The Days Are Just Packed     
The ongoing saga of David D. Levine's writing and other adventures.

I'm a geek, fan, and writer who lives in Portland, Oregon. For more information about me, please see my web page. If you have questions, comments, or just want to chat, you can send me e-mail. Or you can post a comment on my LiveJournal.

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12/31/03: David's Index for 2003

Word count: 47495 | Since last entry: 825 | This month: 10029

Novel words written: 47,495
Notes and outline words written: 18,381
New short story words written: 17,870
Total words written: 83,746

Short stories written: 3 new (TecoCon, Jupiter, Hell) plus 2 revised (LaborDay, Salesman)

Submissions sent: 41
Responses received: 42
Acceptances: 8 (5 pro, 3 non-paying)
Rejections: 31
Non-responses: 3 (1 lost submission, 2 magazines folded)
Awaiting response: 6

Happy New Year!

Posted 12/31/2003 20:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 46670 | Since last entry: 1037 | This month: 9204

A difficult scene tonight: Clarity flashes back to her break-up with Jason, and the long-buried (too-long-buried) secret of what happened at Cedar Point is revealed. Didn't go into a lot of detail, and left some questions open about exactly what Clarity knew and when she knew it. The scene also has a lot of parallels with Jason's flashback on how he and Clarity met. This is deliberate, but is it too heavy-handed?

This flashback actually goes with the revised Prologue I discussed with Jim and Sara at OryCon, though it doesn't contradict anything in the current draft. I'm also making a few changes in the Taurans' behavior based on previous critiques, something I said I wouldn't do, but the changes are fairly minor.

I'm very tired. Didn't sleep well last night. Also spent some of this evening sweeping snow off the walk. Snow! I might be stuck at home tomorrow...

Posted 12/30/2003 21:50 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45633 | Since last entry: 575 | This month: 8167

Well, 500 words is better than nothing, though I was hoping for 1000+.

Spent some of Sunday and a chunk of this evening re-reading earlier chapters to get my head back in the world of the novel, and adding a few points to the outline for this chapter. I have some things I've been thinking about for a while now -- Clarity gets a change of clothes, Clarity's perspective on her break-up with Jason, and a murder -- which aren't in the original outline but seem to fit here. Lots to cover in this chapter and not a lot of time to do it, and I'm definitely behind my very tight schedule. But I keep plugging away.

Tonight I wrote a conversation with Honor and Clarity in which he reveals just how pissed he is at her, she tries to get his help tracking down the fugitive Jason, and I try to show how and why the aliens use telepathy vs. sign language. Don't know if it works. Moving forward anyway.

Posted 12/29/2003 22:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1710 | This month: 7592

Finished the Hell story and sent it to my critique group this afternoon. Yay!

I wound up not killing the assistant off. But in my Hell there are worse things than death: instead I subjected him to an eternity of paperwork. The Curse of Beazoel! It's gentle and silly and I think it works. We'll see what my crit group thinks.

Now I have one week to write a novel chapter. Tomorrow's largely spoken for, as are New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Things don't look good for our hero. But I will try.

Posted 12/27/2003 21:20 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 525 | This month: 5882

Spent most of today preparing for and then hosting a Boxing Day open house. Many fine people came, including Jay Lake and Mary Rosenblum. We played Fluxx, Boggle, and Apples to Apples, ate cookies, pizza, and soup, and had a great time.

I did manage to write 500 words first thing upon arising, deepening the conflict between the old-style and new-style demons and laying a little more ground work for the climax. This is good, but I must finish this story tomorrow -- 1000-2000 more words. And I still don't know exactly what precipitates the climax.

I love a challenge.

Posted 12/26/2003 22:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1027 | This month: 5357

Happy Yuletide!

Woke up this morning with no work to go to, so lay in bed for 45 minutes thinking about the story. By the end of it I knew how the rest of the story would go. Then, after a day of eating and unwrapping presents and wrapping presents (we haven't yet figured out when we're getting together with Kate's relatives, so I didn't get their presents wrapped until today) and a second viewing of The Return of the King I sat down and wrote for a couple of hours. At this rate I might even get done by Saturday!

Here are my thoughts from this morning (spoilers ho!).

First I thought about what my main character can and can't do -- he's allowed to reorganize his staff, but not hire or fire or transfer staff in or out of his department (and he can't demote his obnoxious assistant). Then I changed the red devils to pink demons to create a conflict among the staff. (Basically, the pink demons -- think man-size plastic Ken dolls with horns -- are marketing types, while the other varieties of demon are technical types.) This sets him up to try and fail to resolve the problem -- the department isn't making quota because the majority pink demons are so technically clueless that even the clever and resourceful technical demons can't overcome it, but though he can shuffle things around he can't really change the situation. But he does have the ability to create a sub-project, move all the technical demons into it, and assign himself to head it, leaving the obnoxious assistant in charge of all the pink demons. If he puts the pink demons back to work on mass production, which even they can't mess up, with the Internet for distribution, and adds a limited amount of custom temptation hand-crafted by his team of techies, the department as a whole succeeds.

The only problem with this solution is that it lets the obnoxious assistant off the hook. I want him to die. Specifically, I want him to get dispelled because of his own pettifogging, bureaucratic attitude. But I've set the situation up so that the techie team cannot succeed by itself, which means that the pink demons can't be allowed to fail, so the assistant can't be dispelled for failure to meet quota.

Maybe I'll find another way to kill the assistant off. In the last scene I wrote I found my main character being surprisingly insightful and multi-cultural. I swear I didn't set the situation up consciously. (He's turning into quite an admirable chap, despite being a Pit Demon from Hell. I hope the readers don't find the story too P.C..) So, since the story continues to surprise me, I imagine a solution to this problem will appear as well.

By the way... I am not one of those writers who burbles about characters telling me what to do. I am the writer, I am in charge, I am making it all up. But, in creating something as complex as a story, you have to make a lot of micro-decisions as you go. Sometimes these micro-decisions can suggest macro-changes that you hadn't originally intended. For example, in writing a scene showing the conflict between the two groups of demons, I made a micro-decision about specifically how the main character resolves the conflict (he spits in his hand before shaking hands on a deal), which demonstrates his cultural sensitivity to one of the two groups, which implies things about his character I hadn't thought out consciously. It followed naturally from other decisions I made, but it was still a surprise to me.

Does this make any sense?

Posted 12/25/2003 22:41 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 387 | This month: 4330

Did a little writing between dinner and decorating the tree tonight. Got to the point of having one character actually ask the other "So, what's the problem?" (Yes, sometimes my characters ask each other the questions I'm asking myself. In many cases this doesn't survive to the final draft.)

Made a couple of false starts at an answer, and finally had the second character (the bad guy, though he's more annoying than villainous) give his perspective on the problem, which is a surprise to the first character and (though the first character isn't certain of this yet) objectively wrong. Have not written the first character's response to this statement. However, I know what he's thinking, and this little exchange definitely sets up the conflict between them.

Now I know where the middle of the story has to go. But I'm lacking some details, and I still don't know how my main character's going to get out of it...

Posted 12/23/2003 22:07 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 962 | This month: 3943

It's been a rough week of no writing since the last entry. I was mildly sick for a couple of days -- just a sore throat, but it really sapped my energy. At work I have been desperately busy, with a couple of major projects due by the end of the year. Spare time has been taken up with holiday shopping, decorating, and parties (which were fun, but do interfere with writing). And then I got a skin infection on my foot that required antibiotics, and then I got a reaction to the antibiotic. So now I'm achy and itchy and tired and crabby. But I made myself write tonight, and produced about a thousand words, for a total of over 2000 on the story. With luck I will still finish it by this weekend. Although at this point it would take a miracle to get this and a novel chapter done by the next crit group meeting.

Still don't know exactly how the story turns out, though a minor character has appeared from nowhere (he took so many lines I just had to give him a name, and now he has a personality and everything). This gives me some hope that the missing plot twist could appear in the same way.

Whatever. I haul my poor infected body to bed now.

Posted 12/22/2003 21:46 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 577 | This month: 2981

Spent the weekend with my parents in McMinville (didn't make Bend on account of too much snow in the pass). Saw the Spruce Goose, stayed at the Hotel Oregon, played games, talked, ate too much. After seeing them off at the airport today, Kate encouraged me to sit down and write, and I did. Thanks, Kate! To bed now.

Posted 12/15/2003 22:34 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 536 | This month: 2404

And we're off on another story. This one is set in Hell, and it's for a themed anthology -- not the one called The Anthology from Hell, this one's invitation-only. Why two Hell anthologies at once? Steam engine time, I guess.

I would really like to be working on my novel, too. But I promised I would write this story, and it's due in January so I'd better get cracking. My goal is a finished first draft in two weeks. We'll see.

This story is the flip side of my "bureaucrats in Heaven" story from Clarion (not yet submitted anywhere). Like the angel character in that story, my demon main character suffers the worst thing that ever happened to me in my job: promotion to management. I know what his current situation is, at both a micro level (he hates his new job and wishes he could go back to being an individual contributor) and a macro level (population pressure has forced Hell to move to a mass-production footing, meaning that talented demons like him are needed to manage the process instead of pitchforking individual damned souls). I know what happens at the end of the story. I'm just not sure yet what happens in between.

So far I have set the scene and introduced the character. I like him and I think I have a voice for the story. He's already in trouble. Now I have to make it worse.

I'm going to give him an assistant. Mwah hah hah.

Posted 12/11/2003 22:14 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: -64 | This month: 1868

Edited the Jupiter story, now titled "Interview with the Photographer", and emailed it off to the editor. Despite previous statements to the effect that I could cut it massively, I wound up trimming just 64 words all told. It's just the length it is, I guess. (I'm giving myself a silver star for the -64 words.)

As I have already mentioned several times, this story is probably too long and too late for its intended market (even though I skipped the critique to get it in a week or two earlier), but I decided it was worth sending anyway. If it comes back, I will have it critiqued and then try Analog.

When I went to record the submission in my tracking spreadsheet, I realized that the upcoming anthology deadlines of 2/1 and 3/1 are not really "in February" and "in March" respectively, they should really be considered "end of January" and "end of February" -- much closer. The end of January is just 7 weeks away, ack! I may have to put the novel on hold for a whle, rather than alternating chapters and short stories as I'd planned. And the zeppelin story will probably not happen at all, unless I can squeeze it out in an enthusiastic weekend.

On the other hand, I did do the Jupiter story, start to finish, in 19 days. Go me. I like being productive!

For now, to bed.

Posted 12/09/2003 21:47 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1440 | This month: 1932

Finished the first draft of the Jupiter story yesterday morning, huzzah! I read it to Kate and I think it works well. It's also almost 6000 words. I wanted 3000. I think I can trim it by as much as 10% (600 words) but there's no way it's getting much below 5000 in its current form. Oh well. At least it's a good story, and if it's too long for Cosmic Tales of the Far Future I think it's got a good shot at Analog.

The current title is "The True Story of Merganther's Drive", which is a pretty good title but, unfortunately, isn't quite accurate (the facts of Merganther's Drive are never in question within the story, only the facts about this one particular photograph). I think I'm going to fall back to "Interview with the Photographer".

Now I have to decide whether to have it critiqued, or just send it straight to the editor. I'm leaning toward the latter. Ponder ponder ponder.

Tomorrow I will get back to work on the novel.

Posted 12/07/2003 21:26 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 492 | This month: 492

Darn, I was sure I'd written just over 500 words, not just under. I'm giving myself a gold star anyway.

The month is not off to a good start, given that I didn't write at all for the first three days of it and I need to finish this story by Saturday if I want to get it critiqued at the next session. Monday I was still too pooped from the trip to write, Tuesday we went to Nalo Hopkinson's reading at Powell's, followed by a pleasant dinner with her at Pho Van, and yesterday I stayed late at work to finish up a usability test report, then had to go to bed early for a 7am meeting this morning (bleah). Tonight I determined to write something, despite the other chores that needed to be done (did get some of those done, though).

The Jupiter story is charging toward its climax. I have destroyed two planets already (and not just your pitsy or obscure planets either, no sir!), with one more to go; not bad for a short story. It's longer than I'd hoped, might even hit 5000 words before it's done, but as I said before I think I know where I can cut.

Busy, busy, busy. Must rest now.

Posted 12/04/2003 21:51 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1064 | This month: 12940

The weekend started off well, with 700+ words written while Kate took a spell at the wheel, and I managed another couple hundred words on Friday. But I haven't written a thing since then.

Despite that, I'm happy with my Not Really National Novel Writing Month. The nearly 13,000 words I wrote in November is significantly better than the 10,500 I wrote for the Pseudo-NaNoWriMo back in March, and I'm nearly to the midpoint of the novel.

The Jupiter story stands at 3800 words, with the final complication in place and only the setup for the climax and the climax itself to go. It will probably be about 4500 words when I finish the first draft, but I have some ideas of things I can cut. (It's important that it be short because I'm trying to squeeze into an anthology that is probably already full.) I also want to rewrite part of a scene I finished earlier, to better establish the main character's priorities and make the climax more plausible. Still hope to finish the story this week.

Posted 12/01/2003 21:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 182 | This month: 11876

Just a little writing tonight, squeezed in between packing to go out of town and going to bed early (we're hitting the road bright and early tomorrow).

I feel good about the Jupiter story. It's got a light breezy feel, kind of a Texas tall tale of the far future, and I think I've found a way to get a dramatic ending without being either nihilistic or sappy. A real Analog story. It's about 2700 words now, probably going to be around 4000 when I finish this draft, which means it can be tightened to about 3500. Might even finish the first draft on the trip.

If anyone is reading this... have a happy Turkey Day! I'll be back late Sunday night, but might not post again until Monday.

Posted 11/26/2003 21:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 582 | This month: 11694

I decided to take yesterday off. Tonight, despite attending a Barenaked Ladies concert (they rock!) I wrote almost 600 words. Yoo rah. I have other things to say here, but at the moment bed calls.

Posted 11/25/2003 22:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 515 | This month: 11112

Plenty of chores today -- laundry, groceries, unpacking from OryCon -- and a symphony concert, but still got over 500 words written on the Jupiter story (which I'm now thinking about titling "Interview with the Photographer") and still got to bed before midnight. I'm pleased.

It's going to be a challenge to finish the Jupiter story and chapter 5 before the next crit group meeting, with Thanksgiving in there. But I just discovered I will be out of town for the next crit group meeting, which casts a different light on things. What to do? I'm going to sleep on it.

Posted 11/23/2003 22:07 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 207 | This month: 10597

Like yesterday, I had a busy day, didn't start writing until way late, and wrote only a couple hundred words (just to keep up the streak). But I received my critiques on Chapter 4 -- they still like the book, though they reminded me of the problems I already know about (Jason's a wimp and Clarity isn't alien enough) as pointed out some new ones (there isn't enough physical description of the aliens, especially of individual aliens; there's no indication why it would be a bad thing if the Green Hills bunch took over; Clarity goes into the task force meeting knowing nothing about the humans she's meeting with, she would have been thoroughly briefed; the new human characters Flannery and Vance need to be better developed).

All good stuff for the second draft. For now, I'm continuing on the Deconstructing Jupiter story. I had been having some trouble coming up with an ending (unusually for me, I started writing without knowing the end of the story), but now I think I have one in mind. The question is: can I destroy the Earth and still have it be an upbeat ending? At the moment I think I can, and it'll certainly be a hell of a climax (many writers threaten to destroy the world, but not many follow through on the threat). There are all sorts of cues in what I've written so far indicating that Something Bad Happened, and I can amp those up to build tension. This'll be interesting.

Also today I picked up my new glasses -- my first progressive lenses, but it's not nearly as traumatic as I had been warned it might be. They're kind of weird, but not much weirder than my last pair of new glasses, and my near vision is noticeably better than with the old ones. The bad news is that they came with a big scratch in one lens, which will have to be replaced.

This evening I attended a party where I didn't know anyone, but had a nice long talk with syndicated humor columnist Marc Acito, who just sold his first novel, and the movie rights -- a real Cinderella story. He was very encouraging, said he liked my pitch.

Must sleep now!

Posted 11/22/2003 22:52 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 217 | This month: 10390

Kate's out of town, so I worked late, did my critiques for tomorrow, did some convention-related web stuff and other chores, spent too much time reading friends' weblogs (bloglines.com makes this far too easy), and didn't even start writing until 11:00. Still, I do get a silver star for writing something. More tomorrow, I promise.

Posted 11/21/2003 22:49 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 1037 | This month: 10173

Couldn't decide between staying home and writing tonight and going to a square dance. Kate finally suggested that she could drive and I could write in the car to and from. It worked great! I also wrote a little bit in the breaks between tips, and a little more after we got home, for a total of over a thousand words. Woo hoo!

Note that the "word count" above has not gone up (that's the novel word count), though the "since last entry" and "this month" counts have. The difference is what I've written so far on a short story for an anthology called Cosmic Tales of the Far Future, which is invitation-only and probably already full, but it's a great market and even if I don't sell this story to this market it'll get my work in front of the editor and I'll have another story in inventory. Working title is "Deconstructing Jupiter."

The whole story so far is told in the same breathless voice as the last paragraph. I'm trying to portray this particular hunk of the far future as a time just as exciting as the Wild West or the early days of the Internet. I may wind up cutting a lot of the words I wrote tonight, but I'm getting a real feel for the time.

At this rate (which I doubt I can keep up, but maybe...) I'll be done with this story in less than a week and I can get it and another chapter done in time for the crit group meeting after next. We'll see.

For now, life is exciting! Voom!

Posted 11/20/2003 21:51 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 0 | This month: 9136

No actual novel words, nor short story words, today. But I formatted and printed out the completed chapter D, added 345 words to the synopsis (summarizing chapter 4) and printed that out, and made copies, so the package is ready for Saturday's crit group meeting. I also resubmitted a story that bounced back from The Edge (UK magazine) to Argosy. So I'm giving myself a silver star for writing-related effort.

Posted 11/19/2003 21:48 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 45058 | Since last entry: 518 | This month: 9136

I hadn't quite meant it to come out this way, but the last scene of the chapter turned into Sienna's Saint Crispin's Day Speech. I had fun playing with her tone of voice and body language, but I didn't really indicate how her listeners responded. I'm relying on the reader to respond for them. This may be a mistake, but that's the way it is for now. My other concern is that the level of bombast ratchets up too far too fast, but we'll see what the crit group thinks.

That's the end of the chapter, so I get a gold star and a green star for today. Tomorrow I start on a short story, and critiques. Go me!

Posted 11/18/2003 21:45 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 44540 | Since last entry: 346 | This month: 8618

OryCon was fun, but the weekend went voom! About a dozen people came to my reading, most of my panels were well attended, Opening Ceremonies went well, and Whose Line was a riot. But I only hit about three parties (including the Baen party, where Sara and Jim and I sat in the back room talking -- mostly about my novel -- for hours) and attended maybe a half-dozen panels other than mine. I'm not quite sure where all the time went. Certainly not sleeping.

Alas, I've broken my streak of writing every day this month. I wrote a couple hundred words on Friday before the con, and a couple hundred tonight, but nothing on Saturday or Sunday. On Saturday after the Baen party I did write nearly 500 words of notes on a new direction for Jason, to make him a more active character (but that isn't reflected in the word count above). It involves scrapping the current Prologue and writing a new chapter in its stead, in which Jason takes some kind of direct, physically dangerous action. Many of the events of chapter A (to be renamed chapter B, and so on) would still take place, but the power dynamic between Jason and Sienna shifts radically, and the changes would echo down through the novel with decreasing force. For example: If Jason steals the biocomputer in the new chapter A, he's not still going to be alive and free in chapter B unless he knows about the government's omnipresent audio monitors before that. So Sienna can't tell him about their existence in chapter B, and the whole "Jason researches the audio monitors" scene -- with its cool technology -- goes out the window. Ponder ponder ponder.

I'm not going to change it now, though. Must finish first draft first.

I have just one more (short!) scene to write in chapter D, then I have critiques to do and a short story to start. It may be mostly short stories for the next couple of months, actually, though I hope to keep plugging away at the novel as well. (Ha.)

Posted 11/17/2003 21:47 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 44194 | Since last entry: 521 | This month: 8272

Just introduced "the Infector", a gizmo that I believe will be the maguffin (is there an official spelling or capitalization for that word?) for the whole rest of the book. The scene feels pretty flabby to me. Partly this is a result of writing in small bits rather than long stretches. Partly I'm still damn tired -- though I got to bed early last night, I woke up well before the alarm clock.

I'm not going to catch up on sleep any time soon, though, because OryCon starts tomorrow. I do intend to write every day at the con, though I'm not going to be posting my daily word counts here until Sunday evening at the latest. Wish me luck!

Posted 11/13/2003 20:36 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 43673 | Since last entry: 198 | This month: 7751

Although it's been a really productive month, I've been making the time to write by staying up late, and today it caught up with me in a big way. I was just kind of dragging around the office, yawning every five minutes. So tonight I wrote a bare minimum, just a few paragraphs to keep up the streak, and now I'm going to bed early.

Posted 11/12/2003 20:42 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 43475 | Since last entry: 264 | This month: 7553

OryCon business took up a chunk of this evening, but I did find the time to write something. Largely edits and tweaks on yesterday's scene, and a few hundred more words. Fixed a logic error.

God, I'm tired. I think ten days of cumulative lack-of-sleep is catching up with me...

Posted 11/11/2003 21:42 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 43211 | Since last entry: 734 | This month: 7289

In tonight's exciting episode, Jason demos the computer virus to Sienna. A rip-roaring, spine-tingling scene of low-resolution computer graphics.

Okay, even in a thriller there have to be a few hundred words of exposition. Cope.

Posted 11/10/2003 22:22 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 42477 | Since last entry: 530 | This month: 6555

It's a breakthrough for Jason, not for me. I finished up the current section with the scene I began on 11/6, in which Jason explains packet-based wireless communication to Chopper using a handful of bullets and a magazine as a visual aid, and Chopper uses the analogy to suggest a solution to Jason's problem (without really understanding the problem itself). The trick was to come up with something Chopper would reasonably say, and that would point Jason in the direction of the solution but leave the key insight to Jason. It helps that I can change the technology to match the analogy -- a power I don't have in my day job!

The transition between the end of the sex scene flashback and the beginning of the technology-analogy discussion is clunky. I may revisit it tomorrow.

When I see NaNoWriMo participants writing 2000 words a day (which they have to, to achieve 50k words in a month), I look at my 500- and 600-word days and think "I could do better". But those 500 and 600 words a day really add up, when you write every single day. At this rate I'll be finished with the current chapter before OryCon, and then I can work on a short story for a while.

It may be crap, but I feel way productive. And, frankly, I don't think it's crap. Oh, it may be kind of infodumpy and in need of tightening, and Jason's motivations are muddled and the aliens aren't alien enough. But this is a first draft, dammit, and these things can be corrected in rewrite. Onward!

Posted 11/09/2003 20:42 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 41947 | Since last entry: 716 | This month: 6025

Wrote a moderately explicit sex scene (in flashback) with Jason and Clarity. Is it gay sex, or straight sex? Even the characters aren't sure. It's certainly transgressive. I suspect some heads will explode in my crit group. It'll be interesting to see how the various people react to it.

At this point my major worry is that the whole chapter's too info-dumpy. But I hope that putting the information on the aliens' reproduction into a sex scene will hide that particular problem. If only all info-dump problems could be solved so easily!

Posted 11/08/2003 23:33 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 41231 | Since last entry: 512 | This month: 5309

Came home from tonight's square dance tired, but determined to write at least 500 words. I must confess I was checking the word count pretty often, and stopped as soon as I passed 500 even though the scene was chunking along nicely. I've gotten into a flashback, showing how Jason and Clarity met at a sex party. It's already a fairly nasty scene and I'm wondering just how explicit I want to get. I've been reasonably tame so far, by my standards, so I probably won't get completely explicit, but I want to leave no doubt in the reader's mind about what gets stuck where by whom.

Could I blow a sale for the whole novel on this kind of thing? Maybe not one scene, but the whole bisexuality-polyamory-alien-love thing? Possibly. But this is the book I want to write, and I think one can get away with a hell of a lot these days. I suppose I'll tone it down if an editor asks me to. (Would I change Jason's orientation? I'd like to think I would not, but if a contract with a major publisher were riding on it I might. But I feel the right publisher wouldn't ask for that change.) I think I'll write the rest of the scene with a fairly high level of detail, then scale back later if necessary.

Posted 11/07/2003 22:42 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 40719 | Since last entry: 676 | This month: 4797

I've automated my "words since last entry" and "words for the month" counters (above).

Tonight's writing was a hunk of conversation between Jason and Chopper in which Jason outlines the software problem he's fighting, using a handful of bullets as a visual aid. Chopper is just about to (unwittingly) give him the insight he needs, but I've decided to stop for the evening before hitting a reasonable stopping place, to make it easier to pick up tomorrow.

I may also twist the scene around a little, because I want the two of them to talk about Clarity as well as the software problem, and knowing Jason he'll want to charge off and start coding as soon as he has his insight. But if they talk about Clarity first he'll be too upset to code. Maybe Chopper brings up the code problem to try to calm Jason down after he gets all upset talking about Clarity? Hmm, that might work.

Posted 11/06/2003 22:14 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 40043

Less than 400 words written after returning from tonight's square dance, bringing character Chopper (remember him? He was introduced way back in Chapter A, then "wanished") back on stage in what I anticipate will provide a transition to a useful flashback.

I'm a bit dismayed by the fact that every day so far this month has produced fewer words than the day before, but there's nothing on the calendar for tomorrow so I hope to get more done then. For now, I'm going to bed.

Posted 11/05/2003 22:12 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 39675

A total increase of 410 words tonight, including some tightening of last night's output to the tune of 100 or so anti-words. So I only get a silver star for the day. But tomorrow I should top 40,000 words, which is a significant milestone.

I've been reading Zeitgeist by Bruce Sterling, which may explain why the last couple of days' output has shown Jason in a bleary, grungy, gritty, sleep-deprived haze of computer code. The fact that I have been dividing my time at work between two projects, 70% on one and 70% on another (and yes, that does add up to more than 100%), and I got maybe ten hours' sleep total this weekend, might have something to do with it too. But what the hey, it addresses (or tries to) some of the critiques I got this weekend. Work with what you've got, that's my motto.

In other news, the new battery arrived and my phone is now back up and running. Huzzah!

Posted 11/04/2003 21:17 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 39262

Only 610 new words tonight -- but that's enough for a gold star. I'm sticking up silver stars for 100-500 words, gold for 500-1000, red for 1000+, and an extra green star when I finish a chapter or story. I spent most of the evening doing laundry and putting the manuscripts of Chapter 4 in the mail to the members of my crit group who weren't there on Saturday.

I also got a couple of story responses in today's mail. One was a reject from MarsDust of a short-short (my 500-word story from the first night of Clarion, still kicking around). I sent it back out to Story House Coffee; they print short-shorts on their coffee labels and are located just a few blocks from here. The other was from Asimov's. It was in my SASE, and when I opened it up I saw it wasn't even on letterhead -- just a cheap Xerox of letterhead -- so I knew it was a rejection, but I hoped for a nice personal note.

"Good to see something by you," it said, "and thanks for letting me see this story. I like this, and I'll take it."

I had to read it twice.

YAHOO!

Posted 11/03/2003 21:13 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 38652

About 750 words written before and after tonight's Simon & Garfunkel concert (which was way cool). Technically, it's Monday already (Mon Nov 3 00:36:00 PST 2003), but I figure I probably wrote at least 500 of those words before midnight, so I get a gold star for the day.

I decided that one of the two scenes I'd left out at the end of chapter 4 really, really couldn't wait until the next chapter in this thread. It's a big whammy. Putting it at the beginning of the next chapter would unbalance the whole chapter (I think that chapters, like short stories, have to start slow and end big, especially since in this book each chapter ending has to hold the reader's attention through the intervening chapter of the other plot thread), and putting it at the end of the next chapter... well, that would be too late for this particular revelation. So I went ahead and wrote that scene, and I'm going to mail it to my critique group as an appendix to the chapter I just handed out.

Posted 11/02/2003 23:37 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 37891

Went to a Halloween Haunted Hoe-Down last night, then did my critiques after the party; to bed around 1am. Up at 6am and immediately got to work writing. 2000 words (!) later, it was about noon and I decided to cut off the chapter at that point. There were two more scenes in the outline, which I wanted to get in at the climax of the chapter because they tie the two plot threads together, but the chapter had reached a semi-satisfactory stopping place and I just didn't think I had time to write any more. The good news about writing a novel is that there's always another chapter.

Took a shower, during which I realized that the scene I completed and the new scene I had just written could be slightly altered to tie them together better and increase tension (in the new version, it's Raptor who rescues Clarity from the roof rather than Honor). So I altered them, and it worked. Reformatted it for critique, printed it out, took it to the copy shop, and arrived at the meeting exactly on time. At which point I discovered I'd neglected to press the Collate button, and I had to spend the first 15 minutes of the meeting manually collating the 10 copies of 28 pages. But I got the chapter finished in time, by God!

Got Chapter C critiqued at this meeting. In general people are happy with the way the novel is going, though some folks thought the pace was a little slow and a couple of people said they thought the characters were well-realized and believable but they didn't like them as people. Sara in particular said she wanted to slap Jason silly. Also -- as I already know -- the aliens aren't alien enough, Jason isn't motivated enough, and Jason (and to a lesser extent Clarity) is too much reactive rather than active ("a catalyst, not a hero").

Despite these critiques, I plan to keep writing the characters as they are, so that I will have an internally-consistent first draft when I go back and start fixing it. (Is this a mistake?) Also, if Jason isn't a hero that's not necessarily a bad thing. He does becom the villain of the piece (for a while, to the extent it has villains), before he hits bottom and begins to redeem himself. But, as Sara pointed out, there are no Evil Fucks (thanks, Jim) in this book. Is this a problem?

Meanwhile, my crashed phone came back from Nokia, repaired -- but without its battery. Grr!!! They're sending a new one, but it won't even leave Florida until Monday. Waah!

One more thing before I fall over (I got five hours sleep last night -- I feel like Clarion, whee). November, as you may know, is National Novel Writing Month. But I can't do NaNoWriMo for real, because you're not supposed to use it to work on a novel in progress. Nor do I imagine I can write 50k words in a month. I tried a "PseuDoNaNoWriMo" in March, with a goal of 40k words, and only managed 10k.

So in November I'm doing a "not really a NaNoWriMo" (NoReNaNoWriMo). My goal is to write every day -- minimum 100 words, and not necessarily on my novel. I'm going to put up a calendar and stick gold stars on it. I'll be tracking my progress here. Wish me luck!

Posted 11/01/2003 21:26 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 35922

Over 1800 words tonight! All one scene, in which Clarity is menaced by a mob and has to run for her life. Or does she? She's not sure, but whether she really had to run or not, she ran, and I've left her locked outside on the roof of her apartment building, wondering whether she's more afraid that someone will find her... or that no one will. A good, tense scene -- but way too long. The chapter's now nearly 6000 words long, already one of the longest chapters I've written, and there are still three scenes to go.

On the other hand, there's no reason a chapter can't be 10,000 or 12,000 words long... but I still think this scene has more words in it than it deserves. I'm going to have to cut it back.

But not this week.

Right now it's way past time for bed. Good night.

Posted 10/30/2003 22:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 34098

800 more words tonight, finishing up the scene in the hospital. It's heavy on exposition, but I keep reminding myself this is a first draft. There's four scenes -- at least 1000, maybe 2000, words -- left in this chapter. I may have to steal some time from work to finish by Saturday.

Posted 10/29/2003 21:00 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 33288

Wrote 500 words of a quiet scene in the hospital with Clarity and Reason. Not as many words as I'd hoped to write tonight, especially since I need to get this chapter finished by Saturday (ideally Thursday). More tomorrow, I hope.

I had to send my crashed phone back to the manufacturer to be re-flashed, since nobody local had the necessary equipment. Sigh. Remember when phones were big heavy things you rented from the phone company, and they lasted forever? Things with dials?

Posted 10/27/2003 21:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 32765

Stupidly spent the evening adding permalinks and an RSS feed to this page instead of writing. Silly, silly David.

(If you don't know what RSS is, don't worry about it. If you do know, please try it out and let me know how it works for you. I'm particularly interested to know if the entry dates are correct in your aggregator. They don't work on NewsIsFree.)

Also, my phone crashed. Grr.

Posted 10/20/2003 21:35 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 32765

Just back from a writing weekend at the coast, at the delightful Oregon Writers Colony house with a bunch of other Oregon and Washington writers (Jerry, Kathy, Paulette, Amy, Susan, Jim, and Brenda). Only (?) wrote about 2800 new words, but that includes a half-day re-outlining the current chapter and was about the same word count as everyone else did. The new outline wound up almost exactly like the old one, but where the old one was vague ("things get worse") the new one is a list of specific incidents ("Clarity's best childhood friend comes down with the plague"). This is part of that staring-out-windows thing that is so important to fiction writing and I don't regret it.

Apart from the writing, spent a great weekend with a bunch of keen folks. I cooked spaghetti sauce (half buffalo, half hot Italian sausage, all delicious) for Saturday dinner, Amy made a killer chocolate mousse, and each person brought enough food for everyone (we had a total of three pounds of bacon and three and a half dozen eggs for eight people for a weekend -- definite overkill in the food department, but better too much than too little). The weather was nice, warm on Saturday and a little drizzly on Sunday, but as is my Colonyhouse habit I didn't leave the house at all. When I go to the coast to write, I write -- or at least hang out with writers. Much writerly gossip was gossiped, and the problems of the world were solved.

Fun, relaxing, productive. I want to do this again in a few months.

Oh, I ought to note this major milestone: I just passed 30,000 words, which was my goal for the first month's writing when I did the Pseudo-NaNoWriMo back in March. Okay, it took longer than I had thought. But it's still significant; I'm about 1/3 done with the first draft.

When I got home I found a nice rejection from Ellen Datlow at scifi.com. "It's very nicely written but there just isn't enough to it for my taste. Sorry. I do like your work and trust that one of these days we'll connect so keep on sending stories to me." Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, as my dad always says.

Posted 10/19/2003 19:33 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 29918

I've been out of town a lot lately. When I have found a half-hour or an hour to write it's been so tempting to just massage the existing text and not generate any new words. Something about the last scene of this chapter was just not coming together. And here it is just a few days before the next crit group meeting, when I have to have a new chapter or I'll have to buy everyone a beer.

After some thought I realized this scene needed to be a big turning point for the character. He's been insufficiently motivated so far, and needed to have a personal experience that would drive home just how badly he needs to be doing what he is doing. Basically, he's been a dilettante and he really needs to be a committed terrorist. I went back to my researches on why people become terrorists and decided that the aliens had to do something awful to him or someone he knows personally. Unfortunately, all the candidates were people I needed around later for other things. So it couldn't be fatal or even severely debilitating.

But I found a solution (I hope). Rather than a character, I killed a setting.

It wasn't a very important setting, really, but it was something established earlier in the book and I think it's plausible that the character would care about it more now (now that it's gone) than he did then. He also got himself involved in a riot afterwards, something I hadn't planned, which gave me an opportunity to show how nasty things are getting in the streets.

After that was done I hit him with the whammy I've been saving up all chapter. Now he's really pissed and has nothing to lose.

A very good evening's writing.

In other news, I participated in an "exquisite corpse" writing exercise and dashed off a few paragraphs so "crunchy" they could be the basis of a whole new novel. I am running screaming from the possibility of a whole new novel... I'm already heartily sick of this one. But I press on.

Posted 10/08/2003 23:51 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 28296

Only 300 new words tonight. Of the scene and a half left to go in the current chapter, finished the half scene. The remaining scene feels like a big one, and I'm going to be out of the house for the next two nights and all weekend. Alas. Maybe I can steal some time from work.

Posted 09/24/2003 22:21 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 27974

I've been in a loop for the last couple weeks -- not writing much because I'm depressed, and depressed because I haven't been writing much. I feel like I've been squandering my spare time, even though I've been getting some non-writing chores (and cat-vacuuming) done. But with Kate's support I got a good solid couple hours of writing in tonight.

(When I say "depressed" I'm talking about your standard everyday "down" feeling, not the kind of depression where you can't get out of bed. Nothing to get too concerned about, but it interferes with my enjoyment of life as well as my writing.)

I still haven't finished the current chapter, which I really wanted to have done by last Saturday. There's still about a scene and a half to go. But if I can repeat tonight's performance tomorrow I might be able to finish it up then. Maybe.

Onward!

Posted 09/23/2003 21:49 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 26872

A couple hundred words here, a couple hundred words there. Progress, but not enough. It's a slog. I've introduced Flea and shown Jason making some progress on cracking the alien computer. It feels slow. I hope to have this chapter ready to send to my crit group this weekend.

In other news, I just got a keen new "phone". I put "phone" in quotes because being a phone seems to be the least of its powers. It's a wireless web browser, email client, calendar, to-do list, calculator, currency converter, GameBoy, and MP3 player too. Maybe more. The manufacturer is pushing it as "the Music Phone" but I bought it for the keyboard, which is terribly cute but reasonably functional. Now I can Google from anywhere, mwa hah hah! Well, almost anywhere -- alas, it has almost no signal in my office.

Posted 09/16/2003 22:26 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 25672

David D. Levine's rather scattered and incoherent Torcon 3 report

THURSDAY

Officer Obie went to put us on the plane, he said "Kid, I'm gonna put you on the plane, I want your wallet and your belt." Despite that, and the pizza at DTW ("Detwoit"?), we made it to the convention as scheduled, arriving at the hotel at 8pm. Immediately ran into old friends Spike Parsons and Tom Becker, who were also eager for dinner, so off we went. While crossing the street we met Jay Lake, Mary Anne Mohanraj, and Catherine Crockett coming the other way -- similar to the Classic Worldcon Experience of seeing the person you've been wanting to meet all convention going the opposite way on the escalator, but with the added thrill of possibly being run over.

We had dinner at the Armadillo, a BBQ joint with Texas tchatchkes on the walls. As I ate my fajitas under a chandelier made of tequila bottles and a stuffed armadillo, I kept reminding myself "We're in CANADA! CANADA! CANADA!".

At the head of a short but slow-moving after-hours registration line we received a tote bag containing a pocket program which, signs everywhere assured us, was not to be believed -- we should instead believe the daily schedule grids, which were not available here. Also not available here: souvenir book, restaurant guide, program participant information, and Hugo nominee information. We went to the George R. R. Martin / Howard Waldrop interview, only to find it wasn't there. Later we learned it had been somewhere else, but did they post anything to that effect at the originally scheduled room? Communication was not this convention's strong suit.

Hit a few parties, met many friends old and new, but went to bed rather grumpy.

FRIDAY

Kate and I hiked over to the St. Lawrence Market for a breakfast treat you can't get anywhere other than Toronto: a peameal bacon sandwich. Yum.

Attended several panels, including "I've Written a Story, Now What?" where I had a brief chat and exchanged business cards with editor Eleanor Wood. She advised that publisher spotlight sessions at conventions are a good way to find out what kind of books that publisher wants, and that you should look at the imprints on your own bookshelves to determine which publishers are likely to want your stuff. The "Believable Aliens" panel was notable for Frank Wu's defense of the coolness of invertebrates. "Over half of the phyla on this planet are worms!" he gushed. "The newest phylum consists of one species, which lives in a lobster's mouth in Spain!"

Enthusiasm. I like that in a man.

Lunch with Mike Ward, Karen Schaffer, and their friend Pat Diggs at Movenpick. We spent most of the time talking about slash and how "slash" differs from "gay fiction". It's all about power relationships and has almost nothing to do with how actual gay people live their lives. Karen confessed that she usually spells "GLBT" as "GBLT". No matter how it's spelled, I usually pronounce it "giblet".

I hit the SFWA suite, got my Sticker, and talked with Walter Jon Williams about the Rio Hondo workshop. I'm afraid I may not have made a very good impression on him.

The "Bad Writing Habits" panel quickly got off of what I (and some of the panelists, apparently) had expected it to be about -- overcoming cat vacuuming and all those other things that keep you from putting your butt in your chair -- and onto the kind of bad habits you can fall into in the writing itself. But with Gardner Dozois and Teresa Nielsen Hayden on the panel it couldn't fail to be entertaining and informative. Gardner on openings: "Cut right to the jets of semen!" Karen Haber: "The secret of great writing is peanut butter." Gardner: "In the modem!" Karen: "No, it's the protein - you need to eat properly to be creative." Teresa: "There is no habit so stupid that some writer hasn't used it successfully."

Dinner with Kate, Neil Rest, Lise Eisenberg, and Colin Hinz at an Indian place called the Bombay Palace, with good food (though Neil wasn't impressed) and spotty service. Best lino of the evening: "I'm listening with one ear and talking with the other."

The Tor party was packed, but not as airless as it has sometimes been. Had nice chats with fellow Writer of the Future Carl Fredrick (his first Worldcon) and old friend Martha Soukup, a fine writer who isn't writing much these days. Hit a bunch of other parties, the SFWA suite, and the Fan Lounge before crashing. L.A. does know how to throw a party.

SATURDAY

My most heavily scheduled day started off with a subway ride to Mel's Montreal Deli for French toast and "smoked meat" (does anyone else find that phrase vaguely disturbing?). I was a little concerned about the transit time, but we got back with a few minutes to spare for my first scheduled panel: "Meet the Campbell Nominees." A delightful bunch of people and I'm honored to be on the ballot with them, particularly Charlie Finlay who is one of my heroes. He and Wen Spencer (the eventual winner) both have the advantage of lacking a day job, though stay-at-home parenting is a time sink of its own.

After the panel I made my way toward the dealers' room, but on the way I met WizKids editor and penny-squasher Janna Silverstein and spent most of an hour talking with her. When I did get to the dealers' room I almost immediately ran into Tobias Buckell (and a friend of his from New York whose name I have managed to forget) and spent most of the next hour talking about the life of a neo-pro. Wound up in the food court across the street, eating a sandwich called "Stay Young and Healthy", at a table with Toby and a bunch of other denizens of the Rumor Mill, including the elfin Leonora Rose, the energetic Frank Wu, and gorgeous redhead Lori Ann White. Marvelous conversation.

Despite my attempt to "Stay Young and Healthy", I succumbed to the temptation of the Tim Horton's doughnuts in the middle of the table at my Writer's Workshop section. (Good, but a little heavier than Krispy Kremes.) This was my first Worldcon workshop as a "pro", and fellow pros Trey Thoecke, Karen Traviss, and James Alan Gardner made it a delightful experience. The manuscripts under critique varied in quality, of course, but I think all the authors showed promise and one of the stories was nearly publishable. Interesting to see how many different ways there are for a story to not work. And yet all of them also worked, in different ways.

From the workshop I went directly to "Imaginary and Future Genders: The Sexual Perspective" with me, Jack Chalker, the distinctive Aynjel Kaye (who would have been one of my classmates at Clarion East if I hadn't gone West), and others. This panel had all its panelists and a decent audience despite being moved to a different room at the last minute. There was another panel on the same topic with the sociological perspective, so we focused on the plumbing aspect of gender. I brought up some of the deeply weird ways Earth creatures reproduce, and recommended the book Doctor Tatiana's Sex Advice for All Creation. It was a fun and silly time.

After that I had one hour to take a quick nap and change into my tux for the big Hugo doo-dah. Kate was resplendent in her new shimmery blue thing. Before the ceremony there was a reception with excellent dim sum and conversation -- an interesting mix of fan and pro luminaries, with me somewhere in between. We paraded up the escalator to our special reserved seating (with extra-wide aisles so the winners wouldn't have to step on any toes -- literally, anyway -- while accepting their awards) for the Spider Robinson Show, one of the best Hugo toastmaster performances I can recall. I sat in the same row as Charlie Finlay, Ken Wharton, Frank Wu (that's pronounced "WOOOO!!"), and Geoffrey Landis.

When Wen Spencer's name was announced as the winner of the Campbell Award I felt neither surprise nor disappointment. I guess that, deep down, I really wasn't expecting to win. If anything, I think I was more disappointed for Charlie than for myself, because I'm eligible again next year. (Poor Charlie was also crushed under the steamroller of Coraline in the Best Novella category. But I know he'll be back.) The rest of the ceremony was snappy and entertaining, especially the Big Heart Award surprise sprung on John Hertz and Geoff Landis' enthusiastic sprint to the podium to accept the Short Story Hugo.

We lucky Hugo losers were escorted out of the hall (leaving the poor winners to swelter under the photographers' lights) to a party hosted by Noreascon 4 -- those Boston fans really know how to throw a party. Best food of the whole convention. We were each presented with a tote bag saying on one side "I was nominated for a Hugo Award and all I got was this lousy tote bag" and on the other, approximately, "tote bags will get you through times of no Hugos better than Hugos will get you through times of no tote bags." Also a small candy-filled rocket, which is going on my mantelpiece as soon as I unpack. Chatted briefly with Shane Tourtellotte, who remarked "I'm the guest of an accepter -- that's as low on the totem pole as you can get and still be here."

The Hugo nomination and voting statistics were being passed around at the party. Turns out I squeaked onto the Campbell ballot by just one nomination, so I really appreciate everyone who nominated me. And, though I didn't win, I did beat No Award, and it is an honor just to be nominated. I hope you will all consider nominating me again next year, my second and final year of eligibility. In other categories, Bento nearly made the ballot for Best Fanzine (missed it by just 5 nominations), and both Kate and I were in the top 15 for Best Fan Writer.

Eventually even the Hugo Losers Party palled and we moved out to the Secret Librarians of Fandom party (I think I must have been a librarian in a previous life, it was a very comfortable bunch) and finished up in the Gay Fandom party, talking about Norwescon with Dave Howell, before collapsing around 2am.

SUNDAY

Despite the Hugos on Saturday, Sunday was my "feel like a pro" day.

Dragged myself out of bed with just enough time for yogurt and an execrable bagel in the hotel before my panel on "Computing Interfaces, The Next Step". David Brin was very polite, though he did promote himself and his new company rather heavily and at one point he started spouting off conspiracy theories about Microsoft. He seemed to be serious about the conspiracy theories, but at the same time I got the tiniest twinkle of an impression that he was just being outrageous for outrageousness's sake. Much of the conversation centered around the disappearance of good-old-BASIC from the standard Windows package, but there were a wide variety of backgrounds on the panel and some good ideas about the pros and cons of various potential user interfaces.

After the panel I talked in the hall with fellow "baby writer" Brenda Cooper. We were interrupted by Tekno Books editor John Helfers who took us aside to tell us about his new Five Star publishing project -- he was pitching to us! We were so jazzed.

"Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon" -- Susan Ertz. So it is for me on many a convention Sunday, and so it was for me on this one. With nothing scheduled until 6:30 I wandered randomly about, indecisive about whether to go to a panel, hang out looking for keen people to talk with, or take a nap. Eventually I realized I was just stupid from hunger, and went across the street to the food court in search of something edible. But I ran into a well-meaning friend there, who said I could find better food elsewhere and gave me directions that (as interpreted by my food- and sleep-deprived brain) were half a block off. So I wandered randomly some more. Eventually I encountered Bill Higgins, on his way to the Mobius Theatre play, and decided that sitting in the dark and being entertained for a couple of hours seemed like a good idea. But I still needed FOOD! I wound up getting a sandwich from the Tim Horton's near the Royal York, which I ate while watching E. Michael Blake portray the alien "Fax the Velp" in his play Reply from Extraterrestrial Intelligence. The play was well presented, but after an hour and a half I realized I didn't care what happened next, so I left.

Heading back to the convention center I ran into Ellen Klages and Nalo Hopkinson, who were heading up to the Strange Horizons / Ideomancer Tea Party. I always mean to go to this event, but often manage to forget to. I tagged along. This was the only time all weekend I was in the Crowne Plaza hotel, and it was really nice with great views. The lobby was architecturally impressive, too, but as a hotel lobby it failed completely -- cold and oppressive, with no gathering place. Anyway, the party was great, crowded with fun people including the editors of MarsDust and Fortean Bureau as well as Ideomancer and Strange Horizons. I now have lots more places to send some of my stories.

Later I made Mary Kay Kare spew ice tea out of her nose by mentioning that I always thought "Palm Pilot" sounded like an Australian synonym for "wanker". Maybe it was the accompanying hand gesture.

I had my reading at 6:30. I read all of "Charlie the Purple Giraffe Was Acting Strangely" and a little bit of "At the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting of Uncle Teco's Homebrew Gravitics Club" (as it happens, my two longest titles ever). About 10 people were there, including old friends, new friends, a couple people to whom I'd handed invitations that afternoon, and one or two I didn't know at all. They laughed in all the right places, applauded at the end, and didn't eat all the chocolate I'd brought. James Patrick Kelly showed up near the end and we hung around talking for a while afterward -- a real nice guy.

Wound up at Le Papillon, a fine French-Quebecois restaurant we'd spotted on the first day, with Kate, Lise Eisenberg, Brenda Cooper, and Tor editor Moshe Feder. Brenda and I got a lot of good publishing info out of Moshe as well as a delightful evening of chat and a wonderful dinner. One of the best meals I've had in weeks. Thanks, Moshe!

After dinner Kate and Lise went off to The Dominion (cue ominous ST:DS9 music) on a shopping expedition (Kate wound up buying Canadian Kool-Aid to dye yarn with, which is a whole 'nother story) while Brenda, Moshe, and I returned to the con. Alas, we found we'd missed the Masquerade completely, which is a shame because I'd hoped to see Julie Zetterberg's group costume of "The Trumps of Amber". I'm told it was quite spectacular.

I drifted up to the Baen party, where I wound up sitting at editor Toni Weisskopf's feet and giving her a copy of Bento. Many keen people came and went, including Esther Friesner, but mostly I talked with a couple of Torcon committee members (one was Alex Von Thorn, I think) about what went wrong with the program and publications. What a mess. A couple of other people at the party suggested that if I want to publicize myself for next year's Campbells I should put some stories up on Fictionwise -- sounds like a good idea. I'll need to check my contracts and see which ones I have the appropriate rights for.

On my way out of the Baen party I ran into Kate, who was just coming to find me. Soon after that we encountered Mike Resnick, who bubbled effusively about my story "Nucleon" (he was one of the judges who selected it for the James White Award, and then he bought it for New Voices in Science Fiction). I was grinning like an idiot.

Ended up the evening in the SFWA suite, where I talked with Diana Sherman and Art Widner and Walter Jon Williams and introduced Ideomancer editor Chelsea Polk to Gardner Dozois. I don't know whether to hope Gardner remembers me, or hope he forgets. Later, in the hall, we passed Samantha Ling and Jae Brim and Jay Lake on their way from somewhere to somewhere else. It all gets kind of fuzzy in there, but I believe I fell over around 2am.

MONDAY

The end of a convention is always sad. Packed up, checked out, caught the last ten minutes of the "Ethical Fantasy" panel. After the panel we talked with Rumor Miller Leonora Rose, who had left her badge in her room and was trying to steel herself to confront the Guardian of the Escalator for entrance to the art show so she could pick up her stuff there. This led me to muse for a while on privilege. As a person with a badge, I could just walk onto the escalator and not even notice that there was someone checking badges. As a SFWA member, I could enter the publisher parties (and the SFWA suite, of course) without trauma. Suddenly I have entree to all the places I have wanted to be for years, but it feels very natural and ordinary. When you are on the inside of the privilege curtain, it becomes very easy simply not to see the problems of those on the outside. This helps to explain why some people don't understand the importance of gay marriage and other civil rights for minorities.

We bought our L.A.con memberships. I got my photo taken at the Noreascon booth. We browsed the fan history exhibits. We took one last swing through the dealers' room (though, despite all the time I spent there, I realized later that I bought absolutely nothing at this convention other than food), where we ran into Bill Higgins. We wound up having lunch at Shopsy's deli with him, Sam Paris, Bonnie Jones, Steve Stringfellow, and one other whose name I didn't catch -- I think that was the only purely fannish meal I had all convention, with no writers or editors present. We laughed a lot more than at the other meals I'd had. (Steve: "Do you have free refills?" Waitress: "Yes." Me: "I'll have one of those.")

And so the time came to leave, and we took the bus to the plane to the plane to the cab to home, with a good Japanese dinner at the Minneapolis airport in between.

That was my Worldcon. I didn't win the Campbell, and there are a lot of people -- especially fans -- I wanted to spend more time with than I did. Apart from that it was a great time. Next year in Boston!

Posted 09/03/2003 19:41 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 25672

Half an hour writing while getting the car's oil changed, another hour or two waiting for clothes to finish washing and drying, and pretty soon it's 1400 words. That's nice, but I'm still behind for this three-week period. I hope to catch up on the plane to and from Torcon.

I've been working on scenes with Jason and Chris and Jason hacking on the biocomputer. I decided to introduce new character Flea here (I'd originally planned to introduce him a few chapters ago but it didn't work), and at this moment he is literally standing on the threshhold about to open the door.

Not a lot of major plot elements, though character arcs are moving and information is being conveyed; it's just part of the vast Middle that so many novelists have told me is the hardest part. I really do feel like I'm just making shit up. But with any luck someone will want to read it.

Four days from now I will be at the Hugo ceremony in Toronto, where I will find out if I've won the Campbell Award. I've already received an invitation to the Hugo Losers' Party. Do they know something I don't? :-)

Posted 08/26/2003 22:21 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 24262

Okay, I took a week off to do a new issue of Bento. That's excusable. But the following week of no novel-writing isn't. And when I sat down to work tonight, I kept getting up again. But I promised myself I wouldn't go to bed without at least 500 new words, and I did manage that: the beginning of a gutwrenching argument between Jason and Chris. I'm really putting Jason's nuts in a vise here, and he deserves every bit of it. More this weekend. I still hope to get 3000 words down before next weekend's critique group meeting... which will be while I'm at Torcon, but I'm still going to treat it as a deadline.

I also got galleys and a cover flat from New Voices in Science Fiction. I like the cover.

Posted 08/22/2003 22:23 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 23729

Tweaked Chapter 3 and formatted it for critique tonight. Not much else to say...

Posted 08/07/2003 21:48 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 23693

No new work on the novel itself, but tonight I wrote a synopsis of What Has Gone Before, squishing 17,000 words of novel down to just over 1000 words. This synopsis is not the same as the synopsis I wrote a while ago, because it's more focused on what you need to know to understand the current chapter and less on the overall plot arc. I hope that when it is done it will be the kind of detailed synopsis I need to sell the novel (or at least a draft of it).

This synopsis is a requirement for our crit group, and it was a useful exercise. It shows that some chapters, particularly the ones with the human viewpoint character, have a lot less going on than others, notably the ones with the alien viewpoint character. On the other hand, later in the outline the human chapters are a lot meatier than the alien chapters. I wonder if this will be considered to balance out, or if I'm going to have to rejigger the chapter breaks? I'd hate to have to do that, because I like the way each chapter ends on an emotional high note.

Posted 08/06/2003 23:13 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 23693

1500 words today, and I finished up chapter 3. When I came to the climactic moment at the end of the chapter, I realized that what I had in the outline made no sense... it wasn't something the character had the knowledge to suggest, the possibility had not been raised in earlier chapters, and knowing what they knew at this point (as written) the other characters would not go along with it. But there was another thing the character could suggest, that was very much in keeping with her personal history, that would piss off everyone else royally, and that would plug a plot hole later on. So I wrote it that way instead. The chapter also ends a week and a couple thousand alien deaths earlier than the outline says.

David triumphs over the outline! Well, wins a battle anyway. And I've met my goal of 3000 words before the next critique meeting, which is next Saturday. That leaves me the rest of this week to do my crits and prepare a synopsis of What Has Gone Before. (I also need to work up a list of characters and a glossary of alien gestures and noises... it's getting too hard to keep track of all the details in my head.)

But there's a fly in the ointment. It turns out I messed up somewhere when I figured 1000 words a week would be enough to finish this draft by the end of the year. The correct figure is 3000 words a week. (I mixed up words-per-week and words-per-critique, with a crit every 3 weeks.) At 1000 words a week I won't finish the first draft until the end of 2004. That's not acceptable. I can't tie myself up for another year and a half without anything more than a first draft to show for it.

On the other hand, 3000 words a week is probably more than I can reasonably expect to produce consistently. Writing a 7000-word short story in 3 weeks was a real push, cost me a lot of sleep and made me worried for my wrists.

Argh!

Some kind of compromise will be required. I don't think I can expect to finish this draft by the end of the year any more, but I do think I can produce more than 1000 words a week. And there's no time like the present to start.

But for tonight, I'm going to bed with 1500 words for the day. And that's not too shabby.

Posted 08/03/2003 22:00 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 22191

I've been writing 300-600 words a night, most nights, for the past week. It feels like so little, but I look up and, hey, 2000 words. Cool. With luck I'll crack 3000 words before next Saturday, which will let me do my copying at work and give me time to do my crits and write a synopsis of the chapters so far.

The attention I've been paying to the word count makes it seem that I'm just grinding out sausage. I really am paying attention to the content, honest; I've rewritten the opening of one scene three times. A lot of what I've written this week feels flat, I'm afraid, but I don't think it's either possible or beneficial to maintain a short-story level of prose craft for an entire novel, and I can tighten it some in rewrite.

There's just so much to it! A hundred thousand words is a typical novel these days. In my entire writing career so far, about four years, I've written about 150,000 words (I just added it up and was surprised it's so many!). I'm trying to write two-thirds of that in less than one year. So I have to keep my focus on producing draft in order to reach the end.

Went to Seattle for the Clarion West end-of-week-5 party last Friday, at Jerry and Suzle's with instructor Patrick Nielsen Hayden, and was just overwhelmed at the number of keen people there. To my surprise about half of the Tor editorial staff and several out-of-town writers also happened to be there, so I spent a lot of time schmoozing as well as chatting with old friends and new. Fun.

Today is the Hugo voting deadline, so my Campbell Award fate will shortly be sealed, though I won't learn the results until Labor Day. I'm not holding out a lot of hope for a win (I'm dead last in Sci-Fi Weekly's straw poll), but It's An Honor Just To Be Nominated. And I'm still eligible next year!

Posted 07/31/2003 23:06 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20881

Three hundred and some new words tonight. Not a lot, but at least I'm back to work on the novel after three weeks off with the short story. Working on a scene of pain and terror with the doctor, Reason. Also taking the opportunity to answer some questions about how and when the aliens use telepathy vs. other means of communication.

Got the first five chapters critiqued this weekend. Responses were generally positive; a number of specific issues were raised. Some were problems I already knew about (aliens not alien enough, Jason's motivations rather weak), others were technical issues and easily fixed (offhand mention of fusion power should be replaced with something having more manageable social consequences, should give Jason a different gun and he needs to clean it himself), a few were surprises (need to clarify that relationships are different in the future, aliens' name is too similar to a recent TV show, aliens' corporate structure should reflect their different society). Everyone was disappointed I brought a short story rather than a new novel chapter. I shall not fail them next time!

So: my goal now is to prevent my friends from drinking beer! To do this I only have to write a thousand words a week. Doesn't seem all that hard after doing over 4000 words last week. (Which was overdoing it... my hands were a little cold and tingly for several days after finishing that burst of effort. Scary! But they seem to be better now.)

It's tempting to go back and try to fix the problems identified in the critique now. But in the interests of maintaining forward momentum on this draft, I'm going to stay the current course and keep writing until I get to the end. Then I'll go back and do all the critiques in a big editing pass. Is this mad?

Posted 07/23/2003 22:38 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20519

Just finished the short story -- 6500 words in 3 weeks (no wonder I'm tired!). It's kind of old-fashioned and hokey, but that might be OK for the planned market. I'm sending it to critique tomorrow, and then it's back to work on the novel.

Posted 07/18/2003 23:30 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20519

No work on the novel since the last entry, but I have written 2200 words of what's going to be a 5-7k short story (which I need to finish this week, ack). It's going well, but since I just finished introducing the main characters I know I'm going to have to do some serious cutting when this draft gets done.

After a long dry spell with no responses at all to the stories I had out, I received three rejections in as many days. All were encouraging personal rejects from major markets. For example: "Good to see something by you again, and thanks for letting me see [this]. This is well-crafted and entertaining, but it's not really for us, and so I'm going to pass on it. Of course, let me see more when you have it. Best, Gardner."

When I was first starting out, I got cold, impersonal form rejections and I was frustrated because they told me that the story had been rejected but not why. Now I get warm, cheery personal rejections... that tell me that the story has been rejected but not why. The more things change...

I also sent off a query to an anthology where I'd been waiting a long time for a response. Turns out the ToC for the antho has been finalized, though I never received a rejection and the ToC was posted only on the publisher's message board, not on their main web site. Annoyingly, this is the second time this particular story has gotten turned down without receiving a rejection. But I just sent it off again... its 13th cover letter, on July 13th, and it's a horror story, so that's bound to be good luck.

Did get some good news on Friday, though: my story "Fear of Widths," originally published in the anthology Land/Space, has been reprinted on the website Infinity Plus, and I received a CD of the audio version of my story "The Tale of the Golden Eagle" from Audible.com. I don't know who read the story, but it's a great performance. (He did mispronounce the name of the main character, Denali Eu, as "eyu" rather than "yew". But that's a minor point.)

Posted 07/13/2003 21:24 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20519

Added a couple hundred words on the state of the world and Jason's reaction to it to chapter A, and gave the first chunk of chapters (not including the incomplete chapter 3) to my critique group. Also got all my crits done in time, huzzah. The changes are not really enough; I need to go through and really tune Jason up as a character, but that will come in the first editing pass after the first draft is finished. I already have a list of things I want to do for each chapter, plus global things like "play up echoes between the two plot threads". But I'm going to keep drafting, because to go back and rewrite now would be to enter an endless cycle of revision that leads nowhere.

At the last critique group meeting, Jim said (about someone else's story) that "many beginning writers base characters on themselves, and they always suck because they don't include their own flaws." I suspect I may have done this, to some extent, with Jason. He isn't me, but he's a lot like me. I need to take a cold hard look at him and make sure I'm giving him enough flaws and hurting him enough.

Just read a portion of a book called Portraits of "The Whiteman": Linguistic Play and Cultural Symbols Among the Western Apache by Keith Basso (Kate picked up a copy for $1 at a used book store). This section discussed how Apaches may imitate and exaggerate Anglo behavior for humorous effect, and analyzed a long "whiteman joke" to show exactly how and why Anglos look stupid when viewed from an Apache cultural perspective. This made me realize that my aliens are not nearly alien enough, culturally. They come from another planet, for pity's sake -- they should be at least as different from Anglos as the Apaches are. Another thing to address in the next draft.

I'm going to take a 3-week breather from the novel now, to work on a commissioned short story.

Posted 06/29/2003 22:54 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20293

Spent the evening rewriting a few key early scenes rather than adding new text. I changed Clarity from "underappreciated princess who craves power" to "overworked princess who'd rather play with her small pet projects than accept the power that's being forced on her." It was suggested by Keith Vargo at Wiscon, but I take all the blame for the implementation. It was surprisingly easy to make the change... only two scenes were affected. For example, I changed a scene from her trying to talk her uncle into letting her do something to the uncle trying to talk her into doing it. Many of the words were the same but I moved them from him to her or vice versa.

I also added more description of the aliens to a couple of early chapters, since some of the readers at Wiscon didn't have a clear idea of what they looked like.

Still to do (by Saturday!): make Jason angrier to make his actions more plausible, make the world more messed up to explain Jason's anger, and explain the "F vs. S" thing. And finish chapter 3. And critique one novel segment and write up my critique on another. Whee!

Posted 06/25/2003 22:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 20127

500 or so new words tonight, an expansion of the post-funeral scene with Honor's assistant and the beginning of a scene in which Clarity visits Reason, the doctor, in her sickbed. I've hit my word count target, huzzah, but I would really like to finish this chapter in time to send it to critique this weekend (which means finishing it Thursday night so I can make copies on Friday). That might be another thousand words or more. I may have to skip square dancing on Thursday.

I also want to rewrite a few key paragraphs in the earlier chapters to change Clarity's attitude toward power, make her start in a different place emotionally. And I have one more novel segment to critique before the meeting on Saturday.

Meanwhile I have two major, major projects at work, either of which could easily occupy my entire time, so there's no opportunity to sneak in a little writing or critiquing during slack periods. At least I finished off a third major project (which has been on my plate for months!) today. Now if only I could stop Microsoft Outlook from giving me the oh-so-informative error message "The operation failed."

I'm having fun, believe it or not. I feel like I'm making progress.

Posted 06/24/2003 22:26 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 19649

Nearly a thousand words today, still on track to hit my target of 20,000 words by the end of this week (though I would really like to finish the current chapter this week, which would result in a total of around 21,000 or 22,000 words). Also critiqued two novel segments this week, and got a couple of short story ideas.

All of my writing today has been in two transitional scenes following Vigor's funeral. Not much happens in these scenes, but we learn about what has been happening while Clarity was busy with the funeral and following wake. I'm a little concerned that things are moving too rapidly, but paradoxically not enough is happening... specifically, that Clarity is not taking enough action. I have something in mind for her for later in this chapter, though. But first, there'll be another scene of blood and pain to drive home just how bad the situation is becoming.

I keep tweaking the body count. Dozens? Hundreds? The outline says thousands at this point, but that doesn't feel appropriate now. I think this reduction is OK, because slowing the progress of the plague now may give Clarity more to do in later chapters where her outline is currently rather thin.

No repercussions yet from Clarity's outburst at the funeral. Maybe this is a mistake, or maybe it will increase the stress to keep that hanging over her head (she is, at least, keenly aware that it is there). I keep telling myself this is a first draft -- in the words of someone I met at Wiscon, you have to make cookie dough before you can bake cookies, and you have to write a draft before you can edit it into a finished novel. So I'm making cookie dough, and it's OK if it's half-baked (or even unbaked).

Posted 06/22/2003 21:20 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 18776

A thousand words this weekend, right on target for my next goal. Finished the scene at Vigor's funeral, and it turned out neither the way I'd originally planned it nor quite the way I'd intended it when I sat down to write: Clarity's grief, under intense pressure not to express itself (which arose both from her current situation and from Kris Rusch's advice not to let characters cry on stage) morphed into an intense and unexpected anger, which boiled out at a key and very public moment of the ritual. Made the scene interesting to write, to be sure, though it was rather gut-wrenching for me and I'm not sure what this will mean for her relationships with the people she has to work with now. Nothing good, I'm sure. (Which is good for the novel. Life as a character sucks.)

In other writing news, I've been invited to participate as a "pro" at the Worldcon writers' workshop, and I've been asked to write a story especially for the OryCon 25 souvenir book. Cool!

Posted 06/15/2003 22:04 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 17660

500 new words tonight, at Vigor's funeral. I read an essay a while ago in a back issue of the fanzine Twink about religion in science fiction, which pointed out that in most SF and much fantasy the characters are all atheists or agnostics who follow only the forms of religion, if that (not to mention the standard Cynical Non-Believing Religious Leader villain). So I'm resisting the temptation to fall into that default and giving Clarity, at least, real faith. The funeral scene is the first place this has come out, and I'm not sure how successful it is. Note: I am an atheist, but I've been told there's a lot of spirituality in my stories. Go figger.

I read another essay recently, Jed Hartman's Strange Horizons editorial The Future of Sex, which asks "Where are the gay (etc.) people in the future?" Well, the main characters in this SF book are a straight-identified polyamorous woman who has some history of bisexuality, a gay-identified polyamorous bisexual man who used to date a female alien, and the alien he used to date (who has a kink for a particular kind of sex with gay human males). Now all I have to do is finish it and get it published, and I'll be able to point at it and say "see, here are some!"

Posted 06/10/2003 22:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 17141

Since the last entry I attended my 20th(!) college reunion, spent a relaxing week driving through picturesque countryside from St. Louis to Madison (including a visit to the amazing House on the Rock, as seen in American Gods), and attended Wiscon, one of the best SF conventions for writers. To give you some idea of the flavor of the convention, one night I wound up going to dinner with some folks I had just met that day; of the 8 people at the table, at least 5 were published writers. The quality and intensity of the hall conversations, as well as the formal program, were outstanding. Spent a lot of time with old friends (some of whom I hadn't seen in years) and made some excellent new ones.

At Wiscon I also had the first 3 chapters and synopsis critiqued. The reaction was... interesting. The critiques were generally quite positive, though not outstandingly so, but the thing that makes me scratch my head is that there was absolutely no consensus about where the problem areas were. For every person who said they thought Sienna was the best character and Jason was flat, there was another who loved Clarity but found Sienna unoriginal. There were a few small details that several people mentioned (for example, why do the aliens consider Earth's moon to be God's Eye? This is something to which I knew the answer, but it wasn't in this draft of these chapters), but those are easily fixed.

I think this lack of consensus is, on the whole, a positive sign. It indicates that no single area or character stands out as desperately in need of help. (Now, just because critiquers disagree about which is the weakest character is not the same as saying they are all strong. But this is a first draft.)

So I've decided to leave the characters fundamentally as they are (though I'm still waffling over Clarity's attitude towards power -- one of the people who critiqued me had some good suggestions about changing her) until I finish the first draft. When I reach the end of the story I hope to have a better understanding of the characters, including where they should have started, and I can go back to the beginning and rework them based on that understanding.

With all this travel, plus a heavy dose of work and other Real Life upon returning, I didn't write a lick in weeks. Bad writer. But in the last two days, in part thanks to nudging from Kate, I've gotten back to work. So far I've been incorporating the simpler review comments, which explains the slight decrease in word count, but I do plan to get back to generating new text this week.

To keep myself on track I have decided to begin sending the novel through my critique group on a meeting-by-meeting basis. I had originally intended to finish the first draft and revise it once before showing any of it to them (so they can comment on it as a whole, which is how the readers will see it). But I seem to need regular deadlines to keep producing. So I have made myself a deal: if I don't have at least 3000 new words at each tri-weekly meeting, I will buy everyone a drink or equivalent. This is derived from the "external pressure biscuit technique" related by Delia Sherman at Wiscon.

Yoickth, and away!

Posted 06/09/2003 22:28 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 17219

Just got back from a weekend at the Oregon Writers Colony's Colonyhouse at the Oregon Coast. Spent the whole time writing, apart from meals and one walk on the beach. Finished Chapter 2 and wrote the entirety of Chapter B (I think... it feels a little short, but it does cover everything in the outline) for a total of over 4000 new words! I had been hoping for 5000 words but I think that was unrealistic. New material includes the death of Vigor, a breakthrough by Jason, a shooting scene using info from my shoot-out a couple weeks ago, and a really steamy seduction scene.

Interesting note: on Saturday, between lunch and dinner (3 hours) I wrote 1000 words. Between dinner and bed (also 3 hours) I wrote over 2000 words. Also, the 2000 words were more fun to write and feel like much better writing than the 1000 words. The difference? The 2000 words included a key scene that I have been reviewing in my head for months; the 1000 words I wrote in the afternoon were all material I hadn't thought through in detail and I was making it up as I went along.

This puts me in mind of a favorite Shoe cartoon, in which little Skyler says to his uncle Cosmo "You're a writer. Shouldn't you be pounding the keyboard instead of staring out the window?" Cosmo responds: "Typists pound keyboards. Writers stare out windows." I think I need to spend a little more time staring out the window. (Of course, when I tried this at the coast I fell asleep. But the principle is sound.)

Posted 05/11/2003 21:47 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 13179

Only 900 words in the last week. Clarity's father still not dead. But I'm going to the coast Friday for a weekend of nothing but writing.

Right now I'm just massively frustrated. I have a couple of stories I feel very strongly are some of my best work, and both of them have now bounced from every major market. The rejections have been incredibly positive -- Gardner Dozois called one of them "nicely crafted and nicely felt"; Ellen Datlow said it was "moving and disturbing"; Gordon Van Gelder called it "audacious" -- but they all turned it down anyway. Grr; argh. I'd rather have a half-hearted acceptance than even the most complimentary rejection.

On the other hand, people's responses to "The Tale of the Golden Eagle" have been outstanding.

Posted 05/06/2003 21:59 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 12326

No new writing lately, but last weekend I went shooting with some folks from the Portland Cacophony Society. It's the first time I've ever fired a gun. I can definitely see the appeal, but I still think it's generally not a good idea to keep guns around the house. Unlike most other dangerous tools, guns are very easy to use and can kill at a distance.

Politics aside, I had a great time. We had marvelous weather for a drive in the country, and I had fun shooting at various old appliances, stuffed animals, and old propane tanks, even though I couldn't hit a thing. And I picked up a lot of terminology, sounds, and smells I will be able to use if any gunplay occurs in the novel. There isn't any in the outline, but the character of Sienna is shaping up into someone who, given the choice, would rather shoot than ask questions.

Oh, and I've gotten over whatever minor bug was bothering me earlier this week.

Posted 04/30/2003 22:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 12326

I came home from Minicon with a mild sore throat, which lasted only a day or so, but I've been feeling "faintly blug" ever since. Not sick enough to stay home from work, but too sick to go to the gym and too tired to do much writing. It's been a week and I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Nonetheless, somehow I have written almost 1000 words since Monday. Not bad, considering. Might even get some more done tomorrow.

In some ways I feel the plot is moving much too quickly for a novel -- I have a short-story writer's instincts, and I can definitely feel myself trying to wrap things up in 10,000 words or less. On the other hand, the death of Clarity's father is the incident that kicks the whole plot in motion, and the old coot hasn't even died yet. (Though he's not at all a well cat... he'll be gone by the end of this chapter, probably less than 2000 words away.)

Posted 04/26/2003 23:02 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 11365

It took longer than I hoped to get that story revised, but I got it in the mail to F&SF before leaving for Minicon. I hate revisions... it feels like taking one of my children apart in hopes of putting her back together in a more pleasing shape. This may explain why I have 7 stories critiqued and awaiting revision (but at least it's down from 8).

I did get almost 900 words written on the plane to Minicon, and critiqued some stuff on the plane home. But looking back on those 900 words I think I need to revise some of them (there's that word again, ick) before proceeding... my main character isn't taking nearly enough action.

At the moment I'm a bit sick (just a mild sore throat and lack of energy, not SARS) so I'm going to bed early.

Oh, and one more teeny little thing: I'm on the Hugo ballot! I'm one of the nominees for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Go me!!

Posted 04/21/2003 20:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 10499

Well, the PseuDoNaNoWriMo is over and I did not get 30,000 words written. But I did get over 10,000 words written, and that's not chopped liver. Well begun is half done. Et cetera.

I'm going to take a brief break from the novel to do some critiques and whip a short story or two into shape (I have a bunch that have been critiqued but not yet rewritten) and into the submission pipeline.

Posted 04/02/2003 21:31 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 9642

Hit a big milestone on Sunday: the end of the third chapter. Now I have first drafts of the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter A. (Chapter 2 is next, then Chapter B, and so on.)

This point is important because 1) it establishes the major characters and conflicts for the first half of the book in both plot threads, 2) it gives me the three-chapters-and-synopsis that is the basis for selling a spec novel (though I'm not going to shop it around until finishing the first draft, this makes it feel more "real"), and 3) it gives me a solid <10,000 word chunk to critique at the Wiscon writers' workshop (deadline April 1). I formatted and printed out that chunk on Sunday and Kate put it in the mail on Tuesday.

And then I didn't do a lick of writing for the rest of the week. Bad me!

But then I wrote 500 words tonight. Yay!

I do plan to get a bunch written this weekend. (He says.)

Posted 03/28/2003 20:55 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 8676

Wrote a thousand words today, and returned a bunch of library books, and did grocery shopping. Go me!

Nice tense scene with Jason and Sienna, introducing Jason's previous relationship with Clarity, and getting them out of Seattle, hurrah. Much puzzling with the Washington gazetteer trying to find a location close to Seattle that won't have cell service in 2051; wound up with Bessemer Mountain. Also introduced minor character Chopper. Chopper is a gunsmith and I need to do some research on guns, maybe even do some shooting myself.

I mentioned that I am participating in the sff.writing.novel-dare PseudoNaNoWriMo, to write 30,000 words in March. To motivate myself I drew up a big thermometer (the PseuDoNaNoWriMoTherMo) with marks from 0 to 30k and I'm coloring it in as I go. It's posted on the wall opposite my comfy writing chair. At this point the goal of 30k words seems well out of reach, but I'm probably going to keep the TherMo posted until I reach that milestone.

Posted 03/22/2003 19:19 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 7602

Wrote 400 words tonight, but I'm tired... the characters are muttering about technical details and the plot feels stalled. I'm setting it down for tonight; I'll pick up tomorrow, hand the biocomputer to Jason, and get back to Clarity's PoV for a while.

Posted 03/20/2003 20:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 7210

No writing since Sunday, but I have had an excellent email exchange (still ongoing) with my friend Pam the nurse on the symptoms and progress of the alien disease. As part of this exchange, wrote a one-page synopsis of the novel, which I wanted to do anyway, and which points out that there are a lot of hints that need to be dropped earlier to make the climax work.

Posted 03/18/2003 19:58 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 7210

Much writing this weekend! Got Jason set up with his initial puzzle and introduced his lover Chris. Satisfaction.

Off to watch Children of Dune now.

Posted 03/16/2003 20:20 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 4787

Two hours of writing tonight, over a thousand words. Wrote the first scene of Chapter A, in which we meet Jason and Jason meets Sienna. That's all the main characters on stage (though we don't yet know who some of them are). Lots more to do before the end of this chapter, but it's almost midnight and time for bed. Early start tomorrow!!

Posted 03/14/2003 22:26 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 3603

I've been a bad boy, haven't written a thing since Sunday. But I sat down tonight and wrote about 800 words. Huzzah. Probably not going to make 30,000 words in March for the sff.writing.novel-dare PseudoNaNoWriMo, but I still mean to try! With Kate out of town until Monday, I plan to spend tomorrow night and all this weekend writing.

Got Clarity out of the potato field and on the road to New York... not sure if that's the end of the chapter, but it's an end to the chapter. The chapter so far has not gone exactly the way I had planned. This is perhaps a good thing.

In other writing news, received a contract and check in the mail (for a story accepted last year), reviewed the galleys from Phobos, and read "Charlie the Purple Giraffe" at the Tugboat Brewpub downtown. Go me!

Posted 03/13/2003 21:12 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 2873

A very productive weekend for getting chores done. Not very productive for writing.

Did have a nice long chat with Pam Davis, an old friend who is a nurse, on medical stuff. The best human analogy for the alien disease seems to be graft-vs.-host disease (GVHD), in which transplanted bone marrow begins attacking the patient. Treatment for graft-vs.-host involves suppressing the immune system, which opens the patient to opportunistic infections -- it's a no-win situation.

Pam suggests that increased dramatic tension can be obtained by having an initial visible symptom (e.g. smallpox blister or KS lesion) which provides an unambiguous signal that "you are infected with this untreatable fatal disease, and everyone you've had any contact with has already been exposed." If the symptom is one that can be hidden, that provides opportunities for duplicity and self-deception on top of that. I don't think a visible "pox" makes sense for this disease, but some kind of patchy rash or "ick" is a possibility. (I still haven't nailed down what the Taurans have for integument.)

OK, maybe this is an AIDS metaphor after all.

Pam also asked some interesting questions such as "What keeps this resistance fighter from just sharing the aliens' vulnerability through some public mechanism such as the internet?" and "Are there no alien medicos?" I came up with an outline of a solution to these and other issues she raised, and it is a really scary situation for the characters. Mwah hah hah.

Posted 03/09/2003 22:08 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 2525

Got a little writing done at the square dance tonight. After thinking about the "Dalek" problem for a while I think I've figured out a way around it... using the same transmission method, but slower and more subtle so it's not as easily spotted. Also changing the characters' attitude toward aspects of the disease to make it harder for them to implement the block.

This is not an AIDS metaphor, I swear.

Posted 03/07/2003 10:38 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 2240

Finishing up a customer support document at work, so I didn't get home until way late. Got another 500 words written on Chapter 1, developing Clarity's character a bit, but all the characters are still in the potato field. I plan to bring down the boom on Clarity real soon.

This morning, during the time between when I woke up and the alarm went off, I had a horrible thought, something along the lines of "omigod, my Daleks can't climb stairs, how the hell are they going to conquer the world?" The problem being that the disease is too easy to stop.

I'm not sure if I have a real solution, but I have something (it involves limited bandwidth). I'll let it percolate some more.

Posted 03/06/2003 21:56 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 1705

Started in on Chapter 1 this evening, after a long period of staring at the wall wondering just where Clarity is and what she is doing when she learns of her father's death. Finally put her in a potato field in Eastern Washington. Why potatoes? I don't know. But it gave me a chance to show a Tauran eating a raw potato.

Also today, I learned that I will be one of 3 readers in the inaugural performance of the Portland Reading Series. I'll be reading a story of mine called "Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely: A Serious Story about Funny Animals." The reading will be held at the Tugboat Brewery, 711 SW Ankeny Street, on Monday, March 10, at 7:30pm. Neat!

Posted 03/04/2003 21:37 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 1164

Yesterday I had coffee with Mark Bourne and discussed the aliens. He came up with the idea that "seeing is believing" is the core of their philosophy and culture. If you don't see something with your own eyes, it doesn't exist; if you haven't met someone personally, you have no preconceptions about them. Major transgressions are punished by the gouging out of eyes; less-major transgressions may result in "internal exile" caused by people refusing to see you. Minor transgressions result in diminished attention. Rather than "face", their culture is ruled by attention, the fundamental coin of respect. Visibility equals attention; attention equals influence; influence equals power. No one can have direct influence over more people than can be gathered in one room at a time, but indirect influence can extend further (again, networks of small hierarchies). Theoretically, no government can extend beyond the limits of sight, which makes high places extremely valuable. The moon is the Eye of God, which sees all and is seen by all; this drove their space race, the race to literally claim the high ground and achieve the pinnacle of perception.

My idea about the magnetosphere didn't work for him, but then he's not an expert in that area. He suggested, though, that perhaps they don't use radio because communicating over the horizon is gauche. Hmm.

Tonight I wrote a first draft of the Prologue. Woo hoo! Word counts from now on reflect only actual novel, not notes and outline.

Posted 03/03/2003 21:35 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 15471

I wanted to start drafting by the end of February. I didn't make it. But I did spend this evening thrashing my first draft chronological outline into an insanely complicated spreadsheet (with color coding: blue is backstory, prologue, and epilogue; green is the alien plot thread; yellow is the human plot thread).

So far I have not done anything to make sure the two threads complement each other well (balancing, echoing, mirroring, etc.). And I see that Clarity doesn't have enough to do in the second half of the novel. At this point I'm prepared to run with this, knowing that things will change as the work goes on. I can shift incidents between chapters, and even between threads if I have to, to get the balance right.

Looking over the outline, I'm excited. It looks like a rip-roaring story; the alternating plot threads seem to keep the tension up nicely, with a turning point at the end of just about every chapter.

I hope to begin drafting this weekend.

Posted 02/28/2003 21:54 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 14656

On Saturday night, over a fine dinner at Zumi, I talked with friends Matt (former astrophysicist) and Janet (former anthropologist) about the aliens and their planet. Matt thought that giving them no magnetosphere would not necessarily kill them with the radiation, though it would not produce enough radio noise to make radio impractical, and the radiation would be enough to give them a biology different enough from ours to prevent us eating each other's food (there are maybe 100 potential amino acids, of which Earth life uses about 20). Janet independently evolved the centrality of one-to-one communication from their background as presented, and agreed with my idea of "networks of small hierarchies" as the basis of their culture (a culture organized like the Internet, hmm). From this, we extrapolated a few ideas: they would have neither democracy nor dictatorship, but would be divided into small cooperating/competing clans and sects; they would have overlapping mosaics of culture (maps of religions, languages, ideologies, etc. would not overlap even as much as they do here); they might not even have the concept of a "language" as such, just swarms of ideolects of greater or lesser mutual comprehensibility; their philosophy of life might be something like "me against my brother; me and my brother against the clan; me and my clan against the world." Matt wondered if such a society could develop the industrial base for spaceflight. I didn't have an answer at the time, but I now think that their technology is more hand-crafted than industrial. (Plausible? Maybe not.) One other keen idea that came out in that conversation is that they would have Northern Lights all over the sky every night.

Oh, as long as I'm here... just got two bits of good news in the mail yesterday:

1. My story "The Tale of the Golden Eagle", which I sold to F&SF last year, will appear in the June 2003 issue. I should have my contributor copies in mid-April.

2. I received my contributor copies of Land/Space, containing my story "Fear of Widths." They look great!

Posted 02/25/2003 21:06 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 14314

At Potlatch I took a Sunday morning workshop on "Transracial Writing for the Sincere" led by Nisi Shawl and Cyn Ward, which was about half lecture and half writing exercises. (Many and varied were the writing appliances in use, including a Palm with a soft fabric keyboard that doubled as a case and a notepad with shorthand.) The good news is that I am already doing a lot of things right, in questioning assumptions and not letting my characters fall into the default ROARS (Race, Orientation, Ability, Religion, and Sex).

Key points: You are not a racist just because your reptile brain comes up with nasty stereotypical thoughts about people of different ROARS. Racism is when your conscious brain agrees with your reptile brain. -- Your first impulse for character, setting, etc. is probably wrong; question your unconsidered choices. -- If a person belongs to the "unmarked" (cultural default) ROARS his way is smoothed in ways he may never even recognize. -- SF can create new social divides to illuminate marked/unmarked states. -- As writers we can use marked/unmarked state to create parallax. Who is looking at whom? How do they look? It varies depending on the observer. -- Difference is not monolithic; not everyone who is oppressed has common cause (e.g. American Indians and African-Americans may dislike/distrust each other though they are both oppressed), and complexes of characteristics do not always go together. Avoid the categorical fallacy of mistaking the traits of an individual for the traits of the group or vice versa. Catagorical thinking is not inherently fallacious, but it can be; you can have charactes engage in categorical thinking to reveal aspects of their character (e.g. blind spots). -- Use congruence (shared characteristics) to establish ties between the reader and a character of a different ROARS. -- Even secondary characters should have multiple traits, as real people do; even if a very minor character has only a few traits, they should not all point in the same direction (e.g. have your poor black man be passionate about classical violin, not rap). -- Resonance is the association of related ideas (e.g. if a German is a torturer that inevitably raises the suspicion he might be a Nazi); it can be intentional or unintentional, but should be carefully controlled. An easy way to disarm unfortunate resonances is to have more than one member of a particular ROARS (e.g. don't have the villain be the only bisexual in the book). -- You will make mistakes, get feedback to correct them.

In the exercises I tried rewriting a scene from "Nucleon" with Carl the junkyard owner as a Puerto Rican rather than a Polish-American, and a scene from "Primates" (a Clarion story, unpublished) with the primatologist as a woman rather than a man. I was intrigued to see how much the other characters changed in reaction to these changes.

Obviously I need to do some research on African-Americans, if I'm going to get Sienna right.

Posted 02/24/2003 18:23 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 13803

(Typing in the It's Tops Coffee Shop on Market Street.) Yesterday I found something on the net about an AT&T research project called ShortTalk. This is a speech-based text editing system that uses non-English command words for commands, such as "looft" for "cursor left," "spooce" for "insert a space," and "gairk" for "move cursor to mark". The advantage is that there is no ambguity as to whether an utterance is a command or a word to be typed. The disadvantage is that when using it you sound like the Swedish Chef.

I think I may adapt this for use with datappliances by adopting the non-English command language but not so silly. Perhaps each command word starts with "z": zeft, zight, zup, zown, zelect, zopy, zaste. "Zup zive; zelect zentence; zelete." Hmm, still silly. But such a thing could catch on, if it works (e.g. Graffitti) and once it catches on it becomes part of the language. "Zuck zou!" "Zelete zat!" (Datappliances use small screens (the cheap ones) or heads-up displays (like Sienna's) or project directly into the eyeball (the top of the line). There is no holography in this world.) The command language would be called ZTalk -- no, Zalk.

(Now at the Bombay Bazaar, eating ginger ice cream.) Alien words would also get picked up (viz. "tycoon," "verandah"), but since the language is signed and the written language symbolic, how would it be picked up? Perhaps, like the ASL signs oh-I-see and you-and-me (vs. me-and-someone-else) such words can only be translated approximately and/or by phrases. This would limit their acceptance. We may see alien gestures being mixed in with human speech.

(At a yarn shop, waiting for Kate, working on 2-column outline in Excel.) It occurs to me that if I can write these notes a paragraph at a time, in the small interstices of life, I could be writing the novel itself in the same way...

Posted 02/21/2003 18:24 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 12949

In The Making of Memento, there's a quote from director Chris Nolan: "When I had written the script, which seemed to work on the page, the feeling was if you're going to use this unconventional structure, my impulse at script stage was to teach the reader the structure, to do it very quickly with small scenes, so that in the first ten pages you have an idea of the structure throughout. What I found with Following and Memento, when you come to watch the film, was that's counterproductive. It becomes too baffling for the audience. The audience has to have a period in which just to connect with characters. With both films, I took a couple of the initial blocks, and combining them, so they run conventionally over two blocks. With Memento, there were cut points at the arriving at the derelict building, and I ran that together. It's a longer block of time."

This ties together with what Tim Powers said at Writers of the Future: "Don't run over little Johnny till I know him." In other words, establish character first, plot second.

Wrote about 300 words of notes on story structure, bridging conflict, and Jason's motivations based on the above.

Going to San Francisco for Potlatch tonight. Have some critiques to do, but hope to get some writing done on the plane. Maybe even start drafting!

Posted 02/20/2003 07:27 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count (outline and notes): 12239

Just finished reading Shoot the Women First by Eileen MacDonald. I read this partly to get a handle on Sienna, but mostly for Jason. I wanted an answer to the question Why does someone become a terrorist?

My reading of the stories in this book is that, as a rule, they do so because they are wholly committed to the cause -- that it seems more important than human life. Which is not to say that all terrorists are cold-blooded killers; many of the women interviewed in this book felt remorse about the people they had killed (some regretted the entire terrorist thing; others did not). But in general they felt that these deaths were necessary in order to make the serious changes in society they sought.

Most of these women became terrorists in reaction to societal oppression expressed personally. For example, the Palestinian and Irish Republican suffered societal oppression of their entire people (their language prohibited, the loss of the right to assemble, etc.) as well as a personal expression of that oppression (both women were repeatedly forced to move from house to house as children -- either forced to move by their oppressors or just trying to avoid them -- and suffered constant physical intimidation by the Israelis/Protestants respectively). However, it was not any specific act of personal oppression that convinced them to take action. Rather, they cited these acts of personal oppression as examples of the suffering of their people as a whole. Their primary motivation was to rescue their people from domination rather than to redress personal offences.

This is true even for the Italian and German left-wing terrorists who sought to radically change their own culture's politics rather than to expel an invading culture. "Astrid Proll, a former member of the Baader-Meinhof gang, once described herself and her comrades as being 'very well-armed social workers.'"

The author makes much of the idea that these women gave up conventional motherhood (in some cases abandoning existing children) in favor of expressing maternal feelings for the Cause, and often felt a closer attachment to the Cause than to their lovers or husbands. Personally, and for purposes of the novel, I don't think this is an expressly female trait. The point, I think, is that before you can kill, you must become attached to something that literally matters more to you than life itself.

Another book I've been reading is The Making of Memento by James Mottram (a Christmas present from Kate's brother). One problem I anticipate in the complex interleaved plot I have in mind is how to keep the reader from getting confused about when each individual chapter takes place. Mottram points out some of the tricks that director Nolan uses to keep the viewers oriented in Memento, including the scratches on Leonard's face. Something that simple and visual is too subtle for a novel, I think, but what if Jason breaks his leg during the escape from the UN? That's something that will influence his every action and will make perfectly clear whether a particular chapter takes place before or after that point.

Posted 02/17/2003 14:41 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Just received a contract and check from Marty Greenberg for Haunted Holidays. Woo hoo! This reminds me that I don't suck, and provides the excuse I needed to send out a kvellogram to everyone in my address book. It's been a while since the last one. But first I need to decide whether I'm going to post a novel journal, and if so how. Get a page at some site like livejournal.com? Install movabletype on my aracnet account and use that? Post my progress to my Speculations topic? Create an sff.people.dlevine newsgroup and use that? Keep it as a plain HTML page?

Finally decided to write a real simple shell script to generate flat HTML pages from separate files for each day ("most recent 5 entries" and "all entries" in your choice of newest-first or oldest-first), based on my log script, and whipped off a first draft of it today. A little more work and it will also handle the uploading for me. Also wrote a little maintenance script to make writing each day's entry easier. After I actually start writing I will add current word count (hopefully this can be automated).

The novel journal will share some content with my Notes file, but will not be the same. Most of the Notes file is for me alone, a chance to get my thoughts on paper; the posted journal is just to document progress.

Right now I should be working on Bento...

Posted 02/13/2003 22:13 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Got it. Jason's parents were killed by an alien weapon -- that's why he wants them off his planet, now. But the Taurans blew up that particular stretch of countryside only because the US government told them that anti-alien terrorists were hiding there and only that particular weapon could take out their fortified hide-out. It was a ploy to get better data on the capabilities of the weapon. The aliens have apologized for blowing up innocent civilians, but they don't know how thoroughly they were hornswoggled. The US Army officer who instigated that scheme is also part of the DER faction that is supporting the FFL.

At the climax, Jason is using the social engineering skills Sienna has taught him in an attempt to outwit pursuit (they are on the run at this point -- Sienna knows that her former allies are now trying to get her, because the plague has worked too well and she is now a liability). But what he learns is not just the current info he needs; he also finds out that a) Sienna is working for the government, and b) that selfsame government is responsible for the death of his parents. So, in effect, Sienna causes her own downfall, and the outer crisis is resolved by an inner turning (Jason switches loyalties, leaves Sienna to be torn apart by an angry mob [handwave handwave] and avoids pursuit by running to the aliens instead of from them -- his previous relationship with Clarity gets him in the door with the aliens).

The novel now starts with Jason, pissed, making contact with the FFL and demanding to be allowed in. Sienna's lieutenant wants nothing to do with his hot-headed, inexperienced kid, but Sienna thinks he might be just the thing they need to crack the alien biocomputer they haven't had any luck with so far...

Oh, by the way, a 1995 calendar will do for 2051.

Posted 02/11/2003 21:43 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

I just re-read the novel "sketch" I wrote in the Outline A Novel In An Hour workshop at OryCon. The Jason described in that sketch is a lot harder, a lot more evil, than the Jason I'm thinking about now. That Jason combines the current Jason's computer skills with Sienna's motivations and priorities. That Jason is a more interesting character, but not as sympathetic. Which would be better for the novel?

I admit I like Sienna better as a character than the current Jason. Even if Jason is fighting against his privileged background, as I considered yesterday, he's still a bit of a nebish, a nonentity -- not a good central character for a "near-future medical thriller with aliens." But the Jason I outlined at OryCon is so harsh I wonder if the reader will identify with him, and for him to turn around at the end and work to save the aliens might not be believable.

What if he doesn't turn around? What if he remains committed to the cause? That makes him a villain -- makes him Sienna. The challenge then is that the reader has to overcome his/her initial prejudices to consider the heroic human freedom fighter as the villain and the evil alien overlord as the hero. I could structure the whole book that way, with Clarity as the main character and hero and Jason as the villain (this new Jason would basically be the current Sienna with Jason's skills). This book would start with Remembrance Day and be entirely about the plague.

(Long pause for thought.)

No, I think not. Jason must at least start out as a sympathetic guy. Once the reader is attached to him I can drag him deeper and deeper into the resistance, let him lose his conscience, but in the end when he turns on Sienna and saves the aliens it is in keeping with his earlier personality.

So what is it that drives him into the resistance in the first place? It can't just be that he gets involved with Sienna; he has to have a personal reason to want to bring the aliens down. But it still has to be plausible for him to turn around later, when he learns more about the aliens and who's really responsible for the repression.

Ponder ponder ponder...

Posted 02/09/2003 19:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

I've been having trouble getting a handle on Jason, and yesterday I recalled something from The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing about using contrast between characters. I know that Sienna grew up poor, is still poor, and this has shaped her. I was thinking that Jason would also be from an impoverished background of petty thieves, like Kevin Mitnick, but that makes them too similar. What if he grew up rich instead? What if his hacking (and maybe his bisexuality) are a reaction to that background? What if he is committed to making it on his own -- he has estranged himself from his family? This explains why he is working in a coffee shop but has serious computer skills and an apartment full of hardware. (Or does it?) Anyway, I think it gives me the "handle" I've been looking for.

It also gives some parallels between Jason and Clarity -- they are both rebelling against their parents and background. But in the case of Jason and Clarity, they are so different already that creating parallels is a good thing. This also gives them something in common to explain their sexual relationship.

I have not yet decided whether Jason and Clarity meet during the novel or beforehand. Probably beforehand, and reveal the relationship in flashback. As for Jason and Sienna, I want to start the novel when they meet, but it might be better to begin in media res. Ah, but if so... where?

I am also not yet sure what effect the aliens' preference of one-to-one vs. one-to-many communication has on their society and psychology. I had written "they are more individualistic and more hierarchical than we are", but I wonder if hierarchy is not their style either. An alternative thought I had was "they form networks rather than hierarchies", which sounds great, but what does it mean? I need to answer this question before I can get a handle on Clarity.

Wrote about 900 words on the history of the world, 2003-2051.

Posted 02/08/2003 21:41 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

In the last month I've been doing a lot of reading.

How to write a damn good novel by James Frey -- much of the same stuff I've already heard many times about how to write a damn good story. Not much new, still worth hearing again.

Hacker culture by DouglasThomas -- see 1/10 entry above.

Raj: a scrapbook of British India by Charles Allen -- the heat! The boredom! The numbers of servants! The unmitigated gall! The British were completely alien to the country they ruled (100,000 of them to 3 million Indians) and, for most of them, it was pretty unpleasant and not particularly rewarding financially. Lots of good imagery, though. The tossing of the pith helmets overboard as the homeward boat leaves. The fleeing to the hills during the Hot Weather. The enormous ratio of servants to served (for the upper classes). I think I want my aliens to be kinder than the British were.

Writing the breakout novel by Donald Maass -- this is a book that tries to define the difference between a merely adequate novel and one that "breaks out" to the bestseller list and critical acclaim. Lots of specific advice here, but the keyword, I think, is bigger. Everything should be bigger and richer and more powerful. Some key quotes: "A breakout premise has plausibility, inherent conflict, originality, and gut emotional appeal." "High stakes yield high success; to test stakes, ask 'so what?' Breakout novels combine high public stakes with high personal stakes." "Larger-than-life characters say what we cannot say, do what we cannot do, change in ways that we cannot change; they have conflicting sides and are conscious of self. Build a cast for contrast." "Conflict in the breakout novel is meaningful, immediate, large scale, surprising, not easily resolved, and happens to people for whom we feel sympathy. Bridging conflict carries the reader from the opening line to the moment when the central conflict is set." "The secret to breakout plotting is tension on every page." "Multiple points of view and subplots enrich a novel. Connect subplots quickly; subplots must afect overall story outcome. Interweave character relationships." "Great stories go in unpredictable directoins; breakout novels tend to sprawl." "Many breakout authors... box their characters into a situation with inescapable moral choices and dilemmas. Moments of outward change... plot turning points... are probably also inward turning points. The time when things are darkest and most dire is also the time when a character's inner convictions are most sorely tested." Re-read "Writing the Breakout Novel" in July! (See also 1/23 entry above about theme and politics.)

The fugitive game: online with Kevin Mitnick by Jonathan Littman -- key concepts here are some details of Kevin's background (his whole family and mileu growing up were white trash petty crooks) and the concept of social engineering. Kevin was not a brilliant programmer; he combined passion, curiosity, a keen memory, and a powerful ability to get people to tell him what he needs. I'm thinking that Jason comes into the novel with the technical skill and the passion, and Sienna brings the social engineering (she uses social engineering techniques on Kevin to get him to do what she wants).

The complete handbook of novel writing from Writer's Digest Books -- a mixed bag, and like Damn Good Novel it contains a lot of basics about "story" that I already know but don't mind being reminded of. One thing I hadn't heard before: using plot points to get through the middle of the novel. These are 3-6 scenes that change the direction of the plot and characters (vertices of K.W. Jeter's "W-shaped plot"). To increase suspense and tension surrounding these scenes: name the big scene, to alert the reader to the event's impending arrival; provide a preview that mirrors or reflects the upcoming big scene; provide a short contrasting scene immediately before the big scene to increase its impact; use lots of sensory and emotional detail to make the big scene pay off; and at the end of the scene have a disaster and revelation that changes the characters' understanding of the situation (perepeteia).

The British Raj by Denis Judd -- more detail than I'd had before on what happened before the Great Mutiny, and lots of examples of British inhumanity. Example: when Victoria (who never visited India) was proclaimed Empress of India, the 21-gun salute (or however many it was -- it was all codified) stampeded the elephants and killed several of the natives. This book has numerous first-hand accounts and I own it, so I'm not going to write notes on it right now.

At the moment I'm just starting Shoot the women first by Eileen MacDonald. Female terrorists are apparently the more deadly of the species.

After all that reading, in the last couple of days something went spung in my head and I had to write something. So the day before yesterday, at work, I whipped out a Shitty First Draft of the outline. I outlined the events in strict chronological order, just as a first pass... and, you know, if Sienna goes off and starts infecting aliens without telling Jason, it might just work that way. Jason, and the reader, don't know that Jason is the cause of the plague or that the plague is really a computer virus until after the Remembrance Day scene which is the big pivot point a the middle of the book. Mind you, I think the more complex interleaved structure might still be good for the book, but I will at least consider a chronological structure.

Yesterday I found a Character Worksheet on the web and filled out about half of it for Sienna. I'm starting with her because I know more about her, and because she's a more interesting character than Jason who is, so far, a bit of a nonentity. I'm going to read more about terrorists to try to get a handle on Jason -- what is the thing he wants more than anything, and why can't he get it?

Much thinking about the background of the novel. Wrote 1700 words of notes on the state of the world in 2051 and the aliens' technology, biology, reproduction, sexuality, and sociology.

Posted 02/05/2003 19:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Just got back from a writers' get-together at Kris & Dean's. Talked with folks about how to handle multiple viewpoints and subplots. Mike Moscoe recommended The Peshawar Lancers by S. M. Stirling as a good example of multiple viewpoints, and The Honourable Company by John Keay for information on the English East India Company. Kris Rusch recommended The Bone Collector by Jeffry Deaver, and gave me a copy of her own first novel The White Mists of Power. She also said that the alternating timelines outline I've been considering, which many folks have said will be too difficult for the readers to keep straight, is worth tackling if I think it's the best way to tell my story. "You're a good writer," she said, "don't listen to anyone who tells you you can't do something." Also talked with Nancy Boutin, who is a doctor and recommended a friend of hers who is an infectious disease specialist as someone I might talk to about how epidemics work.

Posted 01/26/2003 21:36 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

I just finished reading Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and in it he points out that the most memorable novels emerge from the author's strong convictions. "I feel it is beneficial to work in advance on the moral forces moving underneath your story, but I do feel that such work generally involves strengthening what the people in the story believe rather than what you, the author, may feel. ... To avoid a preachy tone, it may be helpful... not to grapple with theme on a global scale, but rather first to examine individual scenes for ways in which they each can be made sharper and more impassioned."

Maas recommends an exercise: write down a character's internal motivations for doing something in a particular scene, in order of priority. You will probably find that the most immediate motives (physical/emotional requirements) are at the top of that list, with higher motives (search for truth, thirst for justice, whatever) further down. Now try rewriting the scene with the priorities reversed: higher motives at the top, immediate motives at the bottom. "Motivating your characters according to higher values... adds passion to action." But don't overplay it. "Understatement and restraint are the watchwords."

How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James N. Frey also suggests that you should have a theme, or mission statement, for your book. Several other writers about writing have said the same thing. Right now I'm thinking about how to incorporate my feelings about the impending Gulf War II into my novel-in- progress, without having it be "about" the war. I have in mind a theme along the lines of "don't let yourself be railroaded by the mob" or "control of information is control of reality". This is not a Message to be stuck into the book... it is a tool to help focus my attention as I outline and draft.

Posted 01/22/2003 11:48 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

I've been thinking that this novel can comment on current trends in society, specifically the loss of personal privacy. In the world of the novel (If This Goes On) privacy as we know it will have completely evaporated. The young people will have grown up in this environment and will have a culture that seems very strange to their parents and grandparents (us; in 2051 I'll be 90). Hacker Culture has a lot to say about the relationship between the Hacker Ethic (Information Wants To Be Free) and the secrecy technologies that the hackers of the 60s and 70s made possible and the hackers of the 80s and 90s made necessary.

Speech recognition technology makes universal phone tapping possible, so attractive in fact that it's nearly inevitable. The same technology makes widespread real-world eavesdropping a possibility; millions of tiny radio microphones, monitored by computer, could be scattered everywhere. In this world, the anti-Tauran terrorists/freedom fighters may adopt sign language to avoid being eavesdropped (is this plausible? yes, sign has not been the subject of nearly 100 years of human research as speech recognition has, and the Taurans don't have or won't share gesture-recognition technology). The irony is delicious.

I'd also like to talk about the media, how they obscure reality and get things wrong. Not because of any kind of conspiracy, but through simple ignorance and arrogance. Example: there was a big media kafuffle about SATAN (Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks), even though a less powerful version of SATAN had been available for years and it probed only well-known and easily-fixed security holes. But it was the right moment for a story about a horrid automated hacking tool so it took off. Another example is the misinterpretation of Al Gore's "claim to have invented the Internet." Once a bad idea takes hold it's hard to stop.

People are sheep. Feh.

Posted 01/10/2003 11:47 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

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