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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12/30/04: David's Index for 2004

Novel words written: 77,431
Short story words written: 11,082
Notes, outline, and synopsis words written: 13,809
Blog words written: 32,168
Total words written: 134,490
Novel words edited out: 6,103
Net words written: 128,387

New stories written: 2
Existing stories revised: 2
Old stories trunked: 5

Short story submissions sent: 36
Responses received: 38
Acceptances: 7 (4 pro, 3 semi-pro)
Rejections: 30
Other responses: 1 (rewrite request)
Awaiting response: 5

Short stories published: 5
Short stories made available on Fictionwise.com: 6

Hugo nominations: 1
Campbell nominations: 1
Nebula preliminary ballot nominations: 1
Major awards won: 0
Honorable mentions in Dozois' Year's Best: 4

Novels completed: 1

Happy New Year!

Posted 12/30/2004 22:24 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 119459 | Since last entry: 0 | This month: -2718

In honor of the Solstice -- a phenomenon which has been going on since before there was life on this planet and will continue long after humanity has departed (assuming we don't blow the damn thing right out of its orbit) -- Kate and I celebrated in our usual fashion, with pepper-salted squid at Thien Hong and a movie (in this case Flight of the Phoenix -- a little implausible, perhaps, but I liked it).

We held a kitchenwarming party this weekend. Large numbers of people attended, from all our various interest groups (neighbors, co-workers, science fiction fans, writers, square dancers, and various others even more obscurely connected), and they all seemed to find something to talk about with each other. Many were the oohs and aahs over the new kitchen. We made and bought massive quantities of food and drink, which of course guaranteed that everyone would also bring plenty of same. I figure we're set for something to bring to the next five parties we attend.

No work on the novel since the last post. I have a pile of manuscripts to critique, but since putting the novel in the mail I've been focusing on various other holiday traditions, notably decorating the tree and buying presents for friends and relatives (just about done with that, unless I change my mind). One bit of writing news, though: my story "Tk'Tk'Tk" will be in the next issue of Asimov's.

Happy Solstice to all!

Posted 12/21/2004 22:55 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 119459 | Since last entry: -5467 | This month: -2718

In the last week, I...

...added a graphical "time map" to the top of each chapter to help the reader make sense of my unconventional timeline.

...went through the critique comments and made a list of things I wanted to do to the novel. Actually, I only looked at my notes from the oral critiques, and I only put the most important comments on the list. It was still eight pages long.

...went back and highlighted only the most significant issues. That was about half of them.

...did a quick red-pen edit of the manuscript. This was something half-way between Holly Lisle's one-pass revision method and Neil Gaiman's rather facetious six-step revision method and took most of three days.

...checked off about one-quarter of the items on the things-to-do list. Most of those were the simple ones, the ones that could be addressed by adding a sentence or a paragraph. The big ones, like almost all the ones under the heading "make the aliens more alien," remain undone for now.

...sat down and keyed in the red-pen edits, which took only half as long as the editing itself (still a couple long evenings' work, though -- I haven't had more than about 5 hours' sleep in a night this week).

...cut two complete scenes, several partial scenes, and a whole bunch of paragraphs, sentences, and words, for a net gain (by which I mean loss) of over 5000 words (4%). I am proud of this.

...reformatted the manuscript in Courier 12, printed it out, and sent it off to the novel workshop just under the deadline. 509 pages plus cover letter and synopsis. Go me!

So how do I feel about this significant accomplishment? See the title above: It Sucks. I have been looking at nothing but the flaws, missing details, missed opportunities, and most especially the petty, whiny, reactive, boring characters in this novel for the last week, and of the dozens and dozens of changes I wanted to make to address those flaws I was only able to make the simplest 25%.

But. There were also many positive comments (about as large, and welcome, a percentage of the total as the raisins in raisin bran, but critique is focused on the areas for improvement) and at least I am done with the damn thing for a while. And I did feel a sense of accomplishment as I put the tightly-wrapped manuscript in the mail.

Next: catch up with everything else in my life, which has been on hold for the last week. Then start in on critiques for the other novels in the workshop.

Posted 12/15/2004 22:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 124926 | Since last entry: 58 | This month: 2749

I had a number of things to do this evening. The main one was to write a list of things to do, and watch out for, during my quick revision pass. (It has to be in the mail by next Wednesday, aiee.)

I started with my file of miscellaneous notes (which I haven't added to in months) and the notes I have written at the top of some chapter files. While I was looking at those chapter notes I decided to go ahead and put all the chapters in one file.

It took me, fundamentally, all evening to do that -- put all the chapters in one file, in the right order, with consistent formatting and spacing.

The file is 893 KB. It's 317 pages long -- with 1" margins in 10-point Times New Roman. It'd be 532 pages in industry-standard 12-point Courier, which is what I'm going to have to do for submission, but since this printout is just for me I'd rather save paper with the smaller font.

Oof. No wonder it took two years.

Next steps: Look at the notes from all my chapter critiques and finish the to-do list. Print the giant document out. Start revising.

I think my little WinCE device may not be up to the task.

Posted 12/08/2004 22:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 124868 | Since last entry: 126 | This month: 2691

I made a few edits to the last chapter and epilogue before printing them out and giving them to my crit group. Also got my crits on the previous chapter, chapter I (that's letter "eye," not Roman numeral one); generally positive.

That was Friday and Saturday. Now it's Tuesday. I seem to have spent the intervening time commuting back and forth between my to-do list at work and my to-do list at home (a mix of novel-related, kitchen-related, and general life stuff like groceries and laundry). Tonight I folded large quantities of laundry and did the thing of going through the last couple of sets of critiques and recycling all the pages with no marks on them. Not exciting, but necessary. During these tasks I also watched a couple of truly Godawful reality shows. Another reminder, if one were needed, why I so rarely watch television.

Next step is to go through all the critiques and my various notes to myself from the last year and make a to-do list of changes to make during the editing pass. I'll have to prioritize it, because there's not enough time to do everything I want to do.

Yes, one of the items on my to-do list is to make a to-do list. Truly I am lame.

Oh, as long as I'm here I thought I would share with you something that came to me in the shower this morning:

Blade runner, that replicant's after you
Blade runner, if he catches you you're through

That Roy Baty is really a crazy clown
When will he learn that he never can mow him down?
Poor little blade runner never bothers anyone
Just huntin' down a skin-job's his idea of havin' fun

Posted 12/07/2004 23:27 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 124742 | Since last entry: 1482 | This month: 2565

Okay, now it really is all over, including the shouting.

I thought I'd finished the penultimate scene in the last chapter yesterday, but when I woke up this morning (at 5am, after going to sleep at midnight, oy) I realized the villain had been defeated too easily. So tonight I extended that scene with about five hundred words of serious physical action. Then I wrote the anticlimax, as planned, and dove right in and wrote the epilogue too: 775 words. I thought it would be brief, but I wonder if it's too brief. And the very last sentence seems kind of weak.

But... it's done. The first draft is all done. One hundred twenty-four thousand seven hundred and forty-two words (plus about 87,000 words of notes, outlines, and journal entries) in just under two years. I still have some summary and synopsis stuff remaining to do, but...

I wrote a novel.

I WROTE A NOVEL!

Falling over now. Thud.

Posted 12/02/2004 23:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 123260 | Since last entry: 1083 | This month: 1083

It's all over now but the shouting. Dozens of bodies on the floor, including several main characters. Blood everywhere. Just a short anticlimax left to write, explaining how the few survivors make it home, and the last chapter's done.

The last chapter. Done.

And I just killed off... someone I've spent the last two years with.

Jeez.

It was a good death, I think. Deserved, but not unredeemed.

I've been planning this moment for so long... I've had this scene in mind for months, maybe in some form all the way back to the beginning. (Yep -- I just checked, and this character's death was in the "Sketch a Novel in an Hour" outline I did at OryCon in 2002, though I didn't know then exactly how it would happen.) So it's not unexpected, and I'm not particularly upset about it.

I think?

At the moment it's nearly midnight and I do have to sleep. Maybe I'll cry later. Maybe not.

Good night, sweet prince.

Posted 12/01/2004 23:57 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 122177 | Since last entry: 1210 | This month: 9995

Back from a long weekend in Seattle and Vancouver, where we visited with relatives, had at least three Thanksgiving dinners that couldn't be beat, and did much square dancing. Weather was great and I only gained two pounds for the weekend. Thanks to Will and Grant for their hospitality, and to Jeremy for taking me out for a late lunch on Sunday.

I generally managed to write a couple hundred words a day, which is really unusual for me when traveling and brings my total for the month to a very respectable figure of almost ten thousand words. I got Jason and Sienna safely into orbit, where Green Hills soldiers menace them with maser pistols as they prepare to take them to Raptor. Only one scene to go, I think, in this final chapter -- probably about a thousand words -- and then I just have a brief epilog to write, plus the usual summary of the previous chapter, before Saturday's critique group meeting. I might not get the epilog written in time, but I'm going to try.

Preparations have begun for the novel workshop in January. I need to send out the complete novel to two people, plus chapters and outline to five, by December 15. I won't have time to do much more than a very cursory editing pass, unfortunately. Then I'll have two complete novels and five chapters-and-outlines to critique by January 15. Plus all that holiday stuff. Whee. But the workshop itself should be a lot of fun.

One other bit of good news: I sold another story to Realms of Fantasy. It's "The Ecology of Faerie," AKA "the one with the frogs," which I originally wrote for The Faerie Reel and then nearly sold to the Usborne YA Fantasy anthology. This is my first YA story sale, a sweet and gentle tale of magic and batrachians which nonetheless is a bit of a horror story as well. It's also the first time I've sold a second story to the same market.

Posted 11/30/2004 23:03 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 120967 | Since last entry: 2274 | This month: 8785

Eighteen hundred words tonight! Plumped down in my writing chair right after dinner and didn't get up until I'd written a scene in which Clarity and Jason launch into space, lasers blasting all around them, as they move into orbit for their final confrontation with Raptor. Zowie! And a million toy balloons save the day. That last detail is something I hadn't had in mind until just today, when I realized that the ordinary human populace (represented by Garrett) had to have a part to play at the climax. It also solved a plot problem without unnecessary violence. I'm quite proud of it.

And in case I don't get to post tomorrow... Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted 11/23/2004 23:00 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 118693 | Since last entry: 672 | This month: 6511

So much for writing every day in November. I just missed two days in a row, and only got any writing in today through sheer cussedness (200 words during intermission at the symphony).

But the kitchen looks gorgeous -- we spent most of the weekend shopping and unpacking. We have most of the pots and pans in place, all of the spices, and most of the sauces. We bought a very nice teak step stool (necessary now, because we've made all the cabinets taller to compensate for the decreased width that gives us more elbow room) and a gorgeous, gorgeous bamboo cutting board which will live on the granite countertop because it is so very pretty. But we gave up on finding the telephone we wanted locally and ordered it from the web.

Okay, I admit it -- I am a good little consumer. New posessions make me happy. But we've also put a lot of old stuff in the "garage sale" box as we've been unpacking.

There has been much discussion of the question "where does this want to live?" for various objects -- we can't put everything back where it was in the old kitchen -- and all the answers are provisional and subject to change. But the new layout is very, very practical; it works exactly the way we hoped it would when we laid it out, as we found when we prepared fried rice tonight. Kate was easily able to reach the spices without getting in my way at the stove. Also, the bright halogen lighting in the new stove hood makes everything on the stove look delicious and wonderful. I feel like I'm in a cooking show. We have never had any kind of lighting over the stove, believe it or not, and have been cooking in our own shadows as long as we've been together.

Posted 11/21/2004 23:05 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 118021 | Since last entry: 907 | This month: 5839

Nothing yesterday. Tonight, wrote a scene with Jason and Clarity, in which they establish that they no longer love each other, but they do trust each other, despite everything. This sets up Jason dumping a bit of information on Clarity which she is not yet in a position to understand. I have to keep some surprises for the very end...

Only a couple thousand words to go. It feels almost like a short story now, apart from the seventeen tons of backstory providing momentum. Jo Walton says something about the arrowhead and the shaft, which I cannot quite comprehend at the moment but I think it may be relevant.

Long day. Tired now. Going to sleep.

Posted 11/17/2004 22:17 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 117114 | Since last entry: 1264 | This month: 4932

I haven't exactly written every day since my last post. Most of the weekend was spent on kitchen stuff -- we know exactly what we want in a garlic keeper, step stool, telephone, etc., which entails much going into stores, pointing, describing, and being met with blank looks. Despite this we did manage to obtain nearly half the objects on our list. We also unpacked several boxes, and tonight we achieved the triumph of the first meal cooked in our new kitchen! Okay, it was just a little sauteed onion and ground beef mixed with bottled pasta sauce, over bowtie pasta, with frozen corn warmed up in the new microwave. But we actually cooked! Our first home-cooked meal in over two months. And there was much rejoicing.

I have gotten some writing done, though, and most days that didn't have any writing in them had "writing-related activity," like writing the synopsis of the chapter 9 and copying chapter I for critique. I also got some feedback on chapter 9 (the crit group meeting was sparsely attended), generally positive though one critiquer said she wished Jason wasn't such a "cranky little man" and Clarity was "more of a fighter" (despite all the work I've put into them, sniff waah). But there's little to be done about those problems at this point, with just one chapter to go.

It continues to be the case (as it has since the very first critique at Wiscon last year) that nearly every reader has a different, strong opinion about which character is the best and which is the one they just want to drop-kick. I'd be happier if every reader liked every character (liked them as well-written characters, I mean -- some of them are pretty unlikeable as people) but I'm prepared to accept this mixed bag as an indication that the characters are at least complex enough for people to have different opinions about, depending on their individual perspectives. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Things are moving really, really fast now, plot-wise. I'm finding that the things that need to happen just whiz by, pieces slotting into place and the characters running as fast as they can to keep up. The chapter still might be a long one, but it might not. Most of the secrets I've been keeping from the reader (and, in a few cases, wondering about myself) for as much as two years are out in the open now, with just a couple of revelations to go (such as: Raptor's hidden motivation, though it might be obvious by now to some). I'm still not 100% sure how some details in the final climactic scene are going to play out, but at this point I'm confident it will shake out in the actual writing of it.

Must sleep now. 8am meetings every day this week, oh joy.

Posted 11/15/2004 23:18 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 115850 | Since last entry: 1684 | This month: 3668

I thought I finished the penultimate chapter yesterday. I was wrong. When I went to write the first scene of the final chapter I realized it had to be told from Jason's PoV, so I went back and stuck it at the end of the previous chapter. Also wrote 200+ more words of notes in the final chapter.

Sienna surprised me tonight with a Han-Soloish self-centered mercenary act. But, given the way I'd treated her, it was the appropriate thing for her to do. I couldn't just leave her standing around, anyway. And she made it up to Jason at the end.

Also tonight: started unpacking boxes in the new kitchen! Woo hoo! There are still a few details to take care of -- we're still waiting for the screen door and faucet handles, the countertops need to be refinished, and the microwave turned out to be too big for the space designed for it (oops). But everything else is done, so we're moving back in. Yay!

Posted 11/10/2004 23:28 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 114166 | Since last entry: 938 | This month: 1984

Usually I post here whenever I write -- if you haven't heard from me lately, you can assume I haven't been writing. But in this case I have been plugging away, generally in the last half-hour or hour before going to bed (and going to bed way later than I should) so I haven't had a chance to post about it.

I have been successful in writing a little something every day. I've done a couple hundred words most days, except for Sunday night after OryCon when I managed just 41 words in a bleary half-hour before I admitted I was too tired to produce anything useful. But bit by bit I have reached the end of the chapter. It's a short one, but intense, and it ends with the reunion of the main characters of the two plot threads. I will look the chapter over tomorrow and maybe tweak it a bit before printing it for Saturday's critique. Only one (long!) chapter and an epilogue remains now.

On Saturday night of the con I didn't do anything on the novel, but I stayed up until 2am with Sara outlining a story tentatively titled "The Push-Button Unicorn." This is an idea that I had some time ago which I decided should be a collaboration, because Sara knows more about horses than I ever will but has little experience with short stories. We're both really excited about this story.

The convention was generally good. I had a full house of about 20 people for my reading on Friday afternoon, with reasonable crowds for all the panels and other items I was on. I got in some good lines at several of them, like the comment at the Mad Scientists panel on the Fantastic Method (regular scientists use the Scientific Method, which involves many experiments with a mix of successes and failures, while mad scientists use the Fantastic Method, in which you do one big experiment at the end of the book -- if you're the hero, it succeeds, and if you're the villain, it fails). I was also in Opening Ceremonies (in which I died four times) and Whose Line, and though I thought neither of them went particularly well I had people coming up to me all weekend saying they'd hurt themselves laughing. Go figure.

I also signed about a half-dozen copies of the zeppelin anthology. Add that to the half-dozen I signed at World Fantasy, and the fact that Wrigley-Cross Books in the dealers' room sold out (18 copies), and you can tell that this book is generating some real excitement. I'm so happy to be in it, and I'm looking forward to reading the other stories.

The downside of the con was that I was so busy on programming and such that I missed many of my friends and barely got lunch at all. But I did have many good dinners and conversations and hugs, and racked up a sleep deficit that will take weeks to repay, so it must have been a good con. And I just found out today that an editor to whom I pitched this novel three years ago is still interested in it, and is actually in a position to buy more fiction now than he was then. Opportunity! Gulp!

But now to bed.

Posted 11/09/2004 23:44 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 113228 | Since last entry: 1046 | This month: 1046

I started and deleted several journal entries today, trying to express my rage and anguish over the elections, but in the end I decided that everything I wanted to say had already been said by others, in the blogs and LiveJournals I've been reading obsessively for the last several days. My failure to come up with anything I thought worth posting might be partially explained by the fact that I went to sleep around midnight and snapped awake at 4:30. Heck of a way to go into a convention (OryCon starts tomorrow).

So today I decided to withdraw from the political world for a while. I listened to music on the radio, not news, and when I got home from work to find Kate, home from Phoenix at long-awaited last, I said "let's watch The Court Jester." And so we did; yea, verily, yea. There were substantial bits in there that neither of us remembered; I wonder if we've ever watched the disc before?

After the movie I wrote on my novel. It feels so pointless, and yet in some ways it is therapeutic, because (see the entries from way back around the beginning of 2002) this novel is in part about my anger with the lies and manipulations of those in power and the idiocy of the general public. And besides, it's NaNoWriMo, and though I'm not formally "doing" NaNoWriMo, my goal is to write a little something every day and I didn't even miss Election Day. So I wrote another couple hundred words, for a total of over 1000 words in the first three days of the month. Slow and steady is the way to make progress.

Slow and steady. And don't forget to breathe.

Oh, one tiny bit of good news: I just sold Swedish rights for "The Tale of the Golden Eagle" to magazine Nova Science Fiction.

Posted 11/03/2004 22:40 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 112182 | Since last entry: 2327 | This month: 9721

The above word count represents a half-chapter written on the plane to and from World Fantasy Convention. The "this month" total is for October. WFC report coming soon. Must sleep now...

Oh, and though I am not doing NaNoWriMo I have decided to write something every day. And it would be a shame to break the streak on day 1. So after writing the above paragraph I just wrote about 200 words (not reflected in the word count at the top of this entry). And now I really am going to go to sleep.

But first, one more thing:

VOTE!

Posted 11/01/2004 23:27 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 109855 | Since last entry: 487 | This month: 7394

I promised myself I would really, truly start on the next chapter right away instead of waiting a week or more. I promised myself it didn't have to be good, and it didn't have to be much, I just had to start.

I've started. It's not good, and it's not much, but I started. Jason and Sienna are on the train headed back to New York.

The outline for this chapter seems kind of thin, and I'm wondering if there's really whole chapter in it. But I seem to recall I felt the same about the previous chapter at this stage, so I'm prepared to see what comes of it.

Got my critiques on the previous chapter yesterday. There were a few suggestions about raising tension (the consensus is that the computer hacking scenes went on just a bit long) but really people don't seem to have much to say about the big issues -- everyone's just hanging on for the ride at this point. I hope they like the destination when we arrive there.

Posted 10/24/2004 22:14 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 109368 | Since last entry: 1787 | This month: 6907

And in one great burst of writing I finish the chapter, with a long scene in which all Clarity's plans collapse in flames. Things couldn't be worse for Clarity now, which is perfect because there's just two chapters left to go: one Jason chapter and one which is currently planned to be a Clarity chapter. I'm thinking of either breaking that one in three (Clarity, Jason, Clarity) or doing alternating viewpoints within the chapter -- something I've never done before, but the last chapter is a special place and might not have to follow all the rules. In either case I have about six weeks for all that plus the epilogue. Fortunately it's all outlined.

Also, the kitchen is really coming together now, with countertops and tile and crown molding and it is just looking completely nifty!! See kateyule's LiveJournal for photos.

I'm pleased. Very, very tired, but pleased.

Posted 10/21/2004 22:56 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 107581 | Since last entry: 305 | This month: 5120

Went to a voting party tonight. Here in Oregon we vote by mail (everyone, every election) -- ballots went out last week and are due by November 2. So some friends convened a potluck to get together, talk about some of the more confusing ballot measures, and fill out our ballots. It was way keen -- Kate pointed out that now she's certain she hasn't voted for any person or measure who looks good on the surface but has a nasty surprise buried inside. On the way back from the party we dropped off our ballots at the county elections office.

Wrote a little bit after coming home from the party -- I'm tired, tired, tired, after several very busy days at work (with no end in sight this week) but I need to keep plugging away if I'm going to make my next deadline (this Saturday). I wrote the beginning of the last scene in the chapter, in which protestors begin to gather around the Platforms. Lots of tell here, rather than show, but it would be insane for Clarity to be in the middle of this situation. I'll strive for it to be as visceral as possible as things wind up to a fever pitch, though.

Posted 10/20/2004 22:52 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 107276 | Since last entry: 1186 | This month: 4815

I attended a funeral today, of one of my apartment-mates from college. Even though we lived in the same city after graduation, I didn't keep in touch with him; I think the last time we saw each other might have been at my wedding, 13 years ago. He passed away suddenly this weekend, of a massive heart attack. We were the same age.

I really ought to spend more time with my friends.

A good evening's writing, though. I wrote a scene in which... a major character dies. I swear, that's what came next in the outline. And I don't think the real funeral had any impact on the actual death scene, because the characters' relationship to each other was completely different from my own situation. But it is weird. Very weird.

I also used this scene to summarize the plans that the characters have made in the last couple of days, leading up to the massive assault to follow. Because, even though this is some pretty heavy action, it's not really important to the main questions of the plot.

One scene left to go in the chapter. It's a biggie.

I spent far too much time looking at a map of the world's largest cities and an earth/moon/sun map viewer (Home Planet) trying to figure out the best time for a simultaneous worldwide strike on December 13, 2051. Turns out that, even with today's population, 8am UTC (3am New York time) is the best time for most of the 24 biggest cities -- it's just before dawn for London and Rio and just after sunset for Tokyo, with most of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia in daylight. Only North and Central America, with 3 of the top 24 cities, are in the middle of their night. The situation will be even more heavily weighted to Asia and Africa by midcentury.

Well, isn't that going to make things interesting for Clarity...

Posted 10/18/2004 23:08 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 106090 | Since last entry: 1860 | This month: 3629

Usually I post an entry here every day I write something, but in the past few days things have been better for writing than posting. So, by dint of plugging away, a few hundred words on an okay day and a thousand words on a good day, I've got 1800 words since the last entry, for a total of 3500 words in the chapter so far.

And it's war. Civil war between two factions of the aliens.

I didn't know it was going to be war, but there really wasn't any alternative. As soon as Clarity and company realized what Raptor had in mind, how great the stakes had gotten, an all-out military assault became the only sane alternative. I realized this by thinking about the question "given what he plans anyway, why doesn't Raptor just..." and realizing there was no reason he couldn't, or wouldn't. And my main characters also know this, so they have to stop him by any means possible. And the means remaining to them are pretty slim.

One good thing about this situation is that it really allows Clarity to show what she's capable of. She's uncertain whether she's doing the right thing, of course -- as any sane person would be -- but she doesn't let that stop her from taking action. And when a confrontation came with one of her Councilors -- a confrontation I'd planned to end with him storming out, to show just how tenuous her support was -- damn if she didn't deliver a speech so rousing that he just had to stick around. It wouldn't have been fair to her to let him go. Just as well, she has plenty of other forces ranged against her, as she'll be finding out before the end of the chapter.

At this point I'm wondering just how much violence is actually going to occur when things really start to roll, and how much of it to show on the page. I recently read Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams, where a really massive campaign is waged on the other side of the world while our hero, central to it though she may be, watches on television. This may be the only way to convey something this big in a story that is, fundamentally, about two little people in a great big crazy mixed-up world. So I may wrap up the actual fighting part of the war in just a couple thousand words. Or it might drag on in some form until the end of the book.

Writing is full of surprises, let me tell you. Anything could happen.

Posted 10/17/2004 19:27 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 104230 | Since last entry: 350 | This month: 1769

Some progress tonight, not as much as I'd hoped. Too many other things to do... many of which didn't really need doing, but I did them anyway. I spent quite a bit of my writing time going back and adding details to what I'd written already, and continuing to work out the outline for the last few chapters. Questions I've had for almost two years about exactly how the story ends are falling into place, and Clarity's going to really kick ass and take names.

Meanwhile, the universe being what it is, my whine in the last entry knocked loose a response... a rejection, 346 days on a short-short. At least it was an encouraging rejection. This was the first story I wrote at Clarion, over four years ago, and it's already been just about everywhere that I thought might want it (which is why it was at a market known to have response times up to a year). Into the trunk it goes. But I still hold out some hope for some of the other stories still out there.

Some good news, though: I've now seen the cover for All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and it's fan-freaking-tastic. The book will launch at World Fantasy Con, Halloween weekend, so I've put up a page about my story (including the cover) here.

Posted 10/14/2004 22:29 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 103880 | Since last entry: 493 | This month: 1419

Hare reveals her reasons for returning, which are not as altrustic as Clarity had expected. Nor, frankly, as I'd expected. But when I actually wrote the speech I realized that Hare's priorities are not Clarity's and the thing that would drive her over the edge is not what matters most to Clarity, or to the reader. This way also will help to drive Jason harder in the following chapter.

Meanwhile, I'm getting antsy for responses to short story submissions from a couple of markets that have been sitting on stories a lot longer than usual, plus another market that is known for long response times but this is getting ridiculous. I hope these long response times are indicative of good news, but I know that isn't always the case. (Whine, whine, whine.)

Posted 10/12/2004 22:28 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 103387 | Since last entry: 752 | This month: 926

Some more re-outlining today, making sure that all the pieces are in place for the grand finale. There's a lot of stuff that has to happen in the last three chapters, and I think I now have all of the spring-loaded bits stuffed in where they need to be, but I'm not convinced that the amount of time in the outline is plausible for it to happen -- but other factors require that it can't be extended. Well, maybe some things happen faster in the future.

Then I actually (huzzah!) began adding text to the chapter again. Seven hundred new words in which Hare returns, by helicopter. She is greeted with suspicion by all but Clarity, so I haven't gotten around yet to the first point in the revised outline, where she reveals the reason she came back. On the other hand, if I hadn't covered these suspicions and Clarity's reasons for believing Hare despite them, I'm sure that one of my critiquers (JWF) would have called me on it. And rightly so. Thanks to his comments I'm going to have to go back during rewrite and add much more suspicion and paranoia -- Clarity is just too trusting, and even if she is a little naive at the beginning of the book she'd be surrounded by people whose job is to keep her safe.

Speaking of paranoia... this weekend we saw the remake of The Manchurian Candidate, which I thought was actually a better film than the original. I came out of it realizing that, just as Blade Runner (the movie) looks like Neuromancer (the book), the new Manchurian Candidate looks like I want my book to look. It's got the New York setting, the movement from the corridors of power to the most squalid little apartments and back, the constant swirl of underlings around the powerful people at the center of the plot, the mix of white people and black people, the fact that you're never really sure who are the heroes and who are the villains... but this movie is a lot richer in detail, with a lot more motion and a lot more light and shadow than I've had in my mind while writing the book, which means my book probably won't look as good in the reader's mind as the movie does. I want to add more detail (more senses, too, not just sight and hearing), more motion, more chatter, more underlings. (It would help if I knew in a more personal way what New York is like. But I don't think I can justify a field trip just now.)

We also watched the last bit of Angels in America on tape. The dialogue is wonderful... elliptical, indirect, contradictory, fragmentary. Very real. And the characters are so twisted, in many cases unlikeable, and yet sympathetic. No wonder it won all those Tonys and Emmys. We'd seen it in the theatre, but with the cinematography and special effects -- not to mention Meryl Streep and Al Pacino -- the miniseries might be even better.

Meanwhile, the kitchen is starting to look like a kitchen again. See Kate's journal for more details and pictures.

Posted 10/10/2004 22:05 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 102635 | Since last entry: 174 | This month: 174

Spent the evening re-outlining the last 3 chapters, since my current outline for those chapters has gotten a little out of sync with what I've written and what I've got planned. It's hard to really internalize the idea that, after so many months of looking so far down the road to the end, it's now practically here. Suddenly there are so many loose ends to wrap up. And how the heck am I going to bring some of the necessary information on stage, given that the only people who know it wouldn't tell the viewpoint characters about it under any circumstances? I'm going to have to settle for letting my viewpoint characters make some clever deductions. In some cases they have almost all the information they need to do it; I do have one wild card I can play to bring a little more info on stage.

Now I know why the villain always brags about his fiendish plan while he has the hero tied up. It's the only way for the author to get that information onto the page/screen when only the villain knows it! I hope to avoid that cliche, though.

I will still have to figure out how Jason learns a key skill, how he can put that skill to use in just about no time, and how he determines that he has to be in the right place for his climax. (I think I have earned a little bit of implausibility.) But that's not for a couple of chapters, and my ideas on those questions are firmer than they were a few weeks ago. A solution will present itself in time, I'm sure.

Posted 10/04/2004 22:12 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 102461 | Since last entry: 2639 | This month: 11411

Item: Took the train to work today, so as to use time normally wasted in commuting on writing. It paid off handsomely, as you can see by the word count above.

Item: Passed 100,000 words, somewhere on the bus to work. Yay!

Item: Finished chapter H, with a day to spare. Yay! It's 8785 words, and probably could use a little trim off the sides, but it's not going to get it right now.

It's a funny thing, how you can write a scene where a character is just sitting around and you give him a little bit of business just so he has something to do. And then, a few scenes or chapters later, you discover that little bit of business turns out to have been exactly the set-up he needed for the big revelation that happens now. Either that, or the big revelation happens the way it happens because you had that little bit of business before. It's hard to tell which way the serendipity really runs, but it happened about three times today. The third one is a lulu, and ties together the two plot threads in a way I hadn't even thought about until about one paragraph before it came off my fingers. Now everyone is implicated in everything and there's plenty of guilt to go around. It's almost like Memento, where (spoiler ho!) Guy Pearce winds up pulling the wool over his own eyes.

Must sleep now. Many meetings tomorrow. Things are really heating up at work -- I'm a key player on at least three major projects in the next quarter. The good news is that I will get one or two additional people to help me; in exchange I'm supposed to mentor them. I'm feeling suspiciously responsible.

Posted 09/30/2004 23:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 99822 | Since last entry: 974 | This month: 8772

Wrote another full scene, in which Jason continues hacking on the FFL's mail server to try to find out who it was who set him up by providing the biocomputer documentation. A couple of big revelations coming soon. (They'd better be soon, I have to finish this chapter by Saturday!)

I sometimes wonder if these hacking scenes are interesting. Some readers really like them, and I know that this is an area that I can write as few other writers can (well, except for those who have been technical writers, and there are quite a few of those). I'll leave them in for now, and if feedback indicates they are boring I can trim them back.

I see that I will probably pass 100,000 words tomorrow. That's quite a milestone. There's probably 500-1500 words left in the current chapter, with 3 chapters and an epilogue after that, so we're still looking at about 115k-125k words for the completed first draft. That's within reason, though I'll have to focus on trimming down rather than adding as I revise.

Onward!

Posted 09/29/2004 23:07 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 98848 | Since last entry: 467 | This month: 7798

Spent much of the evening adding a new shelf to the CD bookcase -- a project we've meant to do for, oh, about twelve years, but Kate finally got around to buying all the pieces today and all I had to do was haul out the hammer and screwdrivers and Power Tools and install it. Grunt. That and getting dinner just about killed the evening; going out to eat every night is really time-consuming. I'll be glad when the kitchen is done.

Only about 300 words of actual new prose tonight; the rest is notes on the difficult question of "how the hell does Jason figure out what is really happening, given that everyone involved is hiding their part of the facts from everyone else?"

In this chapter Jason has to find answers to two key questions, one of which has been driving him for basically the whole novel and the other has turned his life upside down in the last couple of chapters. (Of course, those answers only make things harder.) I've figured out a way for him to find the answer to question 2: it involves him being the only person in the world who is in a position to see all the pieces at once, or having any reason to look. Finding the answer to question 1 is harder, but I had an important realization: if it's Sienna who holds the final link in the chain of evidence that leads to the answer, I can have her reveal it at the very end of this chapter, which gives that scene some needed oomph and also motivates a decision of hers that is otherwise rather inexplicable. So all I need is to figure out what that link is, and the other links will fall into place.

I think I'll have to futz with the calendar a little, since this chapter is outlined as taking place over three days and I'll need at least four for all the above to happen plausibly. Further calendar rejiggering will be required due to the fact that all of this is happening on Thanksgiving weekend, which just can't work (most businesses would be closed on Thanksgiving). Or should I have Sienna's key revelation happen at Jason and Sienna's squalid little impoverished two-person Thanksgiving dinner? Naah, too Hallmark, and besides I think it's better if it coincides with the rebellion that started on December 8 in the last Clarity chapter. That'll really bolt the two plot threads together.

Man, it's like juggling jigsaw puzzles in here. There's pieces all over the place. Good thing I still have that hammer...

Posted 09/27/2004 23:30 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 98381 | Since last entry: 1682 | This month: 7331

A productive day's writing, while Kate went to the Flock and Fiber show ("have fun with the sheep," I said). Wrote a whole scene in which Jason hacks into the FFL's mail server to find out what the organization has been keeping from him. I hate fiction in which magic "Computer Hackers" can take control of anything in no time, with no research and no preparation. In this case I set up the hack chapters and chapters ago, with Jason having plenty of inside information (plus, of course, his exceptional skills, which are implausible, but he is the main character after all). I hope the readers will find it plausible and be entertained.

In other news, I feel less sick. Still not 100% healthy, but better. I'll be glad when this is over, though. Thanks to all those who have sent good wishes.

Posted 09/26/2004 20:23 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 96699 | Since last entry: 631 | This month: 5649

Sent Jason out into the cold of a Trenton, New Jersey night, but it's a good thing in this case. I think that everything I've written so far in this chapter is fundamentally necessary but too long -- over 3000 words so far and I'm only 1/3 through my outline for the chapter. I just don't think what I've written so far is worth that many words. With any luck I'll get a chance to trim it back before I send the chapter to critique.

I'm also feeling a little achy and a little scratchy in the throat. Man, I hope I'm not getting sick again. I was only mildly ill after the Worldcon, but that was too much and it was only a couple weeks ago. Taking my vitamins and going to bed now.

Posted 09/23/2004 23:10 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 96068 | Since last entry: 1315 | This month: 5018

Huh. I didn't think I'd written that many words today. Largely what I did is go back and interleave some action (not very active action, to be sure, but not just thinking) with the stuff I wrote the other day, changing the beginning of the chapter from pure exposition into Jason's thoughts as he trudges through a snowstorm to the bus station. (Yoo rah.) But it is action -- yes, my protagonist is taking action! -- and it leads him into a potentially deadly confrontation. I left him, unarmed, facing an armed alien security officer and with no concrete idea of how to get him out of it. But over dinner I thought of a way out that I think is pretty nifty. I'll write it later.

In other news, I have retired the old journal on my home page. The new URL is http://www.spiritone.com/~dlevine/sf/journal/index.shtml (note the S in .shtml) and the new URL for the RSS feed is http://www.spiritone.com/cgi-usr/dlevine/blosxom.cgi/index.rss. Please change your bookmarks. And let me know if you have any problems.

Posted 09/19/2004 20:11 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 94753 | Since last entry: 708 | This month: 3703

Yesterday we went to see local author Marc Acito, whom I met at a party last year, as he kicks off his book tour for his first novel, How I Paid for College. For which he got a six-figure advance, and another six-figure advance for the UK rights, and yet more money for the film rights. I told Kate "if I melt down into a small green puddle of jealousy in the middle of the reading, poke me." But it was very entertaining, and I learned a few things about how to do a good reading.

But tonight, despite looming feelings of "who am I kidding, nobody's going to want to read this, I should just go out in the back yard and eat worms" I sat down and began composing actual prose in Chapter H. Go me. So far it's pretty heavily laden with exposition, and exposition about sitting and thinking at that, and sitting and thinking about computer security at that. But it's 708 new words, by gum, and I can trim it back later.

At times like this I try to remind myself that I did win Writers of the Future and the James White Award, not to mention the Hugo and Campbell nominations as well as the Nebula near-miss. And agent Linn Prentis said nice things about the chapters and outline of this very novel, which she certainly didn't have to. (Did I mention in my Worldcon report that when I ran into her in the Green Room she seemed much more enthusiastic about it than her email had led me to believe she was? I wanted to try to get to the bottom of the discrepancy at the time, but I was late for a panel and I didn't see her again.)

Anyway. I know I can write, I know this is a good novel, I just have to grit my teeth and keep writing until I believe it or finish the damn thing, whichever comes first. Yargh.

In other news... we picked up the new car today. A silver 2005 Corolla with 47 miles on the odometer, remote keyless entry, CD changer, antilock brakes, and an instruction book full of novel ways to die. (Now with side-curtain airbags: four new explosive devices for your protection!) And that new-car smell. Mmm.

Posted 09/16/2004 22:34 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 94045 | Since last entry: 367 | This month: 2995

No prose written in the last few days, but I did write 367 words of detailed outline in Chapter H tonight. Over the weekend I did many productive things, including buying a new watch (temporary replacement for the one whose strap broke, with new strap on order), a new Swiss Army knife (replacement for the one I lost at Security on the way to the Worldcon, grr), and light fixtures and cabinet knobs for the new kitchen (though we need to take one of the light fixtures back and get a different one), and test-drove a new car. We'll be taking delivery of that on Thursday (I love working with an auto broker).

Getting all that done was satisfying, but also in the last couple of days I received two rejections -- 202 days from Ideomancer and 186 days from Brutarian -- and saw portents and signs that a Blue-Form-of-Death is on its way from Realms of Fantasy after 224 days. For some reason, perhaps because they took so long and then arrived so close on the heels of my Hugo and Campbell losses, these rejections hit me really hard and I spent the entirety of Monday afternoon and evening in a blue funk. Definitely not in a writing frame of mind. So I cheered myself up by setting up a LiveJournal for the lovely and charming kateyule. She's going to be blogging about the kitchen remodel.

Have you ever stayed at one of those "suites" hotels where you have two rooms and your own little fridge and microwave? It's nice to be able to have breakfast and lunch in the room, but it's kind of crowded, and it's awkward to do any real cooking without proper utensils and stuff, so you eat most of your dinners out. Having your kitchen done feels a lot like that. It's like we're on vacation -- or maybe traveling on business is more like it -- right here in our own home town.

Posted 09/14/2004 21:59 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 93678 | Since last entry: 43 | This month: 2628

Just a little bit of clean-up on the chapter today, but I got it formatted for critique and printed out, and I wrote the synopsis of the previous chapter (not counted as novel words) and printed that too. Then I critiqued one of two stories; one more crit to do and then I'm all set for tomorrow's critique session.

I heard back from Dean: I am definitely on for the January novel workshop. So now I must finish my novel by the first week in December. That means going a little faster than I have been managing -- 4 chapters and an epilogue in 12 weeks. I can do this. If I can go even faster than that I can do some revisions, too. So I will dive right in on the next chapter right away! (Yes, I've said this before, but now I have a deadline!)

I have photos from Noreascon and the kitchen remodel that I haven't gotten out of my camera's memory yet. Until then you can look at James Patrick Kelly's page for photos of me and some other "young turks." (I take no responsibility for any nightmares resulting from looking at the picture of me halfway down the page.)

Posted 09/10/2004 22:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 93635 | Since last entry: 1052 | This month: 2585

Well, I've come to an end for chapter 8. I didn't get all of the incidents I wanted into the chapter, but the last sentence I just wrote is so climactic that just about nothing can follow it. And the incidents that are missing either have to follow that chronologically or had to be left out of the place they were outlined because the character isn't emotionally ready for that incident to take place yet (it might never happen). So chapter 8 is done (sort of), at a decent length of 5244 words, in time for me to do my copying and write What Has Gone Before at work tomorrow. (Don't tell my boss.)

Meanwhile, I just learned today there is an opening in Dean Wesley Smith's next Novel Weekend. This is a chance to very seriously workshop a whole novel with a great bunch of people. Unfortunately, to attend I would have to have my novel finished by the first week in October, and after careful consideration and discussions with Kate I've decided that just isn't going to happen. There's about 20,000 words to go, we're in the middle of a major kitchen remodel, the day job's heating up, and we have to buy a new car. The most I've ever done in a month before this (apart from Clarion) is 13,000 words. So, alas, I told Dean I couldn't take the available workshop slot.

The next Novel Weekend deadline is in December, which is much saner. So I've asked Dean if I can get into that one instead.

Posted 09/09/2004 23:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 92583 | Since last entry: 0 | This month: 1533

Friday, continued: I arrived at the bar to find Jay Lake, Laura Anne Gilman, Keith R. A. DeCandido, and Janna Silverstein already set up and ready to go for the Two Beers And A Story Challenge, along with a number of onlookers and supporters (including Aynjel -- who would have been my Clarion East classmate if I hadn't gone West -- and Jay's agent Jennifer Jackson). The rules of the Challenge were simple: write a complete short story in the time it takes to finish two beers.

If you know me, you'll know that I can usually finish a novel more quickly than I can finish a beer. But in this case we had the cheering crowd shouting "Drink!" every minute or two, and by the time I reached the end of my 864-word opus, a Bradburyesque little horror tale titled "Moonlight on the Carpet," I found I had downed a full pint of Sam Adams and two-thirds of another. Not to mention participating in the singing, trash-talking, telling of rude jokes, and other miscellaneous hilarity (including the mating call of the Giant Clam). We were having way more fun than the whole rest of the bar put together, from the sound of it.

Janna, alas, suffered a Macintosh meltdown and had to compose her story on Aynjel's Palm Pilot, which added to the stress with a wonderfully intuitive user interface (Command-Q to save?!) and a battery that threatened to expire at any moment, but nonetheless she finished her SF erotica story. Laura Anne's battery did give out before her story did, but she still produced 1000 words of a peachy SF action tale. Jay was the first to finish, with a bizarre story of whales invading the land, but Keith's story, all in dialogue, was the longest. We read them all aloud at the end and I was amazed that in that raucous atmosphere we had produced five stories that were not merely entertaining, but actually good -- maybe even salable. Jennifer suggested we should produce an anthology to benefit the SFWA Emergency Medical Fund, but if that doesn't happen I think I'm going to send mine to F&SF.

We shut down our computers and repaired to Frank Wu's party, still going strong, but I was tired and tipsy enough that I decided to bail out after a fairly short time. I thanked Frank for his hospitality, ate one last chocolate-covered pretzel (love 'em), and went to bed.

Saturday I breakfasted with some of my Writers of the Future classmates (Carl Fredrick, Pat Rothfuss, Tom Brennan, Jae Brim, and Ari Goelman) at the Trident Bookstore/Cafe, while Kate ran off to Neil Gaiman's reading. My WotF class is a great bunch and I predict you will hear these names again. We spent a couple of hours chatting over pancakes and omelets, and on the way back to the con we stopped and talked with Jenn Reese and Greg Van Eekhout as they ate at a sidewalk cafe.

In the afternoon I attended one panel, called "Is It Fair?" with Carl moderating editors Scott Edelman, Shawna McCarthy, Sheila Williams, and author Resa Nelson in a discussion of who gets published in the magazines and why. It was a fairly standard panel, but I attended because I had never met either Shawna (Realms of Fantasy) or Sheila (Asimov's) before and I wanted to gain any insights I could about what they are looking for. Shawna mentioned that she doesn't like stories about talking cats, but I pointed out that she did buy one from me about a talking giraffe. I introduced myself to both editors after the panel; Sheila looks like no one in particular, but Shawna has the most intense eyes.

After that I headed off to the Hugo rehearsal, which for the nominees was really straightforward: if your name is called, you come up to the stage this way and leave the stage that way. "It may seem simple, but the only person last year who didn't practice it was the only person who stumbled as they came on stage." So I did. And it was at that moment I began to be nervous. Up until the rehearsal I'd simply assumed that I wasn't going to win, but standing on that stage in front of all those empty chairs I thought there might perhaps be a chance. I talked for a while with designated Plokta accepter Caroline Mullan before running off to my next panel, "Great Cliches in SF and Fantasy."

I was the moderator for this one, which meant I had to hurry to the green room to pick up the table tents before the panel started. Don D'Ammassa, Craig Gardner, and Josepha Sherman all did their parts, but S.M. Stirling, despite being somewhat ill, was the star of the panel, illuminating the discussion of cliches old and new (they do have their uses -- especially if you are aware of them and use them to twist the reader's expectations rather than letting them take control of your story) with plenty of examples from history. I learned a lot from him.

When that panel ended it was 3:00 and I hadn't had a thing to eat since pancakes at 10, so I took myself over to the food court in the adjacent shopping mall and, in a sudden attack of machismo, ordered chicken vindaloo. It was hot enough that it made my stomach a bit upset, a problem I don't usually have and really didn't need right before the Hugos. Fortunately I had enough time to dash back to the room and take some Pepto-Bismol before my next panel appearance: "Bad Con Advice for Newbies" with Sandra McDonald, Laurie Mann, and Pricila Olson. This was a really humorous mix of actual congoing advice couched in negative terms (e.g. "if anything goes wrong, yell at the volunteers -- they appreciate the feedback") and convention horror stories. I got a great laugh by saying, in the middle of a comment from the audience, "Don't interrupt!" -- and, a minute later, "Don't interrupt again!"

After that it was time to change for the Hugos. But Lyda Morehouse had offered to sneak me into the Ace party and introduce me to her agent, an opportunity I couldn't pass up. So I wandered through the habitrails of the shopping mall to the Marriott, where I talked with Lyda, Leah Cutter, and several other keen author-type people as well as the agent, Martha Millard. She said Lyda had said many nice things about me, for which I am thoroughly grateful. But I couldn't hang around long. I hurried back over the skybridge and through the mall to my room, where I changed into my Nervous Suit. (Whenever I wear this tux, no matter what I'm doing -- getting married, attending the Hugos, or Writers of the Future -- I feel nervous. It's gotta be the suit.)

Kate wasn't back yet, having gone to Cambridge for the afternoon, but somehow I managed to dress myself without help (hey, you think French cuffs are easy?) and headed down to the Hugo reception, where I found Paulette Rouselle and Amy Sisson from my Clarion class, along with Amy's husband Paul and every glittering star in the science fiction firmament. I munched very good hors d'ouvres and drank Kaluha and cream, my tipple of choice when someone else is paying, while talking with authors and editors and agents and big-name fans, all wearing their spiffiest outfits except for Gordon Van Gelder, who was dressed as a "working editor" in a blue-collar shirt. He advised me to think about who I wanted least to win the awards I was up for and imagine they had already won it -- after that, whatever happened would have to be an improvement. Fellow Campbell nominee Tim Pratt introduced me to his agent Ginger Clark, and the photographer from Locus made sure to get pictures of everyone.

We all trooped down to the auditorium and took our seats in the nominees' section. Kate and I (she had showed up during the reception, as promised, looking great) wanted to sit next to Jay Lake but wound up in front of him, in a pair of seats in the very front row with an empty space (for a wheelchair) marked out in tape on either side. At one point someone from the committee tried to boot us out of the front row to make room for Fredrik Pohl, but Charlie Brown of Locus told him Fred wasn't coming. I owe him one.

And then... the awards ceremony. Neil Gaiman was a wonderful emcee, but what I remember most is that my hands were cold as ice and I probably did serious damage to Kate as my grip tightened before the winner in each of my categories was announced. Jay was a real mensch; he thanked me in his Campbell acceptance speech, which was well above and beyond, and put his hand on my shoulder during that endless trembling moment before the Short Story Hugo announcement.

So how do I feel about losing two Hugos (even though one of them wasn't really a Hugo)? As I said to many people the next day, "Apart from the bitter, clawing jealousy and rage I'm just fine." (And when Jay was in earshot I added "...and I'll get that bastard Lake if it's the last thing I do.") But it really is an honor just to be nominated -- even though I was just about ready to smack the 50th person who said that to me the next day. And I did come in second on the Campbell, which is nice.

All of us Hugo Losers were ushered to the top of the Sheraton, where a suite had been decorated all in white, with faceless white masks hanging from white helium balloons and slide projectors flicking SF quotes on the walls and ceilings. It was, frankly, bizarre. But the food was good, and I had a nice talk with George R. R. Martin and Michael Swanwick among others (hey, wait a minute, he's a Hugo Winner -- who let him in here?). When that party got too crowded we adjourned to the Baen party at the other end of the floor, where we met Ted Cogswell's daughter and her husband, artist David Mattingly, and looked at 3-D pictures until we fell over about 1am.

By the way, here are my notes for my acceptance speech: Pat Murphy - Gordon Van Gelder - David Hartwell - Jonathan Strahan - Candas Jane Dorsey - Jim Van Pelt - James Patrick Kelly - Lyda Morehouse - Clarion West class of 2000 - Writers of the Future class of 2002 - Lucky Lab Rats critique group - and, always and forever, Kate Yule.

Sunday we decided on a quick breakfast in the hotel, but when we couldn't even get someone to seat us in the hotel restaurant we gave that up as a bad idea and settled for a latte and muffin at Starbuck's instead. There we ran into writer Mary Rosenblum (meeting there with her agent, Martha Millard) and Diane Duane & Peter Morwood, who told us all about raising Hermes scarves for fun and profit.

After breakfast I attended a couple of panels, on titles and books that died despite everything, then went off to my Kaffeeklatch. I didn't have high expectations for this -- I'd put all my self-publicity efforts into my reading -- and I wasn't surprised to find that no one had signed up for it. But while I was waiting for the table to be cleaned I met someone I knew -- Marcia Lambert and her husband. Marcia and I went to the same university, though in different colleges; we didn't meet until our 20th reunion when we sat next to each other at dinner. As long as there was an empty table with my name on it, we sat down at it to chat, and after a little while two more people joined us: Tricia Liburd, a new writer from Toronto whom I'd met at Torcon, and a complete stranger. So the kaffeeklatch turned out to be a success after all.

In the afternoon I talked with Ctein and with Seattle fan Dave Howell, who used his artist ribbon to get me past the line of people waiting to get into the art show when it reopened after the auction, then gave me a whirlwind tour. If he hadn't done that I might not have seen the art show at all, because I soon had to run off to my final panel, "The Great Character Swap." Which was, frankly, lame. But it still had a decent crowd, as did all of my panels, so I shouldn't complain.

After that I met up with Kate and with Tom Brennan, Lyda Morehouse, and techie Hugh Daniel ("How many wires are there in a wireless network?") for tapas. Tom, from Liverpool, thought at first we were proposing a "topless" restaurant, and Lyda, from St. Paul, had never had tapas before, so it was a bit of an adventure, but the food (tapas, in case you don't know, is Spanish for "many delicious little appetizer-like fiddly bits") was excellent, as was the conversation.

As we walked back from dinner, Lyda and I quizzed each other and determined that neither of us knew of any cool pro parties. We went to her room, met her roommates, and called several people in search of the cool kids, but it seemed that none of the cool kids were throwing a party this evening. So Kate and I went to the SFWA suite instead. It had been so crowded and noisy the night before that it had been shut down by con security, but on Sunday night (possibly because of the previous night's fracas, or maybe just because everyone was still at the Masqerade) it was quite pleasant -- neither jam-packed nor empty. I talked with fellow Hugo loser James Patrick Kelly about how Jay Lake's careers and mine have paralleled each other; he compared us to Silverberg and Ellison (without saying which was who) and offered to blurb my collection when I have one. I also talked with Shawna McCarthy again, but this time in her agent hat.

Eventually we left, to wander the halls and check out the bid parties, but they were all Too Full (Montreal) or Too Empty (SFF.Net). Carl Fredrick ran into me in the hall and said it was probably for the best that I hadn't won. Finally we landed in the bar, where we talked with some of the Writers of the Future folks (Pat Rothfuss said he'd recently had his best Internet shopping day ever, buying a strait jacket, a Latin textbook, and eight pounds of granular caffeine) and Tor assistant editor Liz Gorinsky as well as Tall Duane from Seattle's University Bookstore. But, at last, fatigue set in and with many hugs and fond farewells we toddled off to bed.

Monday. Packed. Ran into Clarion grad Diana Sherman in the lobby, otherwise saw no one we knew until we got to the airport, where we found Portland fan Ariel Shattan and her family, Lyda Morehouse, and Lyda's friend Tim were all on our flight (Lyda and Tim got off at Minneapolis). Kate rented a DVD player for the trip; I slept, and finished reading Heaven by Jack Cohen and Ian Stewart. I really should have written something on the flight, but my brain was too full. I also noticed I had a bit of a scratchy throat, which I hoped was just from dry air and too much talking, but by the time we got home there was no doubt I had caught a mild case of Convention Crud, and the next morning it was clear that Kate had too. At least it didn't get in the way of the con itself.

And then Tuesday morning, bright and early, the remodelers came and tore out the kitchen. But that's a story for another day.

Posted 09/08/2004 22:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 92583 | Since last entry: 1533 | This month: 1533

Teresa Neilsen Hayden famously said of the San Antonio Worldcon that it had too much white space. This con wasn't like that, at least not for me: it was quite comfortably packed with content from margin to margin, all in neat rows and columns. Everywhere I went I found keen people to talk with and interesting things to do, and all the scheduled items happened exactly where, when, and with whom they were supposed to. (Admittedly, I didn't go to the Masquerade.)

Wednesday was our travel day. On our flight to Minneapolis, by chance we found ourselves in a half-row just abaft of First Class, with tons of legroom, a handy little cupboard for our carryons, and our own video screen. Later, in conversation with Duane (the 6' 6" manager of Seattle's University Bookstore) I discovered this is called a "bulkhead row" and giving it to a person as short as me should be a crime. But it was terribly pleasant, and I got almost 700 words written on my novel.

We arrived in Boston without incident, to find the airport under construction (so what else is new?) and there was no clear indication where to catch the shuttle to our hotel. But we did eventually find one, complete with a couple of fans already on board, and soon arrived at the Sheraton, where we stood in the short Starwood Preferred Guest line and got a room with a great view on the 25th floor. Kate was a little guilty that we got such a nice room by virtue of traveling a lot, but I pointed out that anyone can become a Starwood Preferred Guest just by filling out a form -- it's free. Maybe we didn't really belong in that line?

Once we had dumped our bags in the room, we went off in search of dinner and soon found nearby Steve's Greek Restaurant, and Bay Area fans Spike Parsons and Tom Becker and their friends Ruth and Ian. The waitress very kindly reconfigured the tables to let us all sit together, and the food was delish. Then, on returning, we ran into my Writers of the Future twin Carl Fredrick in the lobby. While we were standing there talking, we were joined at various times by Amy Sisson from Clarion, Tom Brennan from Writers of the Future, Ariel Shattan from Portland, Janice Murray and Alan Rosenthal from Seattle, Hope Leibowitz from Toronto, and many others. As I explained to Tom, whose first Worldcon this was, this is my typical Worldcon experience: getting about six feet in the door (of the hotel, dealers' room, party, bathroom, etc.) and immediately becoming engaged in a two-hour conversation with an ever-mutating group of friends old and new.

Eventually, though, that conversation broke up and we went in search of parties. First we hit Lise Eisenberg's traditional before-the-con-even-gets-started room party (where I got a great laugh off the old line about "separate dishes for milk, meat, and trayf -- and another set of each for Passover," but had to explain what I meant by "a rood screen for dogs"), then wandered down to the Japan in 2007 bid party, where we saw a modern working replica of a hundred-plus-year-old Japanese tea-serving robot doll. This explains much.

Thursday started off with breakfast at Charlie's Sandwich Shop, a tiny ancient crowded diner with the best turkey hash I have ever dreamed of eating. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at Flour, a delightfully decadent bakery/cafe, and walked through picturesque residential neighborhoods, all brick and stoops. We caught a cab to the marvelously eclectic Isabelle Gardner Museum, a grand old mansion filled with art and antiques, including a large collection of famous people's letters. We saw a letter from cadet U.S. Grant complaining that his West Point report cards were being sent to the wrong address, and another from John Quincy Adams sending some magazines from London to a publisher in Washington -- in effect, a two-hundred-year-old LoC offering The Usual. After we tired of the museum we walked through the fens of the Fenway neighborhood (yes, famed Fenway Park is named after a swamp), then took a bus home and a brief nap before hitting the convention proper.

As it turned out, the first two program items we saw were solo presentations: Gary K. Wolf on the history of Roger Rabbit (the book, the movie, the phenomenon) and Teresa Nielsen Hayden on the literary genre known as Mary Sue. I pointed out that the New Testament could be considered the oldest and most extreme example of an Author inserting himself into his Creation. Walking out of the Mary Sue panel we engaged author Jo Walton (Tooth and Claw) and blogger Rivka (Respectful of Otters) in conversation, and proceeded with them directly to a fine dinner at the nearby Atlantic Fish Company. After demolishing our share of crustaceans, Kate and I went for ice cream at the famed Emack & Bolio's, finishing up the evening at the First Night carnival and Mary Kay Kare's LiveJournal/blogger party. The carnival felt a little desperate to me at times, but it certainly performed its intended job of getting everyone to mingle together; the party was a huge success (though, as I've only been on LiveJournal for three days, I knew few people by username and even fewer by sight).

Friday we hiked back to Flour for coffee, yogurt, and possibly the best pain au chocolat I have ever eaten. But it was much farther from the con than we'd remembered, and we barely got back in time for the Thackeray T. Lambshead reading, where the authors were having entirely too much fun. After that Kate and I separated. I hung out for a long while in front of the SFWA table in the dealers' room with Jay Lake, Ellen Klages, Tom Brennan, and various others, eventually wandering off for lunch at Au Bon Pain with Seattle writer Brenda Cooper. Then I had a nice long talk with Davey Snyder at the NESFA Press table before I had to run off for my own first panel: Introduction to Worldcon for Neo-Pros.

The panel went well, with SMOFs Pricila Olsen and Janice Gelb, editor/fan Toni Weisskopf, and author/fan me. I compared attending Worldcon to dating -- by which I meant that that you have to be interested in order to be interesting -- but Janice pointed out that some people have been on a lot more bad dates than I have. From there the panel devolved into a collection of horror stories about Pros Behaving Badly ("kids, don't do this at your con!") but I think it got all the important points across. I had printed up 25 copies of the "Worldcongoing" article from Making Light, and all but 3 of them were picked up.

After my panel I wandered back to the dealers' room -- for some reason I tend to gravitate there at Worldcons when there's nothing specific to do, though I rarely buy anything -- where I talked with artist Ctein and writer Tobias Buckell (whose first novel will be coming out soon!) before heading off for my reading. I'd been handing out business cards with the time and room number of the reading on one side and my at-con contact info (hotel, cell phone, email, and LiveJournal username) on the other, but this was the first time I'd tried doing a reading without a bribe of chocolate and I wondered how many people would show up.

On the way there I ran into novelist and fellow fraud Lyda Morehouse (we bonded a few cons ago when we were both on an "I Feel Like A Fraud!" panel) and her friend Tim, and persuaded them to accompany me to my reading. As it turned out, there were about a dozen people there -- including two people who didn't even know me, one from Wednesday's airport shuttle and the other a complete random stranger! I read the first two chapters from my novel (its first public reading) and got a great round of applause at the end. Lyda said "I want to write slash in your world" and recommended her agent, Martha Millard. I was grinning like a fool.

Kate and I took the T to North Beach, where we listened to old men yelling at each other in Italian, nibbled on cannoli and excellent pastries, and had a fine dinner at Piccolo Venezia. I was astonished how few cars were on the streets. We got back to the con in time for a nap before the Rumor Mill gathering in the bar, but I stayed in the bar chatting with Clarion compatriot Amy Sisson rather than going up to the Klingon Birthday Party with the rest of the Millers. While Amy and I were talking several other interesting people joined us, including Ken Brady from the Wordos in Eugene, and Ken and I eventually decided to wander off to the Writers of the Future and Frank Wu parties. Frank's party was smaller, but had better food and no Scientologists. But I couldn't stay long -- I had to head back down to the bar for the Two Beers And A Story Challenge!

TO BE CONTINUED...

Posted 09/07/2004 23:15 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 91914 | Since last entry: 1272 | This month: 4488

A very good day's writing, and I went to the gym and got a bunch of other chores done as well. We should ship a major release more often.

In the last couple of days I've written three and a half scenes that point out exactly how bad the situation has become. 1. Clarity has to deal with the human governments wanting to know what the hell is going on; 2. the Green Hills clan begins evacuating to orbit (and Clarity fears that they secretly control the orbital lasers and will take the plague back to the homeworld); 3. Clarity argues with the other Council members about whether a suicidal attack on the Green-Hills-controlled launch Platforms would be entirely futile or just mostly futile -- that last is the half-scene, because the argument is interrupted when 4. Raptor, chief of the Green Hills clan, calls to complain that Clarity has misinterpreted his actions (dodging all requests to explain his real motives) and to threaten serious reprisals for any attempt to recapture the Platforms.

And there's more violence, destruction, and betrayal to come before the chapter's out. Whee!

Posted 08/27/2004 22:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 90642 | Since last entry: 1054 | This month: 3216

Today didn't go exactly the way I'd thought it would. I took the train to work, thinking I would get plenty of time to write on the way there and back. But we shipped a major product today (ePolicy Orchestrator 3.5, which is what I've been spending most of my time on for the last year) and there was a celebration at a restaurant downtown. I got a ride there, and a ride home from there, so no writing in the afternoon. And then, for a variety of stupid and inexcusable reasons, I didn't even sit down to write again until about 10:30. But now it's almost midnight, and I look up and I see I've written over a thousand words.

And there's more good news. The VP of my division announced that, in further celebration of our accomplishment, everyone gets tomorrow off! So I hope to get much more writing done tomorrow... was well as several other chores.

Congratulations, us.

Posted 08/26/2004 23:59 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 89588 | Since last entry: 13 | This month: 2162

Hiya! I've been away for a while, I know. Kate and I did a new issue of Bento, which took up most of my non-work time, and tonight I worked on a new engine for my novel journal -- it's based on Blosxom and it's pretty cool. The most important thing is that it will reduce the size of the files, which have gotten appalling (almost 300k each for the two "all entries" pages); it also supports other cool stuff, like user comments, which I'll be adding later as time permits.

I will be running the two blogs in parallel for a while, the old one at http://www.bentopress.com/sf/journal and the new one at http://www.bentopress.com/sf/journal/index.shtml. The new one is mostly identical in appearance to the old one, except that it has a calendar you can click on to navigate among the entries. Check it out and let me know if you have any problems with it.

The new blog has its own RSS feed, at http://www.spiritone.com/cgi-usr/dlevine/blosxom.cgi/index.rss. If you use RSS, please try it and let me know if it works properly.

I really should have spent the evening working on the actual novel, since I missed the last critique group deadline (due to Bento) and I really need to get back on the stick. I'll do that tomorrow.

Posted 08/25/2004 22:34 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 89588 | Since last entry: 953 | This month: 2149

I have two weeks to finish this chapter. I also have the same two weeks to write an entire issue of Bento. So I spent this evening (and too much of it; it's nearly midnight) revising a short story.

I had an excuse. I got a revision request from Gordon Van Gelder at F&SF on the Jupiter story, and that's an opportunity not lightly set aside. I finished the revision, and I'm going to print it out and look it over tomorrow before putting it in the mail. With any luck I'll get a response before the Worldcon. With any more luck, it'll be an acceptance. I've never gotten a rewrite request from Gordon before, so I don't know what the odds are...

Posted 08/11/2004 23:57 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 89588 | Since last entry: 1196 | This month: 1196

No writing today, but I did get 1200 words written on Friday and Sunday, comprising the first scene of chapter 8. It's always hard for me to get up and running on a new chapter, what with having to load everything I know about the alternating viewpoints back into my brain after having forgotten it for a few weeks. This problem should go away in a few more chapters as the two viewpoints converge. I have the same problem, on a smaller scale, whenever I pick up after finishing a scene. I should really be doing what several writers have advised: stop before the end of a scene, so you can more easily pick up the writing the next day.

I had originally outlined this section as a fairly intellectual stand-off in which the villain withdraws to orbit. It's coming out as an armed rebellion, with ornithopters getting shot down by lasers and bodies in the streets. Probably better this way.

I recently realized that, unless the remaining 5 chapters are very very short (not likely!), the book's going to be at least 120,000 words, not the 100,000 words I've been thinking of. So I'm not as close to the end as I'd thought. But if I keep writing a chapter every 3 weeks I will be done by November.

However, it's going to be a challenge for me to finish this chapter in time, since during the same 2 weeks my wife and I have to write a whole issue of our fanzine Bento. We always do a new issue at the last possible minute before the Worldcon. Which this very nearly is.

In other news, I got my contributor copies of Talebones #28 with my story "Where is the Line." This story is also being offered as a free sample at www.talebones.com (click on "Preview" near the top of the page, then "Fiction" on the left). Check it out! Let me know what you think!

Posted 08/09/2004 23:53 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 88392 | Since last entry: 2027 | This month: 9744

Another heroic writing day. The chapter is done and printed. Yay! It's also almost ten thousand words long -- by far the longest chapter yet. Boo!

Now, there's no particular reason a chapter has to be a certain length, but I really do feel this one may be too long. Perhaps some of the incidents should be shifted to other chapters, perhaps it's that there's way too much of Jason brooding and computer neepery. (Certainly the whole last half of the chapter takes place almost entirely in Jason's head.) I did trim the worst of yesterday's computer neepery, but then I added a thousand words more today.

Well, at least it's done, and having a draft that needs trimming is better than not having a draft. If it doesn't work, my critiquers will tell me so.

I have blown off a lot to finish this chapter in time. I'll have to catch up on all those things now, and not let myself slack off on the next chapter (like I did this one for the first couple of weeks) either.

Posted 07/30/2004 23:31 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 86365 | Since last entry: 2171 | This month: 7717

Took the train to work today, back home by way of a haircut, and dinner by myself, all of which contributed to today's truly heroic wordcount. Wrote a couple of complete scenes: one showing Jason getting off from his shit job and learning of the effect of the plague on the human and Tauran populations, and the other showing Jason and Sienna playing with their new datappliances. I must confess I had entirely too much fun with the computer neep stuff (which is part of why this chapter is already almost the longest one yet), but my readers seem to like this sort of thing when it's done right. I'm also skating on the edge of what I know about computer security; I'm sure most readers will find it perfectly convincing, but I really should get someone at work to look at it.

I had hoped to finish the chapter today so I could print it off at work tomorrow. That didn't happen. But there's just one scene left (or two short ones); I might write it/them at work tomorrow, or maybe I'll just print what I've got and do the rest Saturday morning. Either way I should have the chapter done in time for crit group. Whew.

Oh, and I still have to vote for the Hugos.

Posted 07/29/2004 23:28 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 84194 | Since last entry: 1033 | This month: 5546

A productive evening's writing, and we watched "The Message," one of the two Hugo-nominated episodes of Firefly. So far it's got my vote.

Wrote a long scene in which Jaon and Sienna, holed up in a squalid hotel in New Jersey, watch the news on a pornography-infested hotel TV and learn that Clarity has become CEO of the Corporation. Jason is troubled, but Sienna tries to take his mind off the news. Is she being too obvious? But Jason does need to get suspicious enough to take serious action by the end of this chapter.

Posted 07/27/2004 21:54 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 83161 | Since last entry: 263 | This month: 4513

Spent the weekend at the Oregon Coast, at the Strange Horizons Workshop Reunion at the Colonyhouse. It was like a very small con, or a three-day party, with ten cool writer-type people. We did critiques in the afternoons, and otherwise just hung out in the house, or walked and did martial arts on the beach, or ate. I tried my hand at kendo, but I have no coordination whatsoever.

It wasn't a good environment for writing -- too many keen people to talk with -- but I did do a little, and a little more today. I went back and wrote the "Jason reacts to the events of the day" scene, which required a tweak to the following scene to remove some things that had already been covered, so the word count change doesn't reflect the effort I put in. Still, I need to really crack down in the next few days if I'm going to have the chapter done by Saturday.

Kate wasn't there, though she was supposed to have been. She came down with a fever late last week and decided she'd rather just hang out at home. When I got back she was feeling better, but was afflicted with some kind of rash. She saw the doctor today and got some prescription drugs, which seem to be helping, but I feel bad for having run off without her. She assures me she was just as happy staying home.

At the Colonyhouse I asked for advice on a problem I'm currently having, which is that I don't know how to keep Jason from leaving Sienna as he begins to suspect she has betrayed him. One of the other writers suggested that Sienna should get pregnant. This floored me -- it is so not the kind of thing I would have thought of (which is, I suppose, the point of asking) and it does solve some other problems as well. But it completely invalidates one of the things I was trying to do with Jason: that he is gay, and is tempted by a woman (who is all wrong for him), but in the end he returns to his male lover and is happy. It probably won't happen that way now -- the original concept has changed a lot in the last year and a half -- but I still resist the conventional plot of "gay man is redeemed by the love of a woman and becomes a happy father." At the moment I'm leaning in the direction of not doing this, but if I don't I will still have to find a solution to my original problem. And I'm worried about exactly what happens at the climax. I know in broad terms what has to happen, but the devil really is in the details and it would be easy to get wrong.

In other news... the issue of Talebones with my story "Where is the Line" is back from the printer and should be in subscribers' mailboxes shortly; the editor is also going to put up my story on the Talebones web page as a sample of the issue. And I've gotten my program schedule for the Worldcon:

• Friday 1:00pm: A Worldcon Orientation for SF Professionals
• Friday 3:30pm: Reading
• Saturday 2:00pm: Great Cliches in SF and Fantasy
• Saturday 4:00pm: BAD Con Advice for Newbies
• Sunday 12:00 noon: Kaffeeklatsch
• Sunday 5:00pm: The Great Character Swap (what would happen if various SF characters were dropped into other universes' stories?)

It's a good schedule -- busy but not insanely so. I'm not really expecting anyone to sign up for my Kaffeeklatch, but I'm glad the committee thought it was worth a try. And I'm really glad they gave me a reading.

Don't forget to vote in the Hugos! Deadline is July 31. (You must be a member of the Worldcon to vote.)

Posted 07/26/2004 22:33 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 82898 | Since last entry: 162 | This month: 4250

I decided not to write the "Jason gets the heebie-jeebies as his situation sinks in on the way out of town" scene and skipped straight to a squalid hotel in New Jersey four days later. I actually wrote more than 162 new words, but I also tightened up the "escape from the UN" scene a bit. I do wonder if I shortened it up too much, but, well, those words are gone now.

8:00 meeting tomorrow. Time for sleep now.

Posted 07/20/2004 22:53 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 82736 | Since last entry: 704 | This month: 4088

Had a good, productive weekend at home. Laundry, shopping, critiques. Saw a movie. Went to the gym. Spent far too much of Saturday installing a new DSL modem and wireless access point -- now I can access the Internet from anywhere in the house on the little sub-laptop I use for writing. (This may be a mistake -- one of the advantages of this gizmo as a writing tool has been that it lacks the distractions of the Internet. But its little browser is so slow and antiquated that it shouldn't be all that tempting.)

Finally sat down to do some writing at about 8:30 Sunday night, and wrote until 11:30. Much too late, will regret it tomorrow, but I did get to one of the key scenes I've had in my head for months: the scene were Jason has to give up his wristwatch computer, with all his personal data on it. This scene represents the breaking of all links with Jason's earlier, normal life -- now he is a complete outlaw. I did make one change from the way I'd originally envisioned the scene. Now it's Jason who tells Sienna that they both have to give up their computers, rather than the other way around. This makes him more of a protagonist, and anyway he's the one who would have the technical knowledge to realize that they have to do this.

This may or may not be the last scene of Remembrance Day. I had been thinking about one more scene, on the train heading out of town, where the events of the day sink in, but given what I wrote tonight I'm not sure that's either needed or plausible now. Will consider it tomorrow.

Posted 07/18/2004 23:35 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 82032 | Since last entry: 557 | This month: 3384

Finally got Jason and Sienna out of the UN, huzzah.

Having spent the last chapter and a half on one day (a very significant day, to be sure) I'm shortly going to be shifting gears to cover more than a month in the second half of the current chapter. The trick is going to be to keep Jason busy enough that he doesn't realize how emotionally messed-up he is. There's plenty for him to do, though.

Posted 07/16/2004 23:22 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 81475 | Since last entry: 783 | This month: 2827

I just killed two red-shirts and a major secondary character (well, he's not dead yet, but he's not at all a well cat) in a gunfight -- the first such action in this book. I hope I didn't make any major firearms or wound errors, but one of my critiquers is a Vietnam vet, so if I got anything wrong I'm sure I'll hear about it. The shooting itself was over in a couple of seconds realtime; tonight's 783 words (a bit less than an hour and a half of writing) cover at most three minutes of the fight and its immediate aftermath.

Here's a funny thing. I'm a pacifist, solidly anti-handgun, and before starting this novel I had never even fired one. But my Writers of the Future prizewinning story was about a commando and a terrorist, and featured several gunfights. One of the WotF staffers was surprised when he met me -- after reading my story he thought I'd be some kind of big, burly military guy (I'm five-foot-five, 140 pounds). So, as unconfident as I am, I know I can write a convincing gunfight, especially with friends to check my technical details.

Jason and Sienna are now almost out of the U.N. They'll be bursting onto a New York sidewalk -- bloody and carrying guns -- in a few dozen words. They don't have a car.

How the heck am I going to get them out of this?

(Okay, I have some ideas...)

Posted 07/14/2004 23:25 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 80692 | Since last entry: 324 | This month: 2044

Having barely escaped one confrontation with guards, Jason and company run smack into another. Am I milking the situation too much? Maybe -- if so, I can easily cut some incidents. I don't want a James-Bond-style "slip unnoticed past the guards," though -- that seems unrealistic.

But something is going to have to snap soon.

Posted 07/13/2004 22:51 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 80368 | Since last entry: 775 | This month: 1720

On the way out of the UN, Jason and company encounter a security guard. They almost manage to bluff their way past. Almost.

I haven't shot anyone yet in this novel (well, not onstage), but I think it's going to happen soon...

Posted 07/12/2004 22:56 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 79593 | Since last entry: 606 | This month: 945

Still haven't got Jason out of the UN -- it'll be another thousand words or so at this rate. The situation is sticky; it'll be difficult to get him out in a plausible way. But this also means that the situation is fraught with dramatic tension, which is a good thing. Emotionally, too, Jason's in a quagmire, but I hope to keep him so busy he hasn't got time to cope with it.

I got my critique comments on chapter 7 yesterday. Sara pointed out that there needs to be a big, specific reason in the Taurans' history for them to do one of the things they do -- an excellent point that I had not considered, and incidentally a possible hook for "making the aliens more alien" in the second draft. Even though she has threatened to beat me with a sack of oranges, I'm still so glad to have her comments.

Posted 07/11/2004 23:18 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 78987 | Since last entry: 339 | This month: 339

I am ashamed. This is the first time I've written a thing in almost three weeks, and I only managed five paragraphs. I'm clearly not going to have a new chapter done for Saturday's crit group meeting. Woe.

What have I been doing instead? I had a reading and signing (with Jay Lake) at a local bookstore, which went well. I attended a friend's wedding. I went to Phoenix for a square dance convention. I had relatives in town for a couple of days (my niece's having surgery at a local hospital -- which was postponed, so they went home but will return next week). I've gotten some reading done and seen some movies. Not much, really -- I've kept up with the writing through busier times.

Mostly I've just been feeling mopey -- lacking the energy to start anything either at home or at work. This feeds on itself, of course: not accomplishing anything leads to a sense of futility, which makes it harder to accomplish anything.

But they say it's easier to "do" yourself into "feeling" better than it is to "feel" yourself into "doing" better. So thanks to Kate for encouraging me to write tonight -- something is better than nothing -- and I will try to write something tomorrow as well. Excelsior!

Posted 07/08/2004 22:19 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 78648 | Since last entry: 179 | This month: 4127

Basically all I did was copy the outline for the next chapter into a new file. But: well begun is half done, as they say.

Posted 06/21/2004 22:16 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 78469 | Since last entry: 1602 | This month: 3948

Nearly finished chapter 7 on Friday, and printed out and copied what I had, then wrote the last few hundred words and the summary of the previous chapter Saturday morning. Got everything printed out and copied with over an hour to spare. Luxury.

Also got my critique of chapter F. In general, they liked it, though one person threatened to pummel me with oranges if I let Jason have a crisis of conscience in his next chapter. I knew this was going to be a tricky bit...

I'm finding the process of writing to be rather oppressive right now. This might have something to do with the fact that I have raised the pressure on both main characters to Marianas Trench levels -- it really sucks to be them right now. Unfortunately, being them is something I have to do in order to write about them. (At Clarion, Geoff Ryman said that writing is more like acting than directing.) This hasn't been a problem with short stories, but for a novel I find myself going to that dark place for months at a crack. And it's going to continue until September or October at this rate...

But. Chapter 7 is done. On to chapter G! And I'm not going to let myself leave so much until the last minute this time.

I'm not officially doing the Shadow Clarion Challenge, but I'm going to continue to try to write every day during the next 6 weeks.

Posted 06/20/2004 21:03 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]

Word count: 76867 | Since last entry: 1217 | This month: 2346

Finished up a scene showing Clarity at a difficult press conference, followed by a brief respite of lunch with a human friend (showing that she's coming to identify more with the humans than with her own people). I had originally started to write the press conference as a task force meeting, but I realized I've been showing Clarity in a lot of internal meetings and ignoring the public-relations aspect of her job. I want to keep the pressure on her from all sides -- from the humans as well as from her fellow Council members. There are a lot of things I've introduced in previous chapters (the press, the task force, her cousin Candor, etc.) that ought to be kept on stage to emphasize just how complicated and scary Clarity's life is getting.

One more scene to go in the chapter. If I can finish it tomorrow during the day, I can take care of the copying at work and then go to a movie in the evening.

By the way, I failed to note in yesterday's entry that I just passed 75,000 words. Three-quarters done! (Unless my estimate of 100,000 words for