David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Finally broke my nearly-month-long non-writing streak yesterday; I’m incorporating comments on the New Orleans story from my alpha readers, preparatory to sending it to my critique group. After I send that off I’ll work on editing the novella.

In other writing news, I got another rejection, this one from F&SF for the twice-rewritten Jupiter story. Gordon appreciated the effort I’d put in but he still isn’t connecting with the story, alas. Asimov’s is next on the list for that one, but I just sent another story there. Must ponder whether to send it elsewhere or hold onto it until Asimov’s opens up.

Also, my robot servants found a brief review of “I Hold My Father’s Paws” in a Portugese blog. Google’s translation: “In this story of David Levine, the irrigation ditch between father and son is closed through one bizarra mesclagem of biotechnology with the desire so human being to be free of all the concerns.” My thoughts exactly.

Tonight we saw Hedwig and the Angry Inch, with local phenomenon Wade McCollum in the title role. The plot didn’t exactly hang together — in fact, I’m not really sure what happened at the end — but McCollum was amazing. I can’t imagine anyone else pulling off the vocal, physical, and emotional demands of that role. The next time he appears in anything, we’ll be there.

Just back from a quick trip to Seattle, where we enjoyed the hospitality of Hal and Ulrika O’Brien (and their very enthusiastic dog Sarah and cat Tinka) and attended not just one, but two Clarion parties: one at the home of Kate Schaefer and Glenn Hackney and the other at the home of author Greg Bear. The second, a Clarion tradition was an unexpected bonus, where we were treated to a delicious dinner and the sights of the Bears’ lakefront home as well as fine company including authors Terry Brooks and Kathleen Alcala. Other people we conversed with at one party or the other included Nalo Hopkinson (this week’s Clarion instructor), Mark & Elizabeth Bourne, Dave Howell, Luke & Julie McGuff, Jane Hawkins, Jerry Kaufman & Suzle Tompkins, Nevenah Smith, Anita Rowland & Jack Bell, Mary Kay & Jordin Kare, Nisi Shawl, Cyn Ward, Vonda McIntyre, Eileen Gunn & John Berry, L. Timmel Duchamp, Andy Hooper & Carrie Root, Marci Malinowycz, Margaret Organ-Kean, and many others.

In addition to the parties, we joined in a delightful dim sum expedition at Jade Garden (where they had spoo!!) and visited a couple of yarn shops and the U. District Farmers’ Market (where we acquired a couple of different apple ciders and several cans of locally-caught tuna). On the way to the Bears’ we picked up a baker’s dozen donuts at Top Pot, home of some of the finest donuts on the planet, where I also got an Ovaltine latte (?!).

This morning started with a delicious breakfast with our hosts at the Brown Bag Cafe in Redmond (where a single plate from the “light” portion of the menu provided brunch for both of us, with enough left over for dinner for both of us) followed by a side trip to the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. The most interesting bit of the museum was “Jane’s Hot Shop”, where a team of glass artists were at work on a life-sized skeleton in black glass; another intriguing exhibit featured glass dresses, cast (indirectly) from life. Much of the rest was, unfortunately, disturbing and macabre. Tacoma itself was also a mixed bag, combining dramatic architecture and natural views with charmless industrial areas.

Once returned home, we put some of the tuna together with new potatoes and lettuces from our weekly basket-o-vegies to make a nice Salad Nicoise, then I put the three stories rejected last week back in the mail (go me) as well as doing some other writing-related paperwork. And now, to bed.

Well, after a long dry spell of no responses at all, I got three rejections in the mail today. Looks like Friday the 13th came on a Thursday this month.

To take a bit of the sting out, yesterday I received an email from someone with a slashed L in his name, offering to buy translation rights to “Tk’Tk’Tk” for Nowa Fantastyka, a respected Polish SF magazine. They also wanted electronic copies of two other stories for further consideration. Not too shabby.

Also, the Asimov’s rejection came with an invitation to autograph for an hour at their dealer’s table at the Worldcon. I’m pleased, and I’ll do it, though I doubt many people want my autograph.

I have written nothing in almost three weeks, and this doesn’t seem likely to change in the next few days. I finished up one story right before leaving for Anaheim, and the next thing on the plate was revisions on another story. Which, because my revision process involves spreading papers out around my writing chair, was exceedingly difficult to do on the plane. Then… well, I should stop even pretending I’m going to try to get any writing done at conventions. And when I got home I found I’d brought back a mild but exceptionally annoying cold, which I am only now getting over, and there was a pile of chores to do (about some of which, perhaps, more later) with what little energy I had left.

Tomorrow we’re heading to Seattle, to attend the Clarion party at the home of Kate and Glenn. We’ll be staying with Hal and Ulrika on Friday and possibly Saturday night, and would welcome an opportunity to get together with Seattleites while we’re there.

After I return I’ll put those three stories back in the mail and start in on the editing.

Back from Los Angeles. Came home with a mild summer cold that is surprisingly persistent and enervating. Trip report coming eventually. No writing in over a week. Bad me. One piece of writing news: My Aeon Award shortlisted story “I Hold My Father’s Paws” can now be read online, for free, at Infinity Plus: http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/paws.htm. Enjoy.

Word count: 7760 | Since last entry: -1170

No writing this weekend, as we were busy playing host to Kate’s sister and three of her kids. We went to the zoo. I’m exhausted.

Tonight I hacked out the entire second performance, which had some nice descriptive passages but didn’t advance the plot, and several paragraphs of atmosphere, along with general trimming here and there. Then I went back and replaced some of the best sentences I’d cut, slotting them in in place of similar sentences not quite as good that happened to be in scenes that remained. It’s still a bit long for a short story, but a lot more plausible. I can perhaps find a way to trim the remaining 200 words or so if necessary.

I’m sending it off to a few key first readers (including a couple of New Orleanians) tonight.

Word count: 8930 | Since last entry: 1735

Finished up the first draft of the New Orleans story. It’s grown to novella size, but I think that might just be the size it wants to be… unless I cut the whole arthritis subplot, which is a possibility.

Sleep now. It’ll be a busy weekend.

Word count: 7195 | Since last entry: 1300

Another good writing day on the train. This time I didn’t miss my stop either coming or going.

All the cards are in play now, the main character knows what he’s up against, and all he has to do is figure out what to do about it and how to convince everyone else to go along with it. I should be able to wrap this up in less than a thousand words. Which will give me a fighting chance to edit it below 7500.

Unfortunately, the timing is bad for critique group, because it’s not going to be done before the next meeting and I’ll be missing the one after that, so it might be almost two months until I get my crit. Oh well, sometimes things work out that way.

Word count: 5895 | Since last entry: 108

No writing today, and only a little yesterday, but it was a good weekend anyway: we went to the Pride festival, saw singer/songwriter Jill Sobule, and hosted a party on the occasion of Paul McCartney’s 64th birthday. We were a little concerned that not enough people would show, but in the end it was a nice little dinner party and everyone had a great time and lots of good food.

As part of the party, we held a Beatles Lyrics Scavenger Hunt. Various objects scattered about the house represented Beatles lyrics; the challenge for our guests was to find and identify them. This proved to be much harder than we’d anticipated it would be; only a couple people found more than one. (Though some people found several we hadn’t planted deliberately, and they got full credit for those.)

For those playing along at home, we’ve made it a little easier by pointing out which objects are the actual scavenger hunt items. Your challenge is just to figure out what Beatles lyrics they represent. (Hover your mouse over a picture to see the answer.)

Word count: 5787 | Since last entry: 887

Good progress on the writing in the last few days. I just wrote a horrific little scene that’s all the more scary because it’s not fiction at all.

I didn’t sleep too well last night, but it had nothing to do with the story I’m working on. As you may recall, we bought some software to help plan our trip to Disneyland. Well, a friend read this blog and decided he’d buy a copy too. But just as I was going to bed last night I got an email from him saying that his anti-spyware program had detected a keylogger in the Disney planner’s installer.

This was not a good thing. Keyloggers are among the worst kinds of spyware; they log your every keystroke and send them to bad guys who troll the data for passwords, account numbers, and other information that can be used to steal your money and your identity. I started wondering what secure websites I’d visited in the last few days.

But I ran a couple of different spyware checks on my system, and I read up on the keylogger his anti-spyware program had detected and looked for any sign of that one specifically, and I found nothing. Maybe it had been a false positive. I shut down and went to bed some time after midnight.

I rolled over at 6am and was instantly, thoroughly awake. I got up, booted the computer, and ran another couple of checks. Still nothing. But some spyware can be pretty stealthy. I submitted a copy of the installer program to my security software vendor. The automatic reply came back in a few minutes, saying that nothing obvious was found and that they’d get a human being to look into it.

By lunchtime I got the response: no sign whatsoever of any spyware. I asked my friend to send a query to his anti-spyware vendor. Eventually he heard back; they agreed that it was probably a false positive. Whew, and grr.

So: nothing lost but a few frazzled nerves. But it did kind of put a pinch on the whole day.

Word count: 4900 | Since last entry: 677

I got absorbed in my work and missed my stop on the train. Fortunately, when I noticed the problem (two stops later) I got off and was able to catch a train going the other way just a few minutes later. The same thing happened last week, though on the inbound instead of the outbound commute.

Another way that writing is dangerous is that it can break your heart. Man, if you ever want to find out just how much one of your stories sucks, just get it nominated for a major award. I should learn to stop reading my reviews but I can’t help myself. I am a hack and my “aliens” are just stereotypical Orientals in rubber suits.

Having written nearly all of day 2 of the story, I see a couple of problems: 1) the supernatural event on day 2 happens during the day, which has atmospheric problems as well as violating the rules I’ve set for myself, and 2) having written day 2, I’m not sure that day 3 is different enough (i.e. moves the plot forward enough) to justify its existence.

After thinking about it a while, I think I may be able to solve both problems by rejiggering the outline as follows: eliminate the morning of day 3, rewrite the afternoon of day 2 to be the evening of day 3, and eliminate all of day 4 except the night (which is the climax of the story). A more drastic rewrite would lose the morning of day 2 (which I just wrote today, sob) in favor of the morning of day 3, but I think I may have the content of that scene already covered elsewhere.

This new outline, covering only 2 very long days, means dropping the date headers on each day. No biggie. Could be a good thing, in fact, because it solves the phase-of-the-moon problem. Just need to establish the approximate date in text (nail it hard on the first page!).

Even after eliminating 2 full days of the original outline there’s still a lot to write. However, this outline goes into more detail than the old one; I might be able to squeeze it into 8000 words all told, and then edit it down to below 7500. We’ll see.

I’m babbling; I have no idea if this will make sense to anyone else. Another way that writing is dangerous is that it keeps me up much too late. Good night.