Month: February 2023

On Track To Begin The Beta Reader Process In Spring 2023

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After a number of years of hard work, I’m finally — finally — about to begin the beta reader process in spring 2023. As such, to some of extend things are about to be somewhat out of my hands. I hope to become a beta reader for other people as part of this process.

But the key thing all of this is reminding me of is how I need to begin to expand beyond this first novel. I need to start working on other novels and short stories. If I was younger, I might even dabble in screenwriting.

I have a limited amount of time to work with, however, so it will have to be novels and short stories.

I have three solid scifi novel concepts rolling around in my mind and I think if I really buckle down and give me otherwise listless life some daily structure then I can move at a nice little clip with these other novel concepts. Plot has always been a real problem for me, but I managed to think up a really good plot for my first novel so I hope to be able to use my knowledge of plot to speed the process up a great deal.

That is, at least, the hope.

I just don’t have forever to spin my wheels on all of this. That’s why the idea that I’m finally, finally at a point where I can begin the beta reader process is a big deal for me. I am unhappy, of course, that it has taken me so long to get to this point.

I hate being a late bloomer, but, lulz, here we are.

Actors As ‘Ringtones’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everyone in Hollywood needs to read David Brin’s scifi novel “Kiln People.” One could posit it as an allegory for what may be about to happen to Hollywood within a decade or so. In the novel, as I recall, scans of actors are treated much the same way as ring tones were in the past.

As an aside, I think we’re all going to have to get used to the idea that Hollywood may soon be in an eternal “now” in which the stars that existed about the time of the AI revolution are forever making the same content over and over and over again as if they live forever.

The need for this to exist for Hollywood was grazed — but not touched directly — by Matthew Belloni when he said, rhetorically, that it’s not like Michael C. Hall is going to want to make Dexter shows for the rest of his life.

Well, lulz, what if he didn’t? What if the producers of the show just used his body scan and kept making the show forever — or at least as long as it was profitable — allowing Hall to live passively off the use of his scan?

I think that is a very, very real possibility. There may be a pause in the adoption of such technology because we have a Second American Civil War and WW3 to get through, but in the end, I think AI could totally transform the very idea of what entertainment is.

Or, to put another way, instead of paying $15 for a monthly Netflix subscription, you will pay the same amount for a license of the body scans of your favorite actors to use in, I don’t know, the metaverse or some shit.

All of this plays into my belief that we’re careening towards a Petite Singularity. Things could change so dramatically in the infotainment industry that we just can’t keep up.

Is ‘Moneyball’ Coming For Hollywood?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had an interesting Space conversation (below) with someone where we stumbled upon an interesting idea — is it possible that Hollywood is about to get “Moneyballed?” What I mean by this is, if you gut Hollywood from its human element outside of digital body scans that are used like ring tones, is it possible that cold, hard metrics will the be-all and end-all.

Two things.

One, I suppose one of the reasons why so much of Hollywood sucks these days is that already exists. The corporate suits look exclusively at the bottom line and that’s it. But this idea I’m proposing would take things to the next level because there would be ZERO human involvement when it comes to the production of the collection of entertainment we consider “Hollywood.”

The other idea is that Hollywood isn’t going down without a fight. It’s possible a lot of carve outs to be mandated via regulation. This would happen as part of a broader effort on the part of the greater knowledge economy to prevent its complete consumption by the AI revolution.

The issue is that Hollywood could very well get suckerpunched by the tsnuami that is the looming use of AI in showbiz. In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that the injection of AI into showbiz is what happens Next after the Streaming revolution.

Now, obviously, if we have a civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025 then lulz, it may be like the advent of TV before WW2 — we’re just going to have to wait for things to get sorted out before we get to experience it.

‘Word Count’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find myself really struggling with the potential word count of the second draft of this novel. The first version of this novel opened rather abruptly and it came in at about 120,000 words. This version has a much softer, traditional opening and I have a projected 20,000 words before the opening I originally had.

Oh boy.

But, in my defense, I feel as though a more traditional opening really engages people more than simply opening with my heroine already in crisis. This new beginning gradually gets you into the universe I’ve constructed and does a great deal to help with character development and motivation.

I don’t know what I’m going to do when it comes to word count. My desire to stay at about 100,000 words is equal to my desire to flesh out the characters so you actually care about them enough to finish the fucking novel.

I think this is a frequent problem of first novel novelists like me. But, I’m still early enough in the process that I might be able to figure out a way to lop off enough words to get to the 100,000 word sweetspot. That might come through the beta reader process or it might come from the insight of a professional editor should I be able to figure out how to afford one.

The Blogging Era Ends With A Whimper

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, (Undead) Gawker is wrapping up publication….AGAIN. It definitely seems as though this is the end of an era. I don’t know about you, but I live in something of a passive infotainment bubble that is centered around Twitter and Tik-Tok. I can’t think of one blog or news / entertainment site that I go out of my way to view on a regular basis.

And it’s probably only going to get worse with the advent of things like chatbots that scan the web then give you your answer based on a dataset.

I kind of makes me sad for a number of reasons. We — or at least I — have to accept that it’s over, all the fun I used to have with the old Gawker is never coming back, just like my wasted, dissipated youth.

So, in that regard, the Web is fully mature. We’re kind of waiting around for the Next Big Thing to happen and it’s not going to be some cool, new, snarky Website. It might be the equivalent of that in the metaverse or somehow something via a chatbot but the traditional blog is just no longer a viable commercial option.

In a way, Twitter does what Gawker used to do, but instead of a funny article, you just see a funny viral tweet. I will note, however, that the most traffic this lowly site has ever gotten came from something celebrity related. I think if you were going to try to start something like Gawker up, you would have to lean into celebrity culture in some way.

Though, I suppose there remains a very, very limited window of opportunity for someone to create a podcasting network that covers the major cities of New York City, San Francisco and LA then direct listeners to a blog of some sort. That’s the only way I can think of you might, just might, be able to bring back the fun of the original Gawker before it went nuts and got all nasty for no reason.

Will A.I. Bring A Broadway Renaissance As Hollywood Fades?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As is suggested in the movie “La La Land,” there is still a lot of truth to the myth that young people with a few bucks in their pockets make their way to Los Angeles in hopes of making it big in Hollywood. The rise of A.I. generated entertainment might change all of that, however.

Instead of going to Hollywood, young people in the near future might flock to New York City in hopes of making it big on Broadway and leveraging that fame to get a full body scan that will allow them to live passively off the scans use for years to come.

I say this because I wonder if the potential death of mass media because of A.I. generated entertainment might might lead to people turning to live theatre in a way not seen since before the advent of Hollywood in the first place.

I’m not saying I think this will happen for sure, but it’s definitely a possibility. It’s very easy to imagine a future where AI has grown so powerful that we have a “Her” movie situation. Instead of paying $15 a month for Netflix, we will pay a similar amount for access to the “scans” of actors over the years that we can use to populate our very, very specific movies.

Now here’s another interesting idea — will there be any market for mass media entertainment at all outside of the theatre or will everyone just use A.I. to generate very personalized entertainment? There won’t even be a need for a prompt — your digital personal assistant will just know you so well that you sit down and watch entertainment it generates on the fly based on what it knows about your personality from use.

But I still think it’s possible that live theatre — and Broadway specifically — could balloon in cultural significance as we transition away from Hollywood having any humans involved.

How Paranoid Should I Be?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. Because of how fucking weird the weather continues to be around the globe combined with my need for a second creative track, I have decided to at least once a week work on something other than my first novel.

I have two solid scifi concepts. One dealing with global climate change and one dealing with a very unique pandemic. I have mentioned the global climate change novel to a manuscript consultant and she LOVED it. She loved it to the point that I could totally see her deciding to write it herself.

She definitely has the means, motive and opportunity to do such a thing. But I definitely find the idea I came up intriguing enough to take up again after not really thinking about it for a while.

I think the way I rationalize working on this global climate change novel despite the risks of the person I mentioned it to stealing a march on me is to simply not take it very seriously. Use it as a way to improve my novel writing abilities, knowing full well that I could wake up in a few months and my novel idea will have been written and published by someone else.

If I just don’t get too wrapped up in actually getting it published, then I think it won’t hurt as much should the idea get “stolen” from me. And, besides, I have my first novel to work on and a pandemic idea to work on.

Wish me luck.

Continuing Mulling On A Second Creative Track

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided that given the potentially lengthy post-production process of the whole getting traditionally published thing that I need to back up and start working on other novel ideas (and maybe a short story or two.) I keep saying this and then, lulz, don’t do it.

But this time, given how much my looming 50th birthday sucks, I’m really going to do it. Or, at least, try again.

I have two really good scifi novels concepts, but no plot. One has to do with global warming and the other is a pandemic novel. I’ve mentioned the global warming novel concept to a manuscript consultant and she flipped out with excitement to the point that I’m worried SHE is going to write it. I think she monitors this blog now and again and she has the means, motive and opportunity to scoop up my general plot idea and get it published.

That sounds pretty paranoid, but the older I get, the more I realize that that is exactly how showbiz actually works. It’s very competitive and people will cut you for no reason if they think they can get something out of it.

It is because of my paranoid fears about the manuscript consultant “stealing” my global climate change themed story that I’m going to also work on the pandemic novel. I’m going to use all the experience I have about how *I* write a novel to hopefully speed the process of writing these novels up considerably.

But there is the issue of focus.

I have a lot of momentum when it comes to my first novel and I don’t want to stop cold working on it. I need some way to multitask between different projects that allows me to progress apace with the first novel. I THINK what I’m going to do is pick a specific day of the week where I piviot to working on something besides the first novel so I can actually have something brewing when I begin the beta reader process then querying when things are pretty much out of my hands.

Anyway.

I have a very limited amount of time on this earth. I really have gotten to the put up or shut up point fo things.

A.I. Killed The Hollywood Star?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had a really interesting Space conversation on Twitter with a guy who proposed the following provocative concept: the rise of AI generated technology will mark the end of Hollywood as we know it.

He posits that the entire celebrity parasocial edifice will come crashing down as everyone can tailor their entertainment to be very personal and without any “real” actors. Everything will be generative, no IRL humans involved.

This is a really interesting idea. And I like it because it forces me to challenge some basic assumptions and to come up with and answer to this guy’s very valid observations.

The more I think about it, the more I think Hollywood celebrities have nothing to worry about, for no other reason than they still have time to warp the advance of technology such that they thrive. For instance, just because you may be able to create a completely generative movie or TV show in the near future, doesn’t mean you will want to, especially if there’s a huge marketing campaign to make you feel that your generative actor isn’t as “special” or entertaining as a scan of a real person.

In fact, there is a novel by David Brin that deals with something like this. It’s called Kiln People and it has some really thought provoking ideas about the nature of celebrity. Anyway, I think in the near future when we Petite Singularity is in full force that instead of Hollywood being burned to the ground that the basic elements of Hollywood celebrity culture will simply exist in a different form.

So, when you sit down to watch a TV show or movie, yes, you will create something generative…but you will also probably be willing to pay a premium for a scan of, say, Harrison Ford (and other actors) to plop into your generative, personalized content. In fact, one could even go so far as to say that in the future you will be paying a flat monthly fee not for Netflix, but for access to the scans of a multitude of actors you might use for your movies and TV shows that you generate via a prompt

And, what’s more, once AI technology reaches something akin to that seen in the movie “Her,” you might simply tell your personal assistant to create the content for you using voice commands and you can be even more lazy.

I still think that instead of going to Hollywood in the near future that young starlets will head to New York City to see if they can make a name for themselves on Broadway then get scanned into the Big Hollywood Database and then live off the passive income of their body scan. I don’t feel enough people are listening to me about this possibility.

Anyway. It definitely seems as though the future of entertainment is going to have a lot of twists and turns.

‘ChatGPT is WOKE’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I hate being right. I continue to see chatter on Twitter among MAGA fascists regarding how angry they are at the “woke” nature of ChatGPT. Which makes me wonder where all of this is going to end.

I suppose that once we turn into a MAGA fascist autocracy that all chatbots will somehow be regulated to prevent the evil, pernicious forces of “wokeness” from being involved. As an aside, I have to say that all this talk about this or that thing being “woke” is total and complete bullshit. The fucking fascists call anything they disagree “woke” because they’re completely devoid of any meaningful policies other than expressions of hate.

There is, of course, the possibility that technology will solve this particular problem in the sense that everyone will have their own personalized chatbot in the near future, so if you want a “woke” chatbot, you can have one and if you want a chatbot that spews your own hate back at you, then you can have that, too.

But the point is — I can totally see Trump picking up the cause of “chatbot bias” the moment he’s back on Twitter — or sooner. It’s just the type of easy to understand and vacuous bullshit MAGA fascists love to traffic in. The great irony is, of course, that I was listening to the New York Times’ “Hardfork” podcast and they were talking about chatbot bias and I realized I was on the same page as them.

Because I am a drunk loser in the middle of nowhere I am going to get zero credit for having thought all the political implications of chatbot bias well before all the cool kids.

Ugh.