johnlevitt

12:18 pm: Book Review
I've taken a break from writing lately, and as a result, have finally had some time for reading. I came across Garth Nix's new YA book, A Confusion of Princes.  (Didn't much care for the title, I must say.)

Now, Garth Nix is one of my favorite writers in the YA and MG field. I've liked everything I've read of his – in fact, his book Sabriel is an all time favorite, brilliant on many different levels.

He's always been known as a fantasy writer, so when I saw he was trying his hand at science fiction, I had to take a look.

Result? A lovely book, lots of fun, with his usual strong characterizations and plot. A tale of an immense empire so far in the future that earth is barely a legend and a memory. Where humans are very different – and yet, of course, very much the same. Lots of action and adventure, yet subtle in many ways.

But what's really neat is that it's the kind of book you hardly ever see any more. When I was young, I loved Robert Heinlein and Andre Norton with their grand sweep and epic adventures. People call it space opera now, which has a slightly pejorative ring, but they sure were a lot of fun to read.

The book took me back to a different age – it's retro, in a way, but also very modern. The influence of Heinlein especially is obvious – and if you might think it's perhaps unintended, note the dedication in the front of the book.

But it's not a copy of Heinlein. Not in any sense – it'd a tip of the hat to the way books were once written. Hard to pull off, but done so smoothly that it never feels forced or phony.

Anyway, a lot of fun and like all of Nix's books, worth the read.

10:47 am: More Dog Stuff
My gf just had some new cabinets installed in her kitchen, and the old ones fixed up so that shelves no longer rest on coffee cans.

The dogs are fine with workmen, but only if she or I are actually in the house. Ruby, being quite protective, tends to cause trouble if there's a stranger in the house when we're not there.

But my gf had to go out. So she put the dogs in the bedroom, where they'd be out of the way. The workman was leaving shortly anyway, and I was supposed to show up shortly after that to take them for their afternoon walk.

So everything worked out fine. Except for one thing. It turns out Ruby can open doors.

Now, I've seen her try before, watching the doorknob move from the other side of the door. And yes, she's got out of a room a couple of times before, but we always assumed that we'd forgot to firmly latch the door – it is an older house, and everything is a bit creaky.

But this time, there was no doubt. The workman had already left, but when I got there, I could see dog faces in the front window, which I thought odd. But I assumed that my gf had just changed her mind for some reason. But no.

All the food from the cabinets was piled on top of the kitchen table. The kitchen table is no barrier to Ruby of course. But she ignored the crackers and dog treats and went right for the thing that is her passion in life – chocolate.

She once ate a half lb box of dark chocolate that was wrapped as a gift, in the car, at the bottom of as bag filled with other gifts, when she was left alone in the car for two minutes. An expensive lesson. And trip to the veterinary ER – chocolate is somewhat poisonous to dogs, and she 's not very big.

This time she knocked off a large tin of unsweetened baking cocoa and pried the lid off. It's bitter, of course. You'd think a dog wouldn't eat it. But for Ruby, it's CHOCOLATE. From sheer luck, I must have arrived almost immediately after, before she had a chance to eat more than a small amount of it.

So all's well that ends well. But she is a clever dog – not exactly smart, the way some dogs are smart, but clever – the kind of dog who loses a ball under a fence and immediately runs around the entire enclosure, looking for a weak point to get in.

And somehow, has figured out the secret of doorknobs

12:26 pm: Demon Dogs
I finally finished revisions on my MG project and sent it off to my agent. At least I think it's finished. I thought it was basically done a couple of months ago, just needing some polishing and minor tweaks.

But I discovered otherwise -- and spent a solid month of writing days to get it into proper shape. Hopefully I succeeded, but we'll see what my agent thinks.

Meanwhile, here's a couple of pics of Ruby and Kaspar -- sweet dogs, lying in a dog bed. Five seconds later, DEMON DOGS.

Of course they were just playing -- I think.

01:58 pm: Back Again
So, I abandoned posting for a while, as some may have noticed.

For a while I had nothing to say, then I got caught up in my day job, and then in doing revisions to my MG project – the one I thought was pretty good until I looked at it closely and realized it had wonderful potential, but wasn't ready for prime time, not by a long shot.

So now I'm on (hopefully) final revisions, and my agent will submit it somewhere, sometime. I have hopes for it, but you never know, do you?

Now I'm back in SF. And, I've been working on new songs – my band went back to the studio to record a few more songs, and just like writing, getting songs into proper shape always takes longer than you think. I'll post a rough mix of one or two as soon as I decide if they're worth putting out there.

Meanwhile, today and for a while, I'll be over at the sff.world forums doing a Q&A roundtable with authors Carolyn Crane and J.A. Pitts. Drop by and check it out.

01:15 pm:

I belong to a group of SF&F authors called SFNovelists.

A short while ago, we came up with the idea of creating a free ebook sampler -- 25 opening chapters from books by 25 different SF&F authors. I thought it was a great idea, esp since all the actual work would be done by others more tech savvy than I. We are planning follow-up volumes as well.

I'm posting a link to Simon Hayes'(Hal Spacejock series) website, since he's done a far better job of organizing it that I ever could. You can download the book in various e-formats.

http://www.spacejock.com.au/SFNovelists.html

Take a look -- hey, free stuff! The first chapter of my latest, Play Dead, is in it, plus great authors, some of whom you will know, and others you will be delighted to discover.

The group will be doing a lot of cross posting about this, so don't be surprised if you keep running into the project.

09:35 am:

It's been a while since I posted here. I sort of lost track of time in the virtual world.

 First, I got busy doing revisions on my middle grade ms. Then  the band went into the studio to lay down the roughs for our next cd. Then, as often happens, a lot of personal stuff. Then back to Utah, and too much day job work.

 It is fun being back in Utah, though. It's very different from San Francisco – talk about understatement. It's a little like spending a couple of months in a foreign country, without the language barrier. But there's a lot to appreciate; you just have to go with it and not compare it to back home. And it certainly provides a different perspective – it's what some might call the "real" America, although of course no one place is any more real than any other.

 I'm very comfortable here, comfortable with the people and the culture. I'm certainly more suited to the Bay Area, but there's a part of me that appreciates Utah as well. Also, I work up in the mountains, at one of the most beautiful spots in the country, and that doesn't hurt.

 To make up for my absence, I'm posing my latest song that we did right before I left SF, a sort of gospel/reggae tinged number. I really shouldn't, because it's only a rough – scratch backup vocals, unbalanced instruments, etc – sort of like posting your first draft of a story, before you fix it and make it all work.

That's me counting off, yelling "Oh Lord!" in the background, and taking the second guitar solo.

OhLord-070611.mp3

08:36 am: CD Finally Done.

The CD of my band, The Procrastinistas, finally arrived. We've been working on it for almost a year – not constantly of course, more like every few months when we all had time to record, or mix.

 I mostly shepherded it through – it's like being a mini-editor on a project. There's a lot more to getting it out there than just playing music, much like there's a lot more to getting a book out there than just writing one.

You've got write the songs, then work on them until they're right. Then you've got to research and find a place to record – a studio with a good sound engineer at an affordable price. Then you've got to mix the songs, an art all in itself, and fix any glitches in the recording –oops, hit the wrong note there.

Then you have to find someone to do the mastering, again with talent and in your price range. Then, more research to decide on a duplication company to print up the physical discs -- again, price and quality issues. And find someone to do the artwork for the cover. And all along the way, there's always some little obstacle popping up.

But it's done, and we're having a CD release party Friday May 13, at the Hotel Utah here in SF. It will be available at CD Baby and on itunes, and I may sell it directly through my website as well, at a discount. You can preview a few of the tunes on my website.

Here it is:

07:56 am: I Didn't Know People Actually Said That

There are some phrases you see in bad movies or sitcoms that are never uttered in real life. Except, apparently sometimes they are.

 I was shopping at Trader Joes the other day. The couple ahead of me at the checkout line, was a bit odd, to say the least. That asked the checker questions that were puzzling; the woman couldn't find her money, and when she finally did, counted out dollar bills slowly, one at a time. Then her companion realized he'd forgotten to get a bottle of water, and disappeared back into the store, for quite a while.. Meanwhile, the line was growing longer.

 When he came back, there was another discussion about the price of an item. Finally, they put all their groceries in the bag they'd brought, but decided to fill out some form, leaving the bag in the way of the checker, and refused to leave their position in the line. And there was more, but you get the idea.

 The checker, a middle aged Hispanic woman, suffered through all this patiently. When the couple finally left, she looked at me and our eyes locked in mutual sympathy. I offered a faint smile, and she rolled her eyes and said:

 "Ay, Caramba!"

 My gf, whose mother was from Puerto Rico, laughed when I told her, but claims that  her mom used that expression all the time. I wish I could get away with it. It sums up so many things so perfectly.

08:17 am:

I finally finished the middle grade ms I've been working on and sent it off to my agent. It's a weird feeling, because I have no idea if it's good, bad, or indifferent -- or if it's sellable. (Which is a different matter.)  Well, I know it's not actually bad, but indifferent is the same as bad, from my standpoint.

 Now, when writing adult urban fantasy, I have a fairly good grasp on what I'm doing and how it will be received by readers. But middle grade? I just don't know – an eleven or twelve year old may think it's great, or they may think it just sucks.

 I don't use beta readers. They can be very useful in catching plot holes and mistakes in continuity, but I never have, for some reason (Although one savvy person had a suggestion for my last book that I dearly wish I'd seen before it hit print.) But any suggestions a beta might have wouldn't change the overall feel of the book to any significant degree.

 So for this MG book, there's little point at this stage. I worked hard on it –and if my agent likes it, great. If she doesn't, there's not much I can do to revise it – it is what it is. It surely could be better, but it can't be different.

 All a beta reader could do is tell me it's great, which would be comforting, but not useful. Or tell me it's not, which would be discouraging, but I'd still send it in to my agent. (Who spent many years as an editor; I trust her judgment implicitly.)

 So in a way it's almost like starting over as a debut author, when you first send out your ms to an agent and hope they'll like it. But back then, an agent could pass but you still had the option to send it to another agent, and so on, until you found the right person.

 This time, if my agent gives the thumbs down, for whatever reason, that's pretty much it. Which would be a shame, because I'm very fond of this one. Well, we will see if I'm the only one.

10:08 am: REVIEWS
Michael Jones posted a very nice review for Play Dead (and the Dog Days series) over at Green Man Review.

Michael's an excellent reviewer, because he always gets what the author is trying to do. Whether he likes it or not is a different matter, of course.The only type of review that bothers me is when the reviewer  pans a book because it's not the book he or she was expecting. He never falls into that trap.

And in full disclosure, Michael is an internet acquaintance, which is why I never ask him to review my books.

On a different review front, a few days ago someone put up reviews for all four of the series books on Amazon. Basically quite positive, but the thing was, they did a complete synopsis of each book in the review. Usually that's awful -- I've seen major spoilers from people who do that, although this particular Amazon reviewer avoided that.

But the interesting thing was that the synopses were better than the ones I've had to do for my books. I'm not very good at writing them; not many authors are. We hate doing them.  I'm thinking this guy might have a future -- as a synopsis writer-for-hire.