Everyone is so busy destroying the world in fiction, I find myself thinking about the opposite — given the opportunity, how would you rebuild civilization on a new, habitable planet in a new solar system? The key condition of the scenario would be that other than the high tech zapping that would be involved, humanity would be forced to work together using the present-day level of technology to bootstrap a global civilization back into existence.
Now, the issue at the moment is I have pretty great scenario but no plot. I need an excuse to run around this idea. What I like about this scenario is sort of the “I’ll give you something to cry about” nature of it. What if, on a macro basis, the United States was forced to make some high stakes macro decisions that would affect the lives of everyone on earth? Do we even have it within us to pull that off?
The point of the story, whatever it ultimately became, would be that people do strange things when macro power politics are involved. I mean, just think about how casually the Korean peninsula was divided after World War 2. That would be something this story explored — what if some “other” forced humanity to think up some some way to create a common global civilization?
I have an idea of how it would be done, but it would be so controveral and cause so much anger on the part of all non-Americans (and a lot of Americans, too!) that that, unto itself, would be the source of a lot of the plot.
But, again, at the moment, I just don’t have any plot. Nothing. Just a very expansive universe.
The sweetspot for a novel written by a first-time author is somewhere around the 80,000 to 100,000 word marker. It’s my impression that any more than that the cost of physically publishing the novel’s paper grows significantly. I have finally gotten my outline where I want it to be, but surprise, I currently have way too many scenes if you figure the average scene is about 1,000 words.
So, I have to make a decision. Keep the existing structure of the novel or slash and burn the scene count to cut things down to a more marketable size. Here’s the problem — while I have a starting point later on in the story, I just feel as though the only way to engage readers is with a longer story.
If I start the story at the later point I’m thinking about, then I just don’t feel audiences will really care as much. Yes, I get to the point of the story a lot sooner, but my concern is the story just won’t be as engaging. The characters won’t be as fleshed out and, as such, the overall story won’t be as readable.
Another thing is — the specifics of the novel, even in second draft, is very much in flux. What’s more, scenes aren’t always 1,000 words. The first draft of this novel was 120,000 words. My few alpha readers have found the story “intriguing” by not so much that they’re all that eager to read the whole thing. So, the thinking is if I really flesh out the characters and make readers care about them that they might actually want to finish the whole story.
I’ve always been a late bloomer and working on a novel is no different. I’m now zooming towards my 50th birthday as I struggle with my first novel. The novel’s second draft has gotten much, much better even though I am writing it in a creative vacuum.
As part of a broader bout of existential angst on turning 50, I find myself fear that my age, unto itself, will be the reason why I can’t get traditionally published and will have to turn to self-publishing. While self-publishing is a totally valid option, it’s just not my vision for this novel.
I have a huge chip on my shoulder about my writing and I want to prove to the haters that despite being a big old loser for way too long, I can write a novel good enough that it gets past the gatekeepers of the traditional publishing route.
I have very high standards for myself and I’ve only managed to get as far as I have because I have set such a high standard for myself — getting traditionally published. It’s just I’ve been drifting towards this goal and my age has kind of snuck up on me. If I had a wife or girlfriend, then maybe I wouldn’t be in this shitty situation.
But, alas, I just don’t. And so, here I am, almost 50 having to manage my expectations about the fate of this novel. I have to accept that even if I stick the landing, I could be in my mid-50s before this novel comes out. That really changes things to some extent because if I manage to become rich and famous because I’ve written a breakout first novel…I’m going to be a fucking old man when it happens.
So, it’s not like I can run around New York City with a bunch of 24 year olds discovering the city and life for the first time. All my peers will be married empty nesters thinking about retirement. So, if I turn into the next fucking Tom Wolfe I’m going to have, in real terms, a very brief moment to enjoy that success. And all my female peers will be too old too have children and if they’re single — probably too bitter to get married to some rando like me who has suddenly found success late in life.
In short, everything sucks. I’m too fucking old and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. I just have to process the reality of the situation and keep believing in myself.
I’m just a smelly, middle aged CIS white male with a looming 50th birthday coming at me at an alarming rate and, as such, I worry about my ability to get traditionally published. I worry about this to the point that I sometimes idly muse that I should concoct a new identity that fits the agenda of the “woke cancel culture mob.”
I’m well aware that, in real terms, CIS white men as the Youngs call people like me, continue to dominate the publishing world. Ok, I get it. And, yet, I’m an old white man in the middle of nowhere struggling to get traditionally published for the first time. It sure would be nice to suck at the teet of the orthodoxy of the “woke cancel culture mob” with a personal story that they found appealing.
If I was a 24 transgender Latino, I suspect my novel would be a lot more warmly read than it would be as me coming at them from my sad reality. I can’t help how old I am and I need all the help I can get to get published traditionally. The more I know about what it takes to get traditionally published, the more alarmed I grow.
And, yet, I have made it my life’s passion to be wilfully delusional. Acting like I might actually have a chance of getting traditionally published given how much delusion that is going to require, is kind of my thing.
When it comes to how easy or difficult it is for people like me to get traditionally published a lot of it comes down to perception. Leftists point out the cold hard reality that old white men tend to get published, while it “feels true” to Right wing nutjobs that CIS white men simply can’t get a fair shake in the deep Blue publishing industry.
Lulz. Who knows. With me luck in my active, wilful delusion.
After spending most of January spinning my wheels in the first chapter of this second draft of my first novel, I think I may have finally stabilized things some. The issue has been — as it has always been — that I’m doing all of this in a creative vacuum and so it is a real struggle to figure out some basic elements of the story.
Inspiration
But I believe I understand the point of this story — the novel isn’t so much about the murder that takes place as it is about one woman’s need for closure over the death of her parents in the guise of owning the newspaper they once owned. The murder is really just an excuse to explore my heroines need for closure and validation in the eyes of a community that feels slighted by her in a big way.
Anyway.
Now that I understand what to focus on, I have a better grasp of the intended ebb and flow of the structure of the story. Of course, this is just the first act. But the first act set the tone for the novel as its “foundation.” Everything else about the novel is built on the cornerstone of the first chapter.
My dream title for my first novel.
My goal at this point is just to write a novel that is good enough that during the looming beta process my beta readers won’t grow bored. That they won’t just find the novel “intriguing” but will rush through it at nice clip because they enjoy it so much.
That’s the dream, at least. But, as I keep saying, I don’t have a Reader so all I have when writing this novel is my gut to guide me. Only time will tell if my gut has its hunch about what to do with this story right or not.
While I believe the historical concepts posited by the book The Fourth Turning to be nothing more than astrology for men who listen to Joe Rogan, I definitely get why the some people have really bought into the idea. I occasionally find myself walking around, say, buying groceries, when I think about what it would be like to walk into the store in the middle of a civil war.
I imagine some day in the near future where I’m scavenging for what food I can find in a trashed and ransacked store. I think this because I see how, on a macro level, the conditions for a Fourth Turning or Great Reset are floating around. I was alarmed to see a young man wearing a shirt advocating extreme guns rights.
I was reminded of how America is cleaving into two waring camps, one Red, one Blue. The issue is, of course, will we manage to muddle through this particular problem like we have since 1865 or if we’re going to implode into a Second American Civil War.
The idea that there is such a thing as a “Fourth Turning” plays into how a lot of other people are seeing what I’m seeing. The human mind is designed to see patterns and, as such, the idea that there is a regular pattern to history “feels true” and we use it as some comfort that the world around us isn’t as completely random as we fear.
But, as alas, the world, in general, really is random. Even the writers of The Fourth Turning admit that their all-powerful theory doesn’t explain why the American Civil War happened when it did. A charitable explanation would be a few Wig presidents died and, as such, the Civil War happened earlier than it might have happened according to the book’s historical dictate.
Or, you could say that the whole thing is bullshit and the authors of The Fourth Turning are giving meaning to the pretty meaningless ebb and flow of macro historical forces. We know the general movement of those forces, but we don’t know their destination. The interaction between Great Men (and Women) and macro historical forces is what makes it impossible in real terms for anyone — least of all the authors of The Fourth Turning — to predict what the fuck is going to happen.
The key thing when thinking about a Fourth Turning in the United States is it actually possible that Blue States, when faced with the prospect of being forced to “bend a knee” to autocratic MAGA fascism will actually be willing to secede from the Union? That is pretty much the whole shebang when it comes to how likely a civil war is anytime soon.
Given how politically ascendant they are, there really isn’t much reason for Red States to leave the Union. If it happens, it’s going to be Blue States. But I’m always wrong. Aways. So, as such, I think we’ll just muddle through and gradually transition into some sort of legalistic autocratic fascism like they have in Russia at the moment.
The only thing I worry about is America’s original sin, race. If the United States turns into an autocratic fascist state, there is every reason to believe it’s very possible we may zoom past Russia and turn into a Very American Fourth Reich. But I still don’t know — it could go either way at the moment.
When I first heard that Annie Shapiro was dead a number of years ago, I didn’t believe it. She was just the type of person who would fake her death specifically to hurt me. The thing about Annie was, she really knew what made me tick and she would push my buttons to great effect.
The late Annie Shapiro and me back when I was cute.
Annie’s death is a tragedy and one thing that really bothers me about it is we never got a chance to reconcile in some way. The reason why Annie grew to be so important to me was I can articulate a vision but I have shit ability to persuade anyone to listen to whatever I think up.
She, meanwhile, was all persuasion. We made a great team and whatever success my version of the magazine had came from our specific relationship. ROKon Magazine — at least my original version — was never anything more than a glorified zine.
It was doomed to fail for a number of reasons, most of them directly connected to my own personal failings and inability to manage people. That’s why when it failed, I was kind of kneecapped emotionally in ways I am still recovering from. The other reason why Annie was so important to me for so long is she brought the magazine back without me — in secret! — and so I had to live through the deep shame of seeing what huge failure I was each month.
But that was a long time ago and nobody cares anymore.
The idea that Annie would be murdered in such a random way still rattles my cage. In fact, I think Annie is the only person I know personally to have ever been murdered. I still don’t believe she’s dead. Annie was very cruel to me on an emotional basis, but, then, I wasn’t exactly all that great to her during our “divorce” because of the magazine.
But she didn’t deserve what happened to her, nobody does. I like to think this six novel project I’m working on is something of an homage to what I remember of Annie.
The first big story I wanted to tell was what happened to me and Annie Shapiro with ROKon Magazine in Seoul. I struggled with telling the literal story a number of different ways but ultimately have settled for drawing upon my experiences at that point in my life as the basis for a six novel project set in the United States.
But it has occured to me that there is a way to tell the story of ROKon Magazine in fictional form. As much as I hate to admit it, the only way I can think of to tell the story would be with a framing device. I say that because I’ve always wanted to tell the story with a straight a-b-c chronology because I lived it and felt I could tell the story without the use of such a device.
And, yet, it has occured to me that if I ever had the means to tell the story here is how I would do it.
I would have a magazine reporter decide to investigate what happened all those years ago. As part of their research, they would track down different people who were involved with the magazine and then you would have extensive flashbacks of what they were doing in 2006-2008 as the magazine’s drama developed.
That way there is some sort of mystery that would keep people reading even though we would go into things knowing that the magazine ultimately failed pretty quickly because of, well, me. Or, at least, fictional me.
Anyway, the older I get, the more I realize I have romanticized what happened with the magazine so much that it’s something of a delusion. A lot of why I continue to think about the experience so much is it’s all kind of fused with my regrets about my dissipated youth.
In the end, I am telling the story of ROKon Magazine, just is a very defused, jumbled up way set in a small town in America over the course of 25 years.
The beginning of this second draft of my first novel has been a real fucking struggle. I’m now 20-ish days into writing the second draft and I’m still wallowing in the first chapter.
But.
I believe once I get the foundation of this novel wrapped up that I will be able to move far, far quicker. At least, that’s the hope. I can feel my storytelling ability getting stronger, even though the learning curve for writing this second draft has been far, far more sharp than I could have possibly imagined.
I continue to realize how oblivious I was to how hard it is — at least for me — to write a novel that is professional grade and will at least get me within shouting distance of getting a literary agent. Again, I could be in my mid-50s before I actually become a published author but at the point, at least, lulz, what the fuck else am I going to do with my life.
I am in a very curious situation in my life where I’m reminded every day that working on this novel is existential for a number of reasons. I come see my dad in the nursing home just about every day and I am reminded that just because you’re alive doesn’t mean you’re a functioning adult.
So, I struggle on. I still need to more and watch more TV and movies. I have a Netflix account, I might as well use it. I need to distract myself every once in a while to be able to come back to the novel with fresh eyes. I sometimes “run a little too hot” and, as such, am not as productive as might otherwise be.
It definitely seems as though Hollywood is about to enter an era of transition not seen since that from silent movies to talkies in the mid-20s. As we careen towards a Petite Singularity based on the Chatbot Revolution it definitely seems the conditions are there for Hollywood as we know it to cease to exist within a few years.
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts, “The Town” and the idea of that Hollywood tech could reach the point where there is no “uncanny valley” when it comes to resurrecting dead celebrities was broached. The person interviewed gave a very open ended, evasive answer, but the sentiment was clear — this revolution is well on its way.
As such, this raises a lot of very intriguing — and potentially alarming — consequences for not just Hollywood, but society as a whole. In fact, one could make the case that this revolution of Hollywood would be the point of the spear for an actual hard Singularity at some point in the near future.
What other indication that technology is officially going to fast for human culture to catch up than the idea that Hollywood will no longer really need humans at all. This could lead to the rather nightmarish scenario where entertainment is kind of forever fixed at some indeterminate “now” in which no new actors ever work their way through the ranks because every actor since the dawn of Hollywood can be conjured up at will.
Another, less depressing scenario is all of this leads to the theatre industry suddenly seeing a incredible resurgence. It could be that Broadway will be seen as the premiere “artisanal” creative outlet for actual human actors and instead of a starlet taking a bus to LA to start her career, she goes to Broadway. She builds enough buzz as a live actor that she catches the eye of those few Hollywood director still making movies the old fashion way.
The goal of her career would then be to make a big enough name for herself that she could get scanned for Hollywood and have her image plopped into all the movies being made with dead actors.
Anyway, the point is — the conditions are there, at least, for a huge disruption in showbiz in ways we can only begin to imagine.
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