I’m finally getting pretty close to the end of the first act. My hope is that once I reach the second act that things will move A LOT faster because I’ll have relationships down pat. Once the cornerstone of the novel is laid, then everything else should move a lot faster.
That, at least, is the dream.
I am now hoping that there’s a good chance I might enter the second act within the next few days, if I’m lucky. I still believe I can wrap up the second draft by no later than July 4th, if not that previous weekend.
But I’m really going to have to buckle down.
And once I wrap up the second draft, then I’m entering totally new territory. I just don’t know — at the moment — how I’m going to get people to participate in the beta reader process. I need people to stress test the novel’s conceit and I can’t very well do that if people ghost me the moment I have something for them to read.
This happens all…the…time.
The only solution is, of course, to be someone else’s beta reader. Or maybe a few other people’s beta reader. As such, I really need to get back into the habit of reading fiction on a regular basis.
There is a real question in my mind about the fate of Hollywood and entertainment in general going forward with the rise of AI generated art. And, yet, there is also a possibility that once mass media doesn’t exist anymore that people with, uhhh, taste…will finally get the mass media that they have not really been getting for ages and ages.
So, imagine a situation where there is no mass media anymore. Everyone gets very, very specific TV, music and movies based on a face scan that determines what mood their in at that specific moment. Instead of paying $25 for a combined Netflix and Spotify subscription, you pay something similar for the right to listen to music that is actually good (relative to you) and watch TV and movies that are good (relative to you.)
Everybody wins, right?
Well, sorta.
If that happens — and I think it will, after we sort out the whole autocracy vs. civil war situation in late 2024, early 2025 — then there will no longer be any form of “shared reality.” By definition, “share experience” of watching the same popular TV show and then talking about it on Twitter will be moot and quaint.
Everyone will be enjoying very, very specific entertainment for the specific mood you’re feeling at that particular moment. Some people will continue to enjoy really bad entertainment, while others will get to watch endless new episodes of, say 30 Rock.
A lot of problems that mass media has at the moment will be solved, even it means that the entire greater Hollywood-industrial complex will in no way, continue to exist.
Do I think that will happen?
I just don’t know.
But it will be interesting to see going forward what happens.
I’ve said before that writing a novel is like the scene in Ocean’s 11, where the rockie is told all these things and the very last thing, the most important thing….they aren’t told because the guy telling him is interrupted.
And that thing, the thing you don’t know, is the like what the whole process of writing a novel is like. So, here I am. I’m cruising through the first act of second draft of the first act of the novel, maybe writing something really good, and maybe writing crap.
I just don’t know.
The only way I will know, at this point, is finishing a second draft and handing that second draft over to Beta Readers. It really could go either way this point. It could be that my gut has been right all this time and it could be that what I’ve written sucks really, really bad.
Anyway, I’m hopeful. I believe that I’ve finally — finally — stumble across a really good story with really good characterizations and, most of all, stakes. Something that would draw readers in a way that they will be willing to spend enough time with the characters I’ve come up with to finish the Goddamn novel.
Regardless, I feel pretty good about what I’ve come up with. There are plenty — PLENTY — of things that could go wrong. To the point that I really need to start working on a second or third track that I can fall back on as necessary should the worst happen.
But as I keep saying, you have to work on what you do know, not on what you don’t know. If you worry exclusively on what you don’t know, then you spend all your time worried about this or that absolute worst case scenario and never get anything done.
So, you have to focus on your goal and go from there.
I hope to start writing again with full force on the novel at some point within the next 24 hours. All systems are go, if nothing else.
I’ve heard recently the occasional stray comment that there is a growing trend on the part of the publishing industry for single POV novels. This is a problem for me because when I was thinking about how I do my first novel, I simply used Stieg Larsson as a guide.
In general, however he did it, I did it.
And Larsson repeatedly during his Millennium books used more than one POV. Now, one key thing that I’ve gradually come to realize is if you use a POV other than your heroine’s, it has to be meaningful. But, from what I’m hearing, lulz, just have one POV if you want to get published.
I’m just not prepared to change to that MO in my novel at the moment. Momma aways said I was special, after all. I have a vision for this novel and if it makes it more difficult to get the novel published, so be it. I really, really like what I’ve come up with and, if all else fails, I’ll simply fall back to a second or third tract novel where I do use one POV and try to leverage that to sell the novel I’ve been working on all this time.
I have to admit that I’m feeling pretty insecure about this whole thing the last few days. But this happens to me all the time, usually a very specific moments in the month that I can predict. I usually don’t have anyone to bother me when I write and occasionally I do and it scrambles my internal writing dynamo. But it passes soon enough.
As such, I use this “pause” in my writing to do a lot of reading and watching of TV shows on Netflix and Amazon Prime. That’s the goal, at least.
But, anyway, I’m going to try to seed some potential beta readers with the first chapter of the second draft of the novel this weekend. It’s could be really tough to find anyone willing to be a beta reader. They say to fix that problem you need to be someone ELSE’S beta reader.
I probably need to force myself to read other people’s novels just so I get back into the habit of reading fiction before I start being a beta reader for other people. The few times I’ve tried to be a beta reader for someone, people got really mad at how brutal I was on their writing. I’m really, really brutal on my own writing, but I get it.
Sometime ago, I sent a detailed outline to a manuscript editor who I think is probably in Maryland. Ever since then, I’ve been feeling pretty paranoid that she really liked what she read and either decided to write the novel herself or handed it off to someone else.
So, when I saw someone in my Webstats from Maryland looking at post of mine where I mull the possibility of someone stealing a march on me creatively, I, of course, automatically thought the absolute worst. And, yet, I have no idea why anyone would look at that particular blog post.
Here’s what I wrote.
The interesting thing about showbiz content producers is one hand so much of what is churned out is unoriginal dreck and, yet, when you’re working on your own project you always worry about that one asymmetrical attack that forces you to re-think or shelve what you’re working on.
Some of this, I know, is nothing more than “first time mom jitters,” in the sense that you work on something so much that you think, “Well, if this concept is so obvious to ME, then obviously, it will be obvious to SOMEONE ELSE.” (That’s a lot of obvious.)
This is where my personal belief that you have to make decisions on what you know, not on what you don’t know comes into play. If you worry about what might happen all the time, then you never take the risks necessary to even have a chance at being successful.
So, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m just moving forward for the time being. If something is released or announced for release that steals a march on me, then I’ll address it at that time.
But, for the time being, things are full speed ahead. Wish me luck.
There are plenty of reasons OTHER than someone being on the cusp of stealing my novel idea for someone to be interested in that post. But I have to admit that it’s going to take a bit or two for me to process this information because I’m so fucking paranoid about someone stealing a creative march on me.
What I’ve come up with is really good and it would be just my luck for someone to steal a march on me for a really dumb reason. And, yet, after the shock wore off, I probably would both be shocked that I came up with a good enough idea that someone else was able to run with it.
But I know why I’m this way — Annie Shapiro brought ROKon Magazine back to life behind my back and so I’m paranoid about something similar happening. Once bitten, twice shy and all that.
I refuse to live my life in some sort of abstract fear, however. I’m prepared to ride this particular pony to the bottom, if necessary.
It definitely seems as though SCOTUS is going to outlaw one of the two major abortion pills — responsible for most abortions — this Friday. This would be horrible politics for Republicans, but, lulz, they don’t care. Such a decision by SCOTUS late on a Friday would be yet another H-bomb dropped on the American political system.
But, again, Republicans just don’t give a shit.
Because of the rot in our politics, Republicans know that they’re ascendant and they’re going to get what they want soon enough: a total ban on not just abortion, but any form of birth control.
And when that happens?
Because abortion rights are at their heart an economic issue, the continued restriction of such rights would be very, very corrosive and would increase how Red and Blue states are receding from each other at an alarming rate.
But here we are — all the momentum is with the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. So, lulz, either we have some sort of National Divorce or we turn into an autocracy. Who knows which choice we’ll make.
The two sides are set. No amount of wishful thinking is going to change that on a systemic basis America is very, very fucked. The cancer of fascism has consumed the Republicans to the point that, by definition, our next Republican POTUS will be our first autocrat.
Republicans go out of their way to to make it clear that they don’t believe in American democracy at all. Your establishment Republican will tell you point blank that America is a “constitutional republic” not a democracy.
The issue is — it doesn’t matter if Trump is the GQP nominee or not, America will peacefully transition into autocracy if 2024 – 2025 unless something unexpected happens. What that “unexpected” event might be, I don’t know. But America at the moment is an autocracy without an autocrat. All we need is a Republican as POTUS.
I just don’t have any hope about America’s future. We need to accept that we are careening towards an existential choice of autocracy or civil war in late 2024, early 2025. I can’t predict the future so obviously something might happen to allow us to punt our political problems down the road another election cycle…but I have my doubts.
I’m aware that it’s taboo to even mention that AOC is a smoking hot babe. Ok, I get it. We’re only allowed to talk about her policy agenda. And, yet, AOC really is a stunning babe. If any bikini AOC pictures ever leaked, the Internet would probably break.
The only reason why I bring this issue up is someone in Kigali, Butare, Rwanda randomly popped up in my Webstats. This is total, baseless speculation, but I get to think about AOC in a bikini, so here we go — if AOC was going to run around in a bikini in public, it probably would be somewhere as remote as Rwanda.
Anyway. I hope no such bikini pics are leaked. I’d like to see AOC able to run for POTUS. That would be a lot of fun, I think.
One of the conundrums of a modern woman trying to run for public office is they have to be totally, completely sexless. They’re not permitted, in any way, to show any skin in a traditional feminine way.
So, as such, it’s possible that every major female politician will rise up through the ranks, only to be destroyed because bikini pics — or whatever — pops out. Which makes you wonder, maybe the only way a woman can ever become POTUS is if her no0ds are already baked into the cake.
Maybe, then, 30 years from now, only someone like Emily Ratajkowski can successfully run for POTUS because, lulz, we’ve already seen her n0ods so it’s all a lulz.
Or not. Who knows. But I do know that it’s very annoying that otherwise qualified women will be prohibited from going up the chain of political command just because their n0ods leaked.
I will note, again, that AOC is a smoking hot babe and it’s kind of surreal that to date we have not see ANY bikini pictures of her. Anyway. I hope they don’t ever leak so she has a decent shot of being POTUS one day.
While I continue to not know what I’m doing, I am getting a general sense that maybe things are beginning to get better — a lot better. As things get better, I find myself dwelling on all the things that could go wrong to make all my hard work moot.
The next novel in the project is about a missing baby.
And, yet, no one can predict the future, least of all me. So, you just have to wing it. We all have to wing it. But I am concerned that I could endup writing the fucking Bible and because I’m a drunk crank…I don’t get published. Or a civil war breaks out and we’re all too busy trying to avoid bombs that no one has time to read a novel — much less mine.
So, I don’t know what to tell you.
All you can do is just believe, you know? Keep the faith and all that. You just never know what might happen if you just keep plugging along. I’m growing really pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. There are stakes and motivations. All the things necessary for a good to great story.
I’m so pleased with what I’ve come up with, that I’m growing more and more interested in diving into the second novel in this project. But, I dunno. I think I should probably work on the two scifi novels I have rolling around in my mind before I do that.
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