David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 1549 | Since last entry: 1011

Kate was off at a knitting workshop most of the day (and also succeeded in getting a third iPhone — this time for sure!). I stayed home and wrote. I wasn’t as consistent as I would have liked (AIM is seductive) but I did get a thousand words down. More tomorrow.

Word count: 538 | Since last entry: 538

We’ve seen some amazing things at this year’s Time-Based Art (TBA) Festival. This is TBA’s sixth year and the first year I’ve attended. In the past I looked at the glossy, over-designed festival program and figured it was too artsy. I was partly right, but partly wrong. Friend Janet Lafler explained to me that it is, in effect, the Portland Fringe; it’s full of amazing theatre, interesting lectures on architecture and urban planning, and hands-on workshops. There’s also weirdo performance art, tedious ballet, and strange art-like installations, but you don’t have to attend those. I’m sorry I waited this long to try it.

Here’s what we’ve seen so far:

MONOPOLY!, a monologue by Mike Daisey (probably best known for 21 Dog Years, a monologue about his time staffing the tech support phones at Amazon). This performance wove together the game of Monopoly, filming a training video with Bill Gates, the life of Nikola Tesla, one town’s surrender to Wal-Mart, and trying to create a one-man show about Tesla featuring a giant Tesla coil. Not all the pieces really fit together, but it was absolutely hilarious. At one point, when Daisey was describing Microsoft Word as being like a neurotic ex-girlfriend, the audience was laughing so hard we couldn’t even hear him, but his waggling fingers as he described how Word fiddles with your text just made everyone laugh harder.

A lecture by historian Carl Abbott and architecture critic Randy Gragg about the history of Portland’s South Auditorium District, which is simultaneously an urban renewal horror story (54 blocks of Italian and Jewish neighborhoods were torn down in favor of office parks and condos) and an urban renewal success story (three of the world’s finest parks were created). Lots there I didn’t know, much to think about.

The Portland tour of Tilburg. Okay, picture this: lay the map of the town of Tilburg in the Netherlands over the map of Portland. Now take a group of 30 tourists across Portland on a walking tour of Tilburg, hitting all the major historical and artistic sights, pointing out interesting features of the cityscape, and discussing the impact of urban planning and new development — all without leaving Portland. Our guide Khris Soden started us off with a brief lesson in Dutch, then led us at a brisk pace across “Tilburg.” He described a sculpture while gesturing at a parking meter, then opened an invisible door to allow us into a Tilburg shopping mall that in Portland was an ordinary street. (We were provided with booklets of photographs so we could see the Tilburg streets we were walking along, but they were optional.) It was a fascinating exercise. It was like watching one movie while listening to the soundtrack of another. It was a unique way of getting a real, physical understanding of another city, including its size, the relationship of its parts, and its overall “feel.” And after TBA winds up, he’ll be jetting to the Netherlands to present The Tilburg Tour of Portland! See Khris Soden’s web page for more on this fascinating tour. Note that the pictures in the “Greetings from Tilburg” postcard are actually pictures of Portland and vice versa.

On Saturday I’ll be attending an extemporaneous autobiographical monologue workshop with Mike Daisey, and on Sunday we’re going to an Al Stewart concert, which isn’t part of TBA but should still be very cool.

Meanwhile…

• The wordcount above is for a new story about werewolves in suburbia, which I should really be spending much more time on than I have been.
• Bathroom remodel planning is all done. We have obtained almost all the pieces it is our responsibility to obtain. Demolition begins September 17.
• I’ve decided to try this “instant messaging” thing that all the hep kids are talking about. My AIM screen name is my email address (dlevine at spiritone dot com). I’m not online very much, but if you see me online feel free to chat.
• Kate dropped her two-month-old iPhone and shattered the screen. The “repair” (a replacement phone) cost $200, which is exactly what the phone cost in the first place (better than buying a new phone over the counter, which is $400 if your two-year contract is not yet up). But the replacement phone seems to have a problem with its accelerometer and will be going back to the Genius Bar tomorrow. Argh.
• We’ve decided, at about the last possible minute, to attend Foolscap.
• Don’t forget that I will be giving a reading in San Francisco on September 20, part of the SF in SF reading series. Nick Mamatas will also be presenting.

Word count: 4560 | Since last entry: 689

Finished up the story I started on Sunday (it’s titled “Galacic Stress,” and thanks again to Elise for that) at the coffee shop tonight, and sent it out for a real quick critique. It’ll go in the mail tomorrow.

Went to dinner afterwards with Jay, Karen, and Carole, where I managed to emit three witticisms in quick succession that literally left Jay speechless. He immediately blogged the first one, right there at the table, and the third one was “Did I make milk come out your nose? You aren’t even drinking milk, are you?”

None of us can remember what the second one was. But it was a good’un.

Word count: 3871 | Since last entry: 3299

Today started off at Rejuvenation, the lighting and house parts store, for lighting for the bathroom. (Me to Kate: “I want to go to Rejuv today.” Truly, we live in a science fiction world.) Demolition on the bathroom is currently scheduled to start on September 17 and we have to have all the lighting and other accessories in hand before then.

Shopping trips to Rejuv can easily take all day, but in this case we already knew pretty much what we wanted and we were back home, with lamps in hand, by lunch time. (All but one fixture, which will be shipped later this week.)

In the afternoon, while Kate went online in search of towel rods, toilet paper holder, and other such oddments, I sat down to work on a story inspired by something I’d learned at Launch Pad. This one really has to be in the mail this week, and although I started it yesterday, I only made about 500 words yesterday and I was concerned that I wouldn’t finish in time at that pace.

I needn’t have worried. I wrote almost 3300 words today (even with a trip to Rejuv and making dinner). That might conceivably be a personal record. I think this was possible largely because I’d already thought the story through quite thoroughly; also, it has a linear plot, only one real character, and is based on science stuff I already know pretty well (though I have a couple of web pages open for reference). As literary fiction it’s pretty thin, but I think it will work for the target market.

Now I need to come up with a plausible climax. I know what has to happen, but not exactly how. I don’t doubt I’ll finish tomorrow. The question is, should I even try to get a quick critique before I send it in? It would have to be 24-hour turnaround, and I don’t feel I can impose on my critique group as I haven’t been able to attend a meeting lately (nor will I, until October.)

To bed now. More writing tomorrow.

Finished editing the magic lesbian plumber story and put it in the mail. Also finished putting the labels and stamps on the mailed copies of Bento #20. Also went to the gym, had lunch with a writer friend, and did some other errands.

I had a humungous list of to-do items when we got back from Denver. It’s now almost two weeks later and I’ve gotten most of the stuff in the “do today” and “do this week” sub-lists done, and part of the “do next week” list. I knew at the time the list was insanely ambitious, so this is reasonable progress. Still much to do before we leave for Farthing Party, a week from today.

One of those to-do list items is to blog about a contract issue. I mentioned this issue at lunch with some newer writers during the Worldcon, and they suggested that I ought to blog it as a public service announcement.

A while ago I got a contract from a market I’d never sold to before. It included the following clause:

Author hereby agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Publisher against any cost, loss, damage, expense and judgment resulting from any breach of Author’s warranties and representations herein, including, without limitation, any settlement payments and attorneys’ fees and expenses, costs and disbursements.

Can you spot the problem?

At first glance this seems harmless (you should pardon the expression) enough. It means that if I, the Author, mess up and violate the warranties set up earlier in the contract — that is, if the story is not original, or is not my own work, or has been published before, or contains slanderous or libelous material — it’s my fault and not the Publisher’s, and I have to pay the damages.

The problem here is that the clause is missing the magic words “action finally sustained.” As written, it enables the Publisher to respond to anyone who comes to them with an unsubstantiated claim like “this story of the Author’s sends out klystron radiation that sterilized my cat!” by saying “okay, here’s a million bucks” and it’s the Author, not the Publisher, who has to pay it (plus attorney’s fees and expenses).

Of course, you don’t expect the Publisher to actually do that. But one of the rules of contracts is that you have to assume that the moment the contract is signed, both you and the Publisher will be hit by a meteor and the Publisher will be replaced by your worst enemy in the world. The purpose of contracts is to protect both sides from anything like that.

So. Adding the magic words “action finally sustained” means that the Publisher can’t just settle any random claim using the Author’s money. It means that you only have to pay out if the claim stands up in court.

I responded to the contract above by suggesting the following new language:

Author hereby agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Publisher against any cost, loss, damage, expense, and judgment in any action finally sustained resulting from any breach of Author’s warranties and representations herein, including, without limitation, attorneys’ fees and expenses, costs and disbursements.

The Publisher accepted this change and thanked me for suggesting the new language.

The moral of this story is to read and understand your contract, look for the magic words “action finally sustained,” and don’t be afraid to negotiate.

At the Worldcon, Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor asked me to edit my blog posts about Launch Pad into an article for the tor.com website. I did so, and it’s just been posted here.

I still owe you a Worldcon report, but here’s a brief “I’m not dead” report consisting of several miscellaneous items.

I came home from Denver to a mile-long to-do list. I’ve been terribly busy and productive in the last week, but not so much with the writing. Lots of “writing-related program activities,” though, including galleys, submissions, self-promotion, and such.

I was on jury duty. As it happened, I was called down for one jury but not selected. But I have done my civic duty.

At a Worldcon panel, Tom Whitmore defined “famous” as “more people know you than you know people.” (This implies that anyone with a poor memory is “famous,” but never mind that.) Apparently, though, I am famous, because after I mentioned in the jury panel that I am a science fiction writer two people came up to me to talk with me about it. And when I deposited my most recent check at the bank, the teller looked at the check and said “what’s this about a Nebula award?” so I explained to him that the story hadn’t won but will be appearing in the annual Nebula anthology. I gave each of these three people a Space Magic promotional card. I feel so professional. (But see above about writing-related program activities vs. actual writing.)

Now that it’s been officially announced, I can reveal that I sold short story “Sun Magic, Earth Magic” to new webzine Beneath Ceaseless Skies. The first draft of this story was written for a challenge from my Writers of the Future 2002 alumni group, which was to write a story in 24 hours on the topic of caving or cave diving. It was inspired by the story of caver Floyd Collins, who was trapped in Sand Cave in 1925. Another story written for the same challenge, “We Are the Cat” by Carl Fredrick, was published in Asimov’s.

As previously mentioned, I will be appearing in San Francisco on September 20, as part of the SF in SF reading series. The new news here is that my co-presenter will be Nick Mamatas.