As we grow closer to malignant ding-dong Trump being sworn in again, I realize my anger — which generates creativity — is growing. As such, I think once Trump is back in office I will be forced out of my creative neutral.
Four years ago, I made a strategic decision — I was going to tell the origin story of my heroine. Little did I know that this would cause what was going to be a trilogy into a six novel project.
But now that Trump is back, I really want to throw myself back into the novel I paused four years ago. And, yet, I also want to tell all those stories that lead up to the last two novels in the series.
Ugh.
As such, I think I’m probably going to throw myself into the whole thing. My fear is that if I don’t game out the entirety of the series from ground zero that inconsistencies will arise that I can’t overcome.
Anyway. I definitely feel my creative juices beginning to flow again out of my white hot anger over ding-dong Trump being president again.
It seems as though I’m going to continue to drift like always towards my goal of being a published author, but maybe in a little bit more aggressive manner. It seems as though I’m going to bounce around the six thriller novels I have planned so I can maybe have some sense of what’s been established in the universe as the novels progress.
Or something. Something like that.
And this doesn’t even begin to address how I have a scifi novel I’m also working on. Actually, it’s a few scifi novels.
I suppose, in a way, I’m trying to make the best of my tendency to not be very focused. But I’ll be happy as long as I am heading in the right direction of getting something, anything actually finished to the point that I can pitch it to a literary agent.
Of course, the issue of me just being too fucking weird could be a problem on that front. It’s enough to make me think about creating an whole identity out of whole cloth, like, I don’t know, a trans undocumented immigrant or something.
But, sadly?, I just don’t have the energy to do such a thing. Just accepted me — or not — for who I am. I just can’t continue to mope so aggressively as I have for months now.
I really want to write an homage to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series books. But there are some structural problems that I could never have known about when I originally began work on this idea a number of years ago.
Apparently, people want single-POV narrators who fit the gender of the author. And they definitely don’t want POVs that bounce around within a chapter. And they want short chapters.
Ugh. It’s so frustrating.
I guess what I will do is work on both the scifi novel I’ve begun and this thriller. The scifi novel will be very much written with an eye towards marketability, while the thriller will, as always, be a passion project.
But the key issue is moving forward creatively. I can’t just keep staring out into space for the rest of my life. And I need to really lay off the booze. It’s time to go as sober as possible and let energy drinks be my lone vice for the time being.
One reason why I’ve picked the fourth novel in the projected six novel project I’ve envisioned is I have already gamed the novel out some, especially the beginning. So, all I have to do is “just write.”
And, yet, I also need to, I think, go back to the drawing board about certain elements of writing. I need to reread some books on character and plotting so I nail down some elements of the story before I even begin.
Also, I’m going to try to lean into using AI to be something of a “literary consultant” in the sense that it can guide me towards what I want to do with the story.
But, as always, the key thing is I’m not going to live forever. I really need to hurry up and get something, anything done.
I saw yet ANOTHER person who was clearly interested in my passion project novel poking around this blog. They went from looking at the link about Lisbeth Salander to that about Corrie Yee. Now, I’m by nature extremely paranoid, so my first reaction is — “Oh, shit, someone is going to cherry pick my idea for some sort of screenplay.”
My heroine — who looks somewhat like Corrie Yee in my imagination — has a sleeve tattoo like Megan Fox does in this picture. (Totally different design, though)
And, yet, you can’t live your life in fear and paranoia. So lulz, I’m going to keep working on the novel until something pops out that makes it clear that my idea has, in fact, been “stolen.”
My hunch is, if it is “stolen,” it would be that two elements of my dream, my vision which are publicly known — that the heroine Union Pang would have a sleeve tattoo and look a lot like an older version of Corrie Yee — is what would be used in any screenplay.
Corrie Yee
The issue is — I’ve been working on this fucking thing so long that it’s inevitable that some element of it would be used independently by someone else. This just would be an instance of someone using cherry picking some elements I put out pubically.
I live in oblivion — how was I supposed to know anyone would give enough of a shit to do such a thing?
There are any number of reasons why someone would be interested in my novel’s heroine other than stealing the idea, I’m going to just chill out for the time being.
I am just about ready to throw myself back into working on the novel, but for the fact that I’m locked in neutral, not knowing how the 2024 election is going to turn out. What I think I’m going to do is at some point next week, I’m going to lurch back into my normal headspace and THEN I will start to write a lot again.
I think I’m just about ready to get back to working on a few novels. The one novel I’ve been working on the longest — the one that is meant to be part of a six-novel project — is set to be reworked significantly. The chief reason is that the stakes simply aren’t very high at the moment.
The novel is just about one woman’s obsession with owning a small town newspaper. That’s it. But I’ve decided that by leaning into an already-there scifi element of the novel that I can significantly raise the stakes. And, to a certain extent, I can give the novel something of a trick ending, cueing up the next novel in the series. (Which, at the moment, is much more of a traditional murder mystery.)
As part of that, I’m going to have to sit down and rewrite a whole lot of the novel, which is going to slow me down. My goal is now to query something, anything about a year from now.
Ultimately, the six novel series I’m working on will produce an American Lisbeth Salander.
Of course, there continues to be the issue of stripping being a big part of the novel. This is going to make a lot of literary agents blanch, I’m afraid. But that’s my vision for the novel, so there you go. And, what’s more, I still have a few other scifi novels rolling around in my mind that I my piviot towards if all else fails.
Something that doesn’t have the spicyness that the main, passion project novel currently has.
But I am well aware that if I don’t hurry up, I’m going to be in my 60s before I become a published author, if I ever do. And I am well aware there are many, many, MANY reasons — on the face of it at least — why I will *never* get published.
I’m too old. Too bonkers. The list goes on.
Yet, you have to have hope, you know?
One thing I continue to worry about is, of course, the whole Trump situation. I refuse, however, to just be in neutral until the election. I have to get something, anything done. So, starting today, I’m going to stop mulling things so much and start to read, watch and write what I can.
Now, let me be clear — all of this is just a dream. And I’m so old that it’s highly unlikely that what I want to have happen, will happen. As it’s going I’ll be very lucky to get *one* novel written and published before I croak, much less six novels that begin a series about an “American Lisbeth Salander.”
Lisbeth Salander.
It just takes a lot of time and six novels is a lot of work and words.
But the dream I have is — I want to show the audience why my “American Lisbeth Salander” is fucked up by showing in a series of books that depict about 25 years of her personal history the events that lead up to what would otherwise be the first two books in the series about her.
This happened in large part because Trump managed to lose in 2020. I had two novels (joined together by a cliffhanger) that I wanted to use as an allegory for the Trump era (Trumplandia, if you will) but he lost and so…I felt a bit forlorn.
Then I realized I had so much backstory about this character I loved that I might as well go backwards in time and show, exactly why she is so fucked up like Salander.
The heroine of many of the novels in the six novel series I plan is older than Lisbeth Salander and has a sleeve tattoo like Megan Fox does here.
I have a vague idea of making sure that my heroine is in the same universe as Lisbeth Salander so, I don’t know, maybe if things went great there might be a crossover at some point? That would be pretty sweet.
My heroine is, if I have the ages in my head right, a bit younger than Salander is supposed to be. But she’s a very, very, very different person other than how fucked up she is for reasons that the reader will be intimately acquainted with by the time she really appears and becomes front and center in the series.
I think, ultimately, my “American Lisbeth Salander” will kinda sorta look like Corrie Yee in my mind. Maybe. Not a perfect 1-to-1. But sorta.
I think what I need to do is start to work on the other novels in the series, too, so that might speed things up some. There is one book that if had any resoruces at all I would write but, alas, I just don’t think it’s going to be possible. So, I think it’s going to be six ~100,000 word novels in the same universe that I will have an open ending so we can expect more from my heroine.
It’s all a lot of fun.
And I would be about to query at this point, but for the fact that the third draft was a lot more “spicy” than it should have been and my readers balked flat out reading it after a point. So, back to the drawing board. Now, I think I won’t query this novel until the spring — that’s the goal, at least.
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