out and putting them back in because I keep waffling over whether or not the scene is clear enough without them. It doesn’t help that I’m trying to establish details that didn’t even exist before this revision, so I’m not 100% sure of them myself. At the last minute I cut an entire small scene (which explains my -500 words for the day) because I determined it was, indeed, no longer necessary. But I’m not quite finished with the scene before the cut yet. Needs more massage. And, as always, the cat needs vacuuming. First must obtain cat…

Word count: 120867 | Since last entry: 199 | This month: 2914 Spent the evening on revisions, alternating between the novel and the unicorn story while emailing the story back and forth with Sara. Once she approves this final version, it’s off to critique. On the novel, I’ve nearly reached the end of a scene, and I think I can now cut most of the following scene. Next I’ll have to amp up the danger and difficulty of Jason’s break-in at the Platform, which may take some doing… I want it to be plausible, and as he’s not a professional spy it can’t be that hard. To bed now. I was at work from 7am to 6pm today, with an 8am dentist appointment tomorrow. Bleah. But Kate’s breathing machine has arrived, with dramatically effective results. Finally she gets a good night’s sleep! The mask is rather isolating — I don’t get to kiss her good-night — but she’s breathing so easily now that it’s worth it.

Word count: 120818 | Since last entry: 2715 | This month: 2715 Well, it appears to be about two weeks since I last posted. Sorry. I have been writing, honest (as you can see by the wordcount above), but on those days when I was writing I was too busy to post and on those days when I was not writing I was… er, also too busy to post. The main thing that has been consuming my energy of late has been the day job, where I still am nearly full-time on each of two projects (a situation unlikely to change any time soon). I have been too brain-dead on most weekday evenings to do much more than watch television, a rare activity for me. Mind you, the new Battlestar Galactica is actually very good. Lost, on the other hand, after a strong start, is beginning to annoy me with its increasingly elaborate tricks to keep the characters from learning anything at all about the mysteries of the island. The 2700 words above represents about 800 additional words on the novel and 1900 words on the unicorn story — which is now complete, yay. I need to crit it soon and send my suggested changes to Sara. I feel pretty good about it; it’s definitely a story that neither of us could have written by ourselves. I think the main character could be emotionally strengthened, the antagonist made more sympathetic, and more sensory detail added, but one thing’s for sure: this is a unicorn story unlike any other unicorn story you have ever read. The 800 words on the novel represents a complete redraft of the first bit of the first Jason chapter, which used to be the Prologue and is now Chapter A. This draft focuses on Jason’s grief and anger over his parents and replaces exposition with emotional description. (One of my themes for this rewrite is: Add Emotion Through Description. I’m trying to kill two birds with one stone, and so far I think it is working.) At this rate it will take me at least several more writing days to complete the new Chapter A, and then I have a heavy new scene to write in Chapter 1 in which Clarity goes to New York and sees with her own eyes when Vigor falls ill. This is the third time I’ve written the beginning of this novel, but it really is getting better each time. After that will come a thorough revision pass on the whole thing. Probably won’t get it in the mail by my birthday as promised, but soon, I tell you, soon. Have I mentioned lately how much I hate revisions? I got some late comments from a couple of my first-readers, which indicated that they would have been lost without the time map at the top of each chapter. I’m also finding it really hard to nail down the chapters in time with sufficient precision to prevent confusion. Despite Dean’s feedback, I might put the time maps back in. I also might compromise and put a single time map at the beginning. I wonder what the procedure is to include a map in the manuscript? Is it a numbered page? Apart from the novel, this has been a week full of good writing news. I got an email from David Hartwell looking to buy “Charlie the Purple Giraffe” (from the June 2004 Realms of Fantasy) for his Year’s Best Fantasy anthology; the same story was also mentioned in the Locus Recommended Reading List and has picked up two Nebula recommendations. And “Tk’Tk’Tk” (from the March 2005 Asimov’s) garnered me two fan emails today, plus several very positive comments on the Asimov’s message board (“a very memorable story”… “one of the more powerful SF stories in recent memory”… “an intensely visceral read”). Plus Gardner Dozois mentioned me twice in his Year in Review column for Locus. So I am a very happy writing puppy. Apart from the revisions, that is. Japanese class tomorrow night. 7 AM teleconference with India, followed by offsite customer visit, on Tuesday… bleah. More writing Wednesday, maybe.

Word count: 120476 | Since last entry: 1818 | This month: 4044 Nothing on the novel today, but a very productive day on the unicorn story with Sara (with a bonus of a fine dim sum lunch at a new place on Division — Wong’s King, I think it’s called, and it’s definitely a keeper). This collaboration thing is tons of fun and I think the story is turning out great. It’s something that neither of us could possibly have written alone. Two more sessions like that, I think, and it’ll be done. I only hope we can get it in below 7500 words — below 5000 would be better. One other note: as I was driving home from work the other day the “MAINT REQD” light on the dashboard came on, which the owner’s manual claims means the car needs an oil change. But I got the oil changed just over 1000 miles ago, and I happened to notice that the light came on as the odometer passed exactly 5000 miles, which made me suspicious. And indeed, when I took the car to the friendly local neighborhood car mechanic who’d changed the oil, he confirmed my suspicion that the car just needed to be told it had had its oil changed — but since they don’t have the shop manual for the 2005 Corolla yet, they had no idea how to do it. The two of us together managed to find it, buried in the back of the owner’s manual: turn off the ignition, then turn it on while holding down the trip-odometer reset button for five seconds. Ah, the joys of car computers. (But wait! There’s more! Some luxury cars with Bluetooth cellphone integration may be vulnerable to computer viruses…)

Word count: 120476 | Since last entry: 523 | This month: 2226 It took me almost the entire afternoon today to write, rewrite, edit, trim, rearrange, polish, tweak, and finagle what turned out to be only about 500 net new words, but I think the new prologue is done. I think it’s good, too — I got that little twinge at the back of my throat that’s close to tears, and that means I hit something that really hurts. I think one reason it took so long is that I had to back up and take a running start at the Cedar Point disaster a couple of times before I could actually write the scene. But once I found the entry point… yow. It just came pouring out. Basically I just introduced a new character, built her up, and killed her off in a little over a thousand words. But she’s not just a throwaway — she links to Jason and makes him more sympathetic and his motivations clearer. The act of writing this prologue also helps me get a handle on Jason in a way I never quite managed before. So although it took a lot longer to write than 500 words normally would, I think it’s worthwhile. Especially because it’s the beginning of the novel and it has to hook the reader. Thanks, Dean!

Word count: 119953 | Since last entry: 494 | This month: 1703 A really nasty week at work, with two projects still both in crunch mode (one of them having an offsite meeting all day Thursday and Friday). I didn’t have the energy to write in the evenings, but I made Kate promise to make me work on my novel tonight. Then I came home and noticed we had a party on the calendar. Kate very generously told me to go and write for an hour while she made soup for dinner. I love my Kate. I wrote almost 500 words of the new prologue, then we had dinner and attended a fine party at Sam & Shandra’s, featuring much fine conversation and a keen variation of the game Bottecelli in which one player thinks of a person (announcing the first letter of thenir name) and the others must stump him with trivia questions — whose answers begin with that same letter — to earn the right to ask a yes-or-no question about the person. More writing tomorrow!!

Word count: 119459 | Since last entry: 1209 | This month: 1209 Okay, it’s been a week since I got back from the coast. What have I done since then? Quite a lot, really. On Monday I had the day off from work due to Martin Luther King Day (we don’t usually get MLK Day off, but with Christmas Day and New Year’s Day both falling on weekends this year I think they had some extra holidays just lying around). As it happened, this was the perfect time for the photographer from the local paper to come by and take pictures of our new kitchen. I was so pleased and proud of how the project came out, you see, that I wrote to the Oregonian and suggested that they might want to do a story on it. And they bit! At least enough to send a photographer, we haven’t talked to the reporter yet. I think the thing that tipped the project over the edge was Kate’s kitchen blog (“Gosh wow,” says the Oregonian, “we can be hot and trendy and do a story with this newfangled ‘blog’ thingie in it!” Welcome to the twentieth century.) It’s a good thing this work week was short, because it’s been panic city from one end to the other. I’m still involved in two different projects (neither of which consults with the other before scheduling all-day design meetings), and on Thursday we had a bit of a meltdown on one of them. So I spent most evenings during the week just recovering from work. One bright spot in the week is that the other UI designer got pulled off of one of his two projects so he’s now full-time on one of mine — I can concentrate more on the other. Hmm, looking at my Palm I see that I didn’t just vegetate. We watched the latest episodes of Lost and Battlestar Galactica, attended a live performance of 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @ Amazon.Com, and went to a “Classical Mystery Tour” performance at the Oregon Symphony, featuring the cast of Beatlemania doing excellent Beatles covers with a full symphony orchestra. That was a blast. Also picked up and read about a month and a half’s worth of comics from our local comics pusher. We’ve started a community college Japanese 101 class, beginning preparation for the Worldcon in 2007. Japanese follows the Law of Conservation of Complexity, which dictates that for every area in a language that’s simpler than English, there has to be another that’s more complex. For example, Japanese has a straightforward phonetic writing system, but it has two separate alphabets for the same sounds. Its nouns avoid the complexities of grammar and gender, but there are multiple counting systems. And its verbs have only two tenses, but subtle distinctions of formality. Shikata ga nai. On Saturday, Sara M. and I got together and started work on the unicorn story we outlined back at OryCon. We wrote about 1200 words, and I’m pleased with the results so far. This is a story that neither of us could possibly have written alone, and it’s interesting that so far each of us thinks the other is doing most of the work. The writing has been great fun and I’m looking forward to more next week. Saturday evening Kate and I celebrated twenty years together by going out for dinner with some of the people who were there when we met on New Year’s Day 1985. (Twenty years?!) I did make some progress on the novel this weekend. It’s plain at this point that I will need to write an entire new (but brief) Prologue and do a substantial rewrite on the first Jason chapter, and I’m considering a complete rewrite of the first Clarity chapter as well. But once I’ve snagged the reader I think the rest of the novel will work without major surgery. I had hoped to write at least the new prologue this weekend, but that didn’t happen. I did, though, update my To-Do list to incorporate all the new things to do I got from the novel weekend. It’s currently eight pages long, with items ranging from “Make Jason more protagonisty” to “Names Wind Racer and Desert Wind are too similar”. I don’t expect I’ll actually check off more than about a quarter of them, but at least I have them all in one place. One of those to-do items is — alas! — to change the name Taurans, because Dean says “Tauran” is too similar to “Terran.” And he’s right, dammit. Even though, as Kate says, “But… they are Taurans.” Well, not any more. Now they are, I think, Cetans. I want to sleep on that before commiting the change. Oh, one last writing-related news bit. I got my subscriber copy of the March 2005 Asimov’s, with my story “Tk’tk’tk.” It should be on newsstands soon. My first Asimov’s story, yay!