For a long time, I thought this novel was a murder mystery like Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. Because of this assumption, I spent months — years — spinning my wheels, struggling to figure out how to make the story work. It wasn’t until I realized that the first novel in this series is actually more foundational than that that things began to click.
My novel is about a part-time stripper who is obsessed with owning a community newspaper in rural Virginia.
This novel isn’t about a murder, it’s about one woman’s struggle to own a community newspaper. Throw in that the woman is a part-time stripper and a few people do die during the course of the story and you got yourself a pretty good shot at a novel that is interesting enough to actually get published the traditional way.
What’s more, this is meant to be part of a six or seven novel series that ends with a NEW series about a Lisbeth Salander-type woman. So, in a sense, my vision for these novels is you get to see how one Salander-type woman had such a fucked up youth that she would turn into someone you want to read a lot of books about.
Writing a novel as accessible and popular as Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is my dream.
That’s the thing about Salander, from my point of view, the reason she was the way she was is she had a really fucked up upbringing. Had she had the opportunity have a normal youth, she might not have gone bonkers the way she did.
So, now that I understand the nature of this first novel in the series, I find myself dwelling seriously about how successful I will be when it comes to querying this novel. At the moment, I honestly don’t know.
I’ve never queried a novel and it could be that despite all my hard work that over the years that, lulz, I’m still not good enough. But I know I’ve accomplished one thing — I’ve written a novel that at least won’t embarrass me.
Now, let me put the following in context — the Millennium novels not written by Stieg Larsson after his tragic death continue to be published and I can only assume are doing reasonably well. So any quibbles I have with them can easily be seen as just my usual crackpot delusional rantings.
My dream is to write a heroine as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.
But having said all that, I will give you my first impressions of the latest novel featuring Lisbeth Salander, “The Girl In The Eagle’s Talons.”
I’ve only just begun reading and I’m taken aback by how the novel doesn’t feel like a Stieg Larsson novel. The chapters are a lot shorter. The author doesn’t use surnames to refer to people. The novel just feels like it’s…there. It’s just like any other novel you might pick up, at least so far.
At the moment, I have potentially seven(!) novels that I want to write set in the same place populated by pretty much the same characters. I want my novel to feel like a Stieg Larsson novel the moment you pick it up. There are some obvious caveats.
I’m not nearly as good on the structural backend as Larsson was, for one thing. But I have studied one of his novels, The Girl Who Played With Fire, a lot and I believe I have a sense of how to make my first novel an old brown shoe to anyone who knows the original Millennium novels.
Nathalie Emmanuel pretty much looks literally like my heroine in this picture.So much so I’m worried someone is going to steal a march on me creatively!
When you pick up my novel, I want you to glance at the first page and “get” that this is meant to be an homage to the original Millennium novels, even if it’s totally and completely different outside of a few elements of style and some form follows function elements.
Anyway, I’m being very, very delusional. I’ve not even begun to query yet and it’s very possible because of the following issues that I will never succeed in becoming a published author:
My Crazy Drunk Behavior in Asia I was kind of a wild animal in South Korea back in the day. And it’s not like I’ve hidden how bonkers I was. It’s just not in my nature to do such a thing. So any liberal woman women literary agent worth her wine is going to smoke out how bonkers and crazy I was back in the day. And that, unto itself, may be enough to steer them clear of me, no matter how much I’ve changed since then.
My Not Doing Anything For About 20 years This is another tough issue for me to have to address during the querying process. I have not done _anything_ of note since late 2011. That’s….a long time. But, here I am, wanting to bootstrap myself out of this particular situation by writing a break out hit novel. Yet I suppose it’s possible that, by definition, could be the thing that prevents me from getting published. I could write the fucking Bible and because I’m a nobody, I just won’t be taken seriously as an aspiring novelist — and never will be.
My Being Bonkers I’m kind of a kook. And the more due diligence is done on me by the typically liberal white women who are literary agents the more they’re going to think, “Uh, no.” There remains a lot of a taboo about having mental health issues, despite what everyone wants you to think when you’re bonkers, so…I dunno. Though I SUPPOSE it’s possible that could be used in some sort of marketing campaign for the novel, “bonkers author makes good,” that sort of thing.
The Nature of The Novel Offending Liberal White Women I got nothing against liberal white women, it’s just I worry that the nature of my novel — that of a part-time sex worker who wants to own a community newspaper — may be a little too much for them to stomach in the context of being my literary agent. If I was a transgendered, undocumented woman, rather than a smelly CIS white male, it would be different, but I “don’t have a lot going for me demographically” as one woman recently mentioned when I wanted her to look at the first chapter of my novel.
As I lurch towards the querying process, which can be quite brutal from what I can tell, I have to let sink in the fact that I could very well, uh, fail. So, let’s go through the reasons why this might be.
My Crazy Drunk Behavior in Asia I was kind of a wild animal in South Korea back in the day. And it’s not like I’ve hidden how bonkers I was. It’s just not in my nature to do such a thing. So any liberal woman women literary agent worth her wine is going to smoke out how bonkers and crazy I was back in the day. And that, unto itself, may be enough to steer them clear of me, no matter how much I’ve changed since then.
My Not Doing Anything For About 20 years This is another tough issue for me to have to address during the querying process. I have not done _anything_ of note since late 2011. That’s….a long time. But, here I am, wanting to bootstrap myself out of this particular situation by writing a break out hit novel. Yet I suppose it’s possible that, by definition, could be the thing that prevents me from getting published. I could write the fucking Bible and because I’m a nobody, I just won’t be taken seriously as an aspiring novelist — and never will be.
My Being Bonkers I’m kind of a kook. And the more due diligence is done on me by the typically liberal white women who are literary agents the more they’re going to think, “Uh, no.” There remains a lot of a taboo about having mental health issues, despite what everyone wants you to think when you’re bonkers, so…I dunno. Though I SUPPOSE it’s possible that could be used in some sort of marketing campaign for the novel, “bonkers author makes good,” that sort of thing.
The Nature of The Novel Offending Liberal White Women I got nothing against liberal white women, it’s just I worry that the nature of my novel — that of a part-time sex worker who wants to own a community newspaper — may be a little too much for them to stomach in the context of being my literary agent. If I was a transgendered, undocumented woman, rather than a smelly CIS white male, it would be different, but I “don’t have a lot going for me demographically” as one woman recently mentioned when I wanted her to look at the first chapter of my novel.
ROKon Magazine started in late summer 2006 when I met the now-late Annie Shapiro. The whole saga / drama lasted until about 2008, if I recall correctly. If you want to read the whole messy booze-fueled drama from my POV, here it is:
The story is pretty damn interesting, if I do say so myself. But it was all a long, long time ago — nearly 20 years now, and there’s really no reason for anyone, even me, to be interested in it anymore.
I mean, I daydream about someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge wanting to write a screenplay based on the story, but, lulz, that’s just a daydream. And I do draw upon what happened back then a GREAT DEAL for the novel I’m writing. But I just find it very curious that anyone — ANYONE — would be interested in ROKon Magazine.
And now that I’m on the cusp of querying, I wonder if white liberal women literary agents doing due diligence on me are going to be really into all my bad behavior back then. All I can say is — I’m sorry. It was a long time ago and I’ve grown so much as person relative to what happened back then that it’s like I’ve had a brain transplant.
Otherwise, you’ll just have to accept me for who I am.
I’m on the cusp of gaming out the third draft of my first novel to just about the midpoint any day now. Then, the hard work will be to well, write. The way I develop and write my novels can be so ad hoc, fluid and haphazard that it slows me a down a lot.
The heroine of my novel looks like Morena Baccarin.
In fact, most of the work I’ve been doing since I started developing what is now potentially a seven-novel project — if I don’t croak before it is wrapped up — is just improving my storytelling ability. There is A LOT about nuts-and-blots of structuring a novel-length story with multiple POVs that I know absolutely nothing about.
And now I’m worried that somehow, someway, screenwriters from Hollywood are going to read this blog and cherrypick the best bits of the novel and I’ll wake up to news that a character fitting my heroine is going to be in a movie soon. And, yet, you know, I’m such an extrovert that it’s not like I would be able to be quiet about such things.
I am who I am.
The point is to finish the first novel in the project as quickly as possible. I’m just a broke-ass kook living in the middle of nowhere with a great idea for a novel that I’m willing to put the effort in to finish.
My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo much like the one Megan Fox now has, even though I thought of the idea first!
As of right now, I hope to finish the first novel of this series at some point between now at around July 22, 2024 — the 20th anniversary of my first trek to South Korea.
I also have two other novels that I’m trying to develop. One is the sequel to this first novel, while the other a pandemic themed scifi novel. It’s really, really good. I’ve been fucking around with AI to develop it and it’s made me an “10X” writer….ha!
Yes, I know, in the end, AI will make all writers moot.
It definitely seems as though Russia is primed and ready for another revolution. As I’ve written before, if I was going to take over Russia, I would wrap myself in the imagery of the Russian Empire. I would wait until their was some sort of popular revolt then I would strike — the populace is ready and waiting for something to rally around.
I propose that Russia be a constitutional monarchy with, who knows, maybe Prince Harry being the new Tsar. It seems clear to me that the Russian people need and want the sense of belonging that a new Tsardom would bring with it. Too bad that this is just not a viable proposal, even though on paper it would work.
With global climate change, Russia is going to find itself in a situation where it maybe the the future, even if it doesn’t really want to be. And, to me, making Russia liberal constitutional monarchy would be just the thing to allow Russia to rise to its potential.
It will definitely be interesting to see how things shake out.
I had a relative visit me this weekend and, wouldn’t you know, it definitely seems as though what he had on his mind may have influenced my Tik-Tok feed.
How do you explain that I would suddenly start to see all these videos about woodworking and cutting down trees when that is totally not related to anything I might otherwise be interested in?
But whenever I bring up this as real technology that may be floating around, people think I’m nuts. So the thing I want to do — which is to ask my relative if they’ve been doing any shit with wood of late….would be meaningless. It’s not like they would believe my theory that Tik-Tok (and other Big Tech companies) have developed some sort of practical use for Digital Telepathy.
I joking — not joking — still think that it’s at least POSSIBLE that some sort of digital teleplay technology is floating out there in the depths of Big Tech. Which, of course, opens up the possibility of some sort of technology that would do the same shit that Elon Musk wants his NeuralLink to do without drilling into anyone’s brain.
In Arthur C. Clarke’s novel “3001” everyone wears a mindreading device called a Mindcap. I would much, much rather wear a Mindcap than drill a hole in my head for something like a NeuralLink.
And, yet, it seems as though if any form of digital telepathy actually exists, it’s super top secret and never something that would be commercialized for the average person.
Now, let me be clear — I’m notorious for taking a little bit of information and running with it. But there is, at least, a scenario whereby Saturday Night Live uses the “hook” of how fucking cold it was in Iowa for the caucuses to have a sketch with Unfrozen Caveman Governor Ron DeSantis.
Makes sense to me, at least. I don’t quite know what I would do if something I predicted actually happened for once. I might faint from excitement and joy.
But I’m really, really grasping at straws on this one. I’m know to make shit up. I suppose only time will tell, huh.
I would get a woman cast member to play “Tiny-D” in caveman make up, given how short he is, relative to how tall he should be to run for POTUS.
The potency of The New York Times comes from how many people believe in it. And, in its own way, that’s what made Gawker Media so potent at one point — it was easy to believe in it. Until it wasn’t because it was icky.
I have a tendency to draw attention to myself.
But I do believe that there is a market — and audience — for a media outlet that leans into the spirit of the old Gawker’s early days when it was a fun, snarky blog that rallied the troops every day with its call for droll common sense.
Of course, the obvious venue for this would be a podcasting network of some sort. And, yet, I think even podcasting is so mature these days that, lulz, why are we even talking about this.
This all makes me think about how if I somehow magically lived in New York City that I would start an old fashion zine that covered whatever borough I lived in. I really enjoy zines — obviously — and if I did a good enough job with the zine, I think people of note would take interest in it.
Put me in, coach.
Of course I would hand the thing out in person in front of offices of The New York Times in an effort to catch media attention for it. Even though I’m old as hell, if I was living in either NYC or LA for any duration of time, I could still draw a lot of attention to myself just by…being myself.
And, yet, lulz.
Anyway, there definitely seems to be something of a vacuum in modern media at the moment. Or maybe everything is so scattered and defuse at this point that since there’s no “center” anymore that it’s just not possible for there to be an alternative to it.
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