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. |
|
3/31/04: All the running you can do to stay in one place
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.
Posted 03/31/2004 22:09 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
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.
Posted 03/30/2004 22:11 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
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.
Posted 03/29/2004 22:47 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
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!
Posted 03/26/2004 22:11 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
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.
Posted 03/24/2004 21:21 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
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.
Posted 03/23/2004 22:45 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 63736 | Since last entry: 351 | This month: 9254
After two days of no writing, spent the entire afternoon writing about 2600 words of notes to myself about Jason's motivations.
The reason I did this is that on Thursday I came to the point in Chapter A where Jason explains to Sienna -- and the reader -- why he's so dedicated to kicking the aliens off the planet. Jason's lack of motivation and personal stake in this area are the novel's single biggest problem, but if I can nail it here I can make it work in the whole rest of the book. So in this rewrite Sienna won't accept a facile "the aliens killed my parents, boo hoo" -- he needs to explain his deep motivations.
The new Chapter Zero makes it quite clear (I hope) that Jason is pissed at the aliens for what they've done to his world -- their superior attitude (personified by Honesty, who is now a right bastard who always thought Jason wasn't good enough for Clarity), their cultural imperialism, and the impact they've had on humanity -- and the Cedar Point disaster was just the last straw. But now that I come to put that into words, I'm faced with the fact that Jason's motivations don't make any sense.
See, Jason has to have been comfortable with the aliens or he would never have taken up with Clarity in the first place. So if you look at his behavior and attitudes over the course of the years 2050-2051, he has to go from 1) falling in love with an alien to 2) willing to risk his life to kick the aliens off his planet, to 3) willing to risk his life to save the aliens from the plague he started, if only because that's the only way to keep the world from being blown up by the alien bad guy. That's not a character arc the reader is likely to accept, no matter how well written. One 180-degree reversal would be hard enough to swallow, but two is impossible. (This might even be three reversals, if he started off with a negative attitude toward the aliens before he took up with Clarity.)
So I needed to come up with a powerful motivation that would support this behavior. Yes, this is changing the character to match the plot, which is a big problem of mine, but I've got too much time invested in this plot to want to do it over. Pout.
After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and consideration of many alternate Jasons (such as the "I hate the aliens, I hate myself for loving this alien, I think I'll lash out at the aliens because I can't accept my own feelings" Jason -- who reminds me too much of Roy Cohn for me to want him spending the next six months or so in my head), I wound up with pretty much the same Jason I started with, except that he starts out more self-centered (thinking of Clarity only as a sex-buddy) and goes through a character arc where he moves from shallowness and resentment to understanding the interwoven destiny of humans and Taurans -- perhaps in the end he does come to love Clarity, especially when he realizes that Cedar Point was not the aliens' fault. Perhaps this love is what motivates him to make the ultimate sacrifice at the climax (though I don't yet know what it is), saving both species.
But what is it that he wants more than anything else? I decided that Jason, at heart, is a puzzle-solver. His strength and his weakness is that he's very, very good at it, and a really meaty puzzle can grab him by the nose and lead him into some very stupid places in search of a solution. At the beginning of the novel he sets himself the puzzle of breaking the aliens' hold on his planet, and by solving that puzzle he builds himself and his planet an even harder one.
Is "solve any puzzle" really a novel-protagonist-level motivation? Maybe, if the personal stakes are high enough. So I need to find a way to put Jason into a position where he must take action -- where he can reasonably forsee serious, personal consequences if he does not act or if he attempts and fails. Cedar Point is just the tipping-point... it has to be the thing that convinces him that the aliens (who have been on the planet his whole life) are going to destroy humanity-as-he-knows-it if he doesn't take action.
I think I may be able to do that, by making him even more (justifiably!) angry at the aliens and the effect they have had on Earth, and on him personally. This runs the risk of making the aliens less sympathetic, but I do have Clarity's PoV to show their side of the story, and in the end most of what Jason is angry about is not their fault anyway.
This involved a few changes in Chapter Zero, not many, and guided me through the rewrite of the first scene in Chapter A (Jason meets Sienna). The second scene (Jason investigates the audio monitors) is exactly the same as it was. I'll tackle the third scene (Jason and Sienna again) tomorrow.
Jason hasn't really changed that much for all this angst, but at least I've thought things through and firmed up his backstory.
Posted 03/21/2004 23:20 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 63704 | Since last entry: -68 | This month: 8903
I had a couple of killer days at work, leaving me with little energy for anything else, and then we had taxes to prepare (we use an accountant, but it still takes a whole evening or more to pull the papers together) and plane reservations to make for this summer's trip to France. So no writing Tuesday or Wednesday.
Tonight I started to tear Chapter A apart and reassemble it in a way that fits with the new Jason introduced in the new Chapter Zero. This involves changes in backstory, timeline, and motivation as well as attitude, though not a lot of changes in the actual incidents and actions of the chapter. As long as I was revising the chapter, I cut several paragraphs on principle, so the word count is actually going down at the moment. I'm going to count each anti-word double for purposes of my star chart (-50 = silver, -250 = gold, -500 = red), because cutting is harder than drafting, so I get a silver star for tonight's -68 words. (This doesn't address the question of how to handle a good solid revision session that happens to wind up with the same word count, but I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.)
At the moment the chapter is spread out on the workshop floor. I anticipate it will take a couple of days to get it degreased and reassembled; then I'll haul out my notes from critique and see if anything else needs to be revised. Then I'll do the same for Chapter 1 -- though I'm not going to attempt to make Clarity more alien at this time, that's too big a job for now -- and do the outline and cover letter. I have a little more than a week until crit group, about two weeks until the Lupton deadline. It's going to be tight.
Posted 03/18/2004 21:39 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 63704 | Since last entry: 217 | This month: 8971
Added a couple of paragraphs briefly introducing Chris, and edited the chapter to improve flow. Some of the parts that incorporated text from the original Prologue just felt like a loose pile of paragraphs; I killed a few darlings and mangled a few others beyond recognition, and I think it's better now. Will look at it again tomorrow, but I think it's done for sure this time.
I have moved Chapter Zero and a few other files that will be used in the proposal (three-chapters-and-outline) to a separate directory, so the total word count has gone down (and will stay where it is until I get back to drafting new chapters). But the "This month" word count still includes the proposal stuff.
It's after midnight, I should have been asleep an hour ago...
Posted 03/15/2004 23:03 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 65801 | Since last entry: 605 | This month: 8754
...where I did no writing whatsoever. But I am not going to let this brief hiatus prevent me from writing every day for the rest of the month.
Tonight I moved Jason behind a locked door and presented him with the object he had been seeking. I could write him out of the space as well, but I don't think it's necesssary. At about 2000 words I think the new Chapter Zero might be complete.
I've gone back and added so much to it that I'm afraid it's too densely packed with information... it's much less of a "hook" than the old Prologue. On the other hand, it answers a lot of questions that people had about the first drafts of the early chapters. And it does end with a hook, and it does leave some questions unanswered. But there's still some other stuff I'd like to put in, such as a brief note about Chris. I'll sleep on it and maybe revise a bit tomorrow.
After that I'll need to substantially revise Chapter A to go with the new Chapter Zero. Chapters 1 and B might need a bit of revision as well. Then I need to complete the outline (which means fleshing out the whole second half of the book), edit it for length, and write a cover letter. Still plenty of work to do for an April 5 deadline.
Posted 03/14/2004 21:03 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 65196 | Since last entry: 141 | This month: 8149
Tonight we visited a kitchen designer and wrote a large check for a retainer. Looks like we are defintely going to have the kitchen re-done this summer. We spent a long time at the showroom, looking at floor plans and cabinets and countertops. Then, after we got home, I put a couple of recently-rejected short stories back in the mail, and packed for tomorrow's trip to Seattle. But I promised myself I would write something every day, and so I sat down and did: largely editing, amping up Jason's reaction to the aliens and their impact on his world. But it would really have been smarter to go to sleep, because I have an early meeting tomorrow morning and a long drive right after work.
I won't be posting anything here for a few days, but I will try to write something every day anyway. Good night.
Posted 03/11/2004 22:27 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 65055 | Since last entry: 335 | This month: 8008
Put Jason on the ferry to the Platform, where he can observe the aliens and the impact they have had on human culture (and be disgustipated at the whole spectacle). This is part of my original concept for the book, but didn't come out at all in the first draft of the early chapters.
Realized today that at some point, if I'm being honest, I'll have to drop either the original Prologue or the new Chapter Zero from the total word count, which will result in a decrease in word count. Waah! My lovely word count!
But it's way late and I'm not going to do it now. So there.
Posted 03/10/2004 22:50 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 64720 | Since last entry: 463 | This month: 7673
Chopped back a couple of paragraphs from yesterday and wrote forward for a while, continuing to try to put in exposition necessary for the first chapter without going into too much detail. I still think I'm stating too much that should be implied, or left until later. I'm also wobbling on a tightrope of Jason's emotions -- the Cedar Point disaster was the day before yesterday, he hasn't slept since, he has just broken up with his alien lover, and he has gone all the way over to hating the aliens and wanting them off his planet. I know that a broken love can turn to a terrible hate -- I've experienced it myself, though only on the receiving end -- but writing that moment convincingly is hard.
Posted 03/09/2004 22:16 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 64257 | Since last entry: 278 | This month: 7210
I'm finding it much harder to write the first chapter the second time around. The first time, the whole thing was as new to me as it was to the readers. I had a general idea of the world, but I was creating many of the details as I wrote about them for the first time.
But now I know too much, and I remember all the critiques I've received in which it's clear that (some) readers don't understand (some aspects of) the world I'm trying to create. So I find myself cramming in every missing detail, where in the first draft I was able to create a great atmosphere of mystery and raise a lot of questions.
So I didn't write much today, and I think I may scrap it all tomorrow.
But, as the mouse said to the elephant, I've been sick. With luck I'll be better soon. Maybe then I can write more effectively.
Posted 03/08/2004 21:29 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 63979 | Since last entry: 278 | This month: 6932
After considerable wailing and gnashing of teeth, I've decided the next thing I will write is a new first chapter. Currently titled Chapter Zero, it will become the new Chapter A and all the other lettered chapters will move one down the alphabet. It replaces the Prologue (since writing the original Prologue, I have learned that some readers skip Prologues and some editors don't like them), uses some of the same text, and serves many of the same purposes: to introduce the aliens, the Platforms, and the rest of this future world. The major difference is that the new Chapter Zero is focused on Jason rather than Sienna, and Jason is engaging in dangerous, self-directed physical action at the beginning of the book rather than passively taking direction from Sienna.
In the new chapter, Jason takes the ferry to the Seattle Platform on the day after Cedar Point. He's just broken up with Clarity (the continuation of the scene shown in flashback, from Clarity's PoV, in chapter 5) and is setting out to do some damage. At this point he doesn't know exactly what he's going to do, but he's going to break some rules and do some things he never would have done before (and by "before" I mean both "before this point in his life" and "in the previous draft"). He's grieving and angry in equal measure, looking to hurt the Taurans as badly as they've hurt him. However, I'm not completely sure what he's going to do either -- I have some ideas, but I need to sleep on them.
I hope this will make him a better character for the whole rest of the book. If nothing else, it gives me an opportunity to work in some physical description of the Taurans (and Jason's emotional reaction to them), which is lacking from the current early chapters.
Not a productive day at all -- less than 300 words and most of them rewritten rather than new -- but I kept my resolution to write something every day. More tomorrow.
Posted 03/07/2004 22:14 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 63701 | Since last entry: 2223 | This month: 6654
Finished chapter 6, in a marathon morning of writing that ran right down to the wire: I finished typing just 30 minutes before crit group. Whew! Despite the speed with which I finished the chapter, I feel pretty good about it. I even remembered to spell-check it this time.
Wrote three scenes today: Honor and Raptor arguing about whether or not to take extreme measures with the humans (showing the depths of rancor between Wind Mountain and Green Hills clans), Clarity dealing with a ship that's refusing to land but insists on being refueled for an immediate trip home (setting up an important revelation), and a brief nasty cliffhanger ending.
Then I got my critique of chapter E (despite the fact it said chapter D, with the wrong date, at the top of the first page -- oops!). People generally agreed that it was a travelogue chapter in which not much happened, but on the other hand it was engagingly written and conveyed some necessary information. Sara had some good hints about how to improve some of the character relationships. Everyone thought Commander Smith was unconvincing; he seemed too eccentric to have risen to the top of the organization. Since the chapter may be too long for its weight anyway, I might just drop him -- I don't think he'll be figuring in the story again. But you never can tell!
I failed to note yesterday that I passed 60,000 words. Quite a milestone.
Even though I have finished my chapter, I will NOT NOT NOT allow myself to slack off now. I am going to write something tomorrow, because my goal for the month is still to write every day. It might be the next chapter, or it might be a new prologue, heading toward a revised three-chapters-and-outline for the John T. Lupton "New Voices In Literature" contest (deadline 4/5, with a $12,500 prize for fiction and another for non-fiction). If I write 500 words every day for the next 3 weeks, that's 10,500 words -- enough for both a new prologue and a new chapter!
But tonight I am going to bed early.
Posted 03/06/2004 20:33 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 61478 | Since last entry: 1493 | This month: 4431
Good progress tonight: wrote a scene in which Clarity faces death, but talks herself out of it. Cheated a bit by having her refer to common history that didn't exist until I made it up. I may have to go back and put in a few references to it in a previous chapter. Or maybe it can stand on its own -- it's in keeping with her character.
Lots more chapter to go, though. Early start tomorrow!
Posted 03/05/2004 22:56 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 59985 | Since last entry: 501 | This month: 2938
I must confess I cheated a little tonight. I had to undelete one sentence to get the count of new words over 500, for a gold star for the day. I'll delete that sentence again tomorrow.
Tonight, with Garrett's help, Clarity and Chris have a discussion about Jason and what happened between when he broke up with her and when Chris broke up with him. Chris doesn't know much, really, but he gives Clarity one name: "Miguel." At this point no one in this plot thread knows what that name means. Mwah hah hah.
Tomorrow, things turn violent. What fun.
Posted 03/04/2004 22:14 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 59484 | Since last entry: 604 | This month: 2437
A good evening's writing, the first scene in the novel where Clarity is together with Jason's ex-boyfriend Chris. It's shaping up into a surprisingly awkward situation; although both of them sign, Chris only knows ASL and Clarity only knows trade sign. This made it hard to write about as well as awkward for them. Fortunately, I had an idea to fix the problem, by bringing back Clarity's personal translator Garrett, who hasn't been seen since chapter 1 -- a character I was considering bringing back later in this chapter for other reasons anyway.
James D. Macdonald has said that writing a novel is like a game of chess: in the early game you move pieces into positions of power, and in the middle game they start using that power. He recommended that even if you don't know what's going to happen in the middle of your novel, you should try to move the characters around at the beginning... they may find themselves in positions of power unconsciously (either because you know at some level that it is such a position, or because you realize later how to use them from the positions they are in). I think I may have just seen an example of that. When I left Garrett stranded at an airfield in rural Washington at the end of chapter 1, I didn't think we'd be seeing him again at all...Posted 03/03/2004 22:20 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 58880 | Since last entry: 424 | This month: 1833
I have decided to try to write at least something every day this month. I had hoped to make a thousand words tonight, but a little is better than nothing.
Tonight's writing was a real slog. I spent nearly an hour on one paragraph, trying to describe Clarity's relationship with Chris while they were both going out with Jason -- hard enough by itself, but I was also trying to avoid using the word "relationship" more than once. I finally gave up and used it twice, and "share" twice as well.
Those 400 words were almost all interior monologue, as Clarity flies her father's aircraft to Seattle and broods about what she'll find there. I'm worried about lack of action, but I have an action scene planned for when she arrives...
For now, to bed.
Posted 03/02/2004 21:56 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
Word count: 58456 | Since last entry: 1409 | This month: 1409
...is paved with my good intentions to write for the past week. But I got back in the saddle tonight, with firm intentions (there's that word again) to write at least a little every day this month.
Part of the reason I didn't write at all in the last week was a surprise business trip to Texas. I did have a computer with me, and I spent a couple hours doing a detailed and revised outline for the current chapter and the next one in the same plot thread, but wrote no new prose. This is some of that "staring out windows" that makes the actual writing go more easily (not that you could tell, since I was sweating rocks this evening, but I'm sure I sweated fewer rocks than I would have without the detailed outline). But between critiques for Potlatch and conversation with my seat-mate I got no writing done on either flight. And then came Potlatch, which was swell but not exactly condusive to writing. I also ate like a pig on both trips, and I'm feeling guilty about that too.
All die. Oh the embarrassment. Must do better in next life!
Posted 03/01/2004 22:18 [e-mail me] [post comment] [permalink]
This page created and maintained by David D. Levine,
dlevine@spiritone.com.
Return to David's Science Fiction Writing Page