David D. LevineScience Fiction Author

Word count: 66081 | Since last entry: 151 | This month: 1312 I’ve completely fallen off track on the novel. For one thing, I went to Minicon and — despite the usual best intentions to write on the plane — I did no writing at all during the weekend. The only time I turned on my computer was for my reading, at which only one person showed up. But she enjoyed it. For another thing, I’ve been sick since returning from the convention. I’ve also got a deadline at work on Wednesday, which kept me late yesterday and will probably keep me late tomorrow. The 151 words noted above are revisions on a story called “The Last McDonald’s” that I first wrote a couple of years ago, had critiqued, but never got around to revising until just now. The prompt in this case was an invitation to submit to a major market that is in an unusual situation (that’s all I can say, sorry). Having revised the story to my satisfaction, I sent a query to the editor; I hope the story will go in the e-mail tomorrow. But the most interesting reason I haven’t written a thing on the novel in the past week is this: I’M ON THE HUGO BALLOT! TWICE!! My story “Tale of the Golden Eagle” was nominated for the Hugo for Best Short Story, and I’m up for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (my second and final year of eligibility). So I spent most of yesterday evening updating my web page with the news and responding to the many emails of congratulation that poured in. On the same day I learned of my Hugo nominations, I also received word that my Zeppelin story sold to All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories. So, though I’m blowing my nose every five minutes and I don’t have any novel progress to report, it’s been a darn good week.

Word count: 66081 | Since last entry: 357 | This month: 1161 Started in on Chapter F tonight. This is the big climactic chapter that Jason’s whole plotline has been leading up to, the place where Clarity’s plotline started, the place where even the most unobservant reader can no longer possibly fail to notice how the two plotlines are connected. I hope to have this chapter ready for critique before the Nebulas. You may note that the “word count” above has taken a big jump — much bigger than the 357 words I actually wrote tonight. This is because I moved the new/revised chapters I wrote for the Lupton contest into the novel itself. The new chapters are about 2000 words longer than the ones they replaced. But, though those words do legitimately join the novel, so the “word count” goes up, I have rejiggered my word-counting algorithm to subtract them from the “since last entry” and “this month” figures because I already counted them last month. But I am now nearly 2/3rds done with the planned 100,000 word novel. Jeez. In other news, today I received my author copies of the June 2004 Realms of Fantasy, including my story “Charlie the Purple Giraffe was Acting Strangely,” with a neat color illustration. Now I need to whomp up a page about the story for my website. Also, yesterday I picked up copies of Science Fiction: The Best of 2003 with my story “Tale of the Golden Eagle.” There are some really good stories in there!

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 444 | This month: 804 I had planned to finish up the proposal, proofread it, print it out, and get it in the mail this weekend. I finished it up and printed a draft-quality copy to proof, but when I went to print out the entry form for the contest I discovered the deadline has been extended to May 5. I could take this opportunity to seek more feedback, do more editing, and just generally obsess about it some more. Instead, I will let it rest for a day or two, then proof it, print it, and mail it this week anyway. Thus I defy the Fates. Ha! Next: back to drafting!

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 360 | This month: 360 Sat down and wrote the query letter this evening. It came out very tidily to one page. Everything I’ve read says that query letters are supposed to be hard. I didn’t find it to be so, particularly. On the other hand, I have the whole novel in my head — I know a lot of authors who don’t know what’s coming next and are unable to summarize their novels. So maybe I’m special. Or maybe I’m just incapable of seeing how bad it is. Four days to go. All I have left to do on the proposal is write a few sections which are basically expanded versions of things I just wrote in the cover letter. Should be able to polish it off by Saturday, depending on how much fiddling and noodling I let myself do. I find the whole writing business requires me to constantly reassure myself that I am, indeed, among the best — the top 5% or 10% that actually get published instead of languishing in slush piles — while simultaneously lowering my own expectations, to prevent my soul from being crushed by rejection. So, yes, I am wonderful. But it’s not going to win anyway. Is this a crazy business, or what?

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 4 | This month: 10172 I’m laughing out loud at the word count, having worked for about 3 hours to produce a net change of 4 words. This resulted from a fleshing-out of the outline and an edit of the synopsis that apparently subtracted exactly the same number of words. I also spent a great deal of time experimenting with alternate layouts for the outline, to clarify the rather tangled timelines of the two plot threads (which my critiquers, sharp people all, are having trouble with). In the end I decided to use alternating long and short indents for the chapter titles: Chapter 1……..September 2051
Chapter A……………………..April 2051
Chapter 2……..October 2051
Chapter B……………………..July 2051
Chapter 3……..November 2051
Chapter C……………………..September 2051
etc. God, I hope this works. I think I’m done with the outline and synopsis, anyway. What’s left: Author Bio, Book Audience, Similar Successful Books, and Book To Film Potential. I can do this. I can do this.

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 256 | This month: 10168 Went out with Kate and some friends for her birthday dinner, but got in a little work afterwards. I’m working on fleshing out the outline of the chapters I haven’t written yet. They have to sound just like the outlines of the existing chapters, especially in terms of suggesting details left out. This is made harder by the fact that I don’t know exactly what happens in some of those later chapters (though — gulp! — they aren’t all that far away now!). The good news is that I don’t have to stick to this outline going forward. It just has to sound plausible.

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: -4 | This month: 9912 The word count above is completely bogus, but I have no idea what the correct count should be. I have been working on the Book Proposal for most of the last 3 days and it now totals almost 14,000 words of tagline, synopsis, outline, author bio, sample chapters, and other stuff. (I wasted over two hours on Sunday fighting with Microsoft Word’s worthless “master documents” feature, and wound up doing what I’ve done every other time I’ve tried to use that: pasting the sample chapters right into the main document.) That’s a lot of words, and a lot of them are new, but a lot of them are rewritten or synopsized versions of previously existing words. How to count that? And the effort-per-word rate is completely different from drafting; I spent over 2 hours working on my 18-word tagline. (Currently it is: “What is killing the aliens? A computer hacker and his alien ex-lover are more involved than they know.” It’s a little flat, but it was the best I could do in under 20 words.) So, though my automatic word count doesn’t include the Proposal.doc file and shows a net change of only -4 words since the last entry, I’m giving myself a red star for the day on pure effort. Going to sleep now.

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: -45 | This month: 9916 Found a few spare minutes today at work to finish revising the last scene of Chapter A (now Chapter B). Also moved part of the end of the next-to-the-last scene to the end to give the chapter a stronger finish. It’s not exactly a “wow” finish, but I think it’s more interesting than it would have been otherwise. I’m not 100% happy with the very last line, though. But by finishing it up at work I was able to do my copying today rather than having to stand in line at the copy shop tomorrow. Huzzah! So I’ll be sending the two revised Jason chapters to critique tomorrow. Still to do by April 5 for the Lupton contest: write query letter, revise chapter 1, prepare synopsis, come up with a snappy tagline, write outline, write other proposal sections (author bio, audience, similar books, movie potential, etc.), edit it all down to 30 pages, put it in the mail. Aiee. Do I really want to be putting in all this effort, knowing that it’ll be going into the contest as a first draft? And it’s going to cost $25 plus postage? Answer: yes, if I can. Because then I’ll have it, and when the MS is finished I’ll only have to revise it. And I might win $10,000!

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 236 | This month: 9961 Finished up Jason and Sienna’s second scene. The process of inserting new speeches, and moving existing speeches around, within a scene is kind of interesting in itself — it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, where you have to match the emotional tone of the new or moved piece to its surroundings (but I can also “repaint” the “edges” of a piece to make it fit in better). The tough part was showing that Jason could walk away, late enough in the negotiations that Sienna would take it as a very serious threat, but not so late that he’s already backing out on his commitments. I think I have succeeded in reshaping the power relationship between them as I desired. One more scene, fairly short, to revise and I’ll be done with this chapter for now. The biggest remaining problem is that I no longer have a wow finish for this chapter, since I moved the original finish of this chapter to the new Chapter Zero. Maybe this chapter doesn’t get a wow finish (but it’s the third chapter of a three-chapters-and-outline package, so it really should have one). I’ll sleep on it. I’m going to try to get these two chapters and a query letter ready in time for Saturday’s critique. Then I’ll work on the outline next week, give a quick brush-up to chapter 1, and put it all in the mail to the Lupton contest by Saturday April 3 (the deadline is April 5, by postmark). I realize I should really have had the whole package critiqued before sending it to the contest, but… well, time flies when you’re having fun. To bed early (well, earlier than I’ve managed lately) tonight.

Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 471 | This month: 9725 Some writing of notes, some editing of existing dialog, and much new dialog in Jason and Sienna’s first two scenes together. I started out by writing a short list of “what do they want out of this meeting”, “what do and don’t they know”, “what have they done to prepare for the meeting”, and “what are they prepared to offer” — kind of a meeting agenda for each of them. The point is to change the power relationship between them, make Jason more of an actor and less of a reactor. As it stands right now, Sienna still takes the lead and keeps Jason off-balance for much of their time together (which is as it should be, really, considering that she’s an experienced terrorist and he’s just a computer programmer with an attitude). But I added some bits, especially at the beginning of the first scene and end of the second, that show how much he has to offer her and how badly she wants what he has. It’s kind of info-dumpy, it needs more smoothing and tweaking, but it’s getting there.