As expected, my mental log jam broke when it came to the “fun and games” portion of this novel. I’m not completely out of the woods yet, but I feel a lot better about cruising into the “bad guys closing in” part of the novel without too much of a delay.
Hopefully, I won’t croke like Stieg Larsson should I sell these novels.
And, much to my surprise, I fixed the problems I was facing by making the novel far more spicy than I originally expected it to be. I have figured out a way for something really interesting to happen to my heroine that is not only sexxy, but definitely progresses the plot.
It’s rather amusing that for someone as self-conscious about being a CIS white male writing about a woman’s life from a female point of view despite being a smelly boy…I keep wallowing in the very things that are most likely to the “woke cancel culture mob” angry that I’m writing it.
But I’m not writing a YA novel and modern mystery-thriller audiences expect a certain amount of spiciness in such novels. I’m going to try to be as methodical and conservative in my depiction of that spiciness, but now I’ve figured out a way to do it in the context of the overall plot I’ve come up with.
I’m slowly beginning to feel a lot more confident that I’m within shouting distance of writing a novel that at least, at a minimum, won’t embarrass me and I might even get published — hopefully before I get so old that my age is all anyone wants to talk about.
While from first hand experience, I can tell you that fascism is very, very popular in the United States, the question remains, why? Why are millions of American chomping at the bit to give away their democratic birthright?
A lot is going on at the same time. Too much to really get into in a blog post, but in general, there are a few things to focus on.
One is, I think we’re probably going through something akin to a “Soft Singularity.” Technology is changing society so fast, that we can’t keep up. We don’t really think about it being a Singularity because we aren’t, like, uploading our minds into a big database, but the issue of technology shifting society fast remains.
This Soft Singularity has caused the usual generational changes in expectations to happen far more abruptly than we’re used to. What is the “woke cancel culture mob” but really the difference between what Zoomers expect and what the Olds like me expect. Throw in the changing nature of gender roles, growing income inequality and how expensive a good education is these days and you have a lot of angry white Christian men who are ready to be Red Pilled.
And, I think if we were honest with ourselves –which, of course, Americans never are these days — I think we would understand that the vast majority of people who support fascism in America these days don’t even realize what they want. All they know is they are alarmed by the “woke cancel culture mob” and the only through watching Fox News and listening to Right wing podcasts can they get some understanding as to what to think about it all.
These very same people conflate the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob” with the hard power of the state where MAGA continues to grow in strength. And if we had a functioning democracy, then probably many, if not all, of the problems we have at the moment could probably be sorted out without a civil war, military junta or a MAGA-themed autocracy.
But we’re not even a democracy anymore, we’re an “anocracy.”
So, in short, we’re fucked. Fascism is acendant and sooner or later — probably in late 2024, early 2025, we’re going to have to figure out if we’re going to slide peacefully into a fascist MAGA-themed autocracy, or not. Are we going to lose our American democratic birthright, or are we going to have a National Divorce?
So, I’m deep within what is called the “fun and games” part of this novel and it’s a real struggle. It’s a struggle because, lulz, I have no idea what I’m doing. I need a few more scenes featuring investigation into the murder near the beginning of the novel and I’m really grasping at straws as to how to do that.
My inspiration.
I just don’t know.
I think this is going to be solved like it’s always solved — by me pausing for a day or two to distract myself. They say writers find inspiration via “BBB” — bed, bath and bus. And I’ve found this to be very accurate. I get some of my best ideas while I in the shower or driving around thinking about something else.
Fortunately, I have several different characters I can use to do this investigation, so it’s just an issue of figuring out who and what they’re going to investigate.
I keep moving scenes around at an alarming rate, but, thankfully, I’m also writing a lot of scenes, too, so it’s not like I’m actively avoiding writing or anything.
What I imagine the protagonist of this first book looks like as I write.
What I have been actively avoiding, to date, is reading. I hate that. I know I can make this novel so much better by really throwing myself into reading all these books I have in my small and growing library….but I don’t wanna.
I don’t wanna read. I just want to daydream, develop and write. It’s just really hard for me to consume media when I’m totally consumed by producing media. But at some point I’m going to get over myself and start reading. They say if you have time to write you have time to read.
So, I have to start reading.
I have to stop punting on the reading front. I know this first novel has a lot of potential and the only way I’m going to take it to the next level is to, a minimum, flesh out my characters by doing some much needed reading to give them some sort of world view that isn’t just an expression of a side of my own mind.
I want to make my heroine have a very specific ideology that isn’t just mine in drag and that’s going to take forcing myself to go outside my comfort zone and read up on some things I just don’t believe in so SHE will believe in them.
But, in general, things are going well. I only have, in real terms, a handful of scenes I have to figure out before I can get down to writing and hopefully finish the “fun and games” portion of the novel and get into the “bad guys close in” portion of the work.
I’m really fascinated by how you might bootstrap human civilization on a new planet if you forced us to collectively only use the technology we have today. So, in essence, what if a Galactic Empire or some sort of human-made AI told us that Earth was doomed and billions could be saved — but with a catch.
While a few billion humans could get zapped to a new habitable planet, once we got there, there would be limited help. Humans would have to unite and start from scratch.
I keep thinking about this scenario whenever I have a little extra mental energy to use — which is often — and at the moment, I’ve come up with something like this.
What you do is, say you had three habitable earth-like planets to play with. Given the US’ history of being a national of immigrants, you initially zap everyone to a planet that is “Planet America,” if you will. This causes inherent conflict — a lot of people on earth hate America and what it stands for — and, as such, gives you something to play with on a storytelling basis.
But, wait, there’s more. You just use the Planet America as your first planet. The other two planets would be planned to be Planet China and Planet India, given the populations of those two nations.
What’s compelling, of course, relative to, say a novel or a Hollywood movie, is that American audiences would really, REALLY get off on the idea of America being an entire planet. And, really, it would be really easy to turn a novel or movie on this subject into a metaphor about the “crisis at the border” that fucking fascist MAGA shitheads keep blathering on about.
Anyway. the crux of the matter is, it would be really, really hard to do this, even with a lot of people. The issue is — it would take at least a century to replicate the globalized world that we live in if you’re starting from scratch with only a minimum amount of help from the thing that got you to the planet in the first place.
It’s all very interesting and if I become a successful novelist, it might be something I turn my full attention to.
All things being equal, Charli D’Amelio should the a fixture of the Young Hollywood of the 2020s. That girl can dance! And she has star presence in spades.
But can she act, is the age old question.
Charli D’Amelio
I don’t know if she can or not, but she’s so young — only 18 — that I’m sure she can afford to take acting lessons, if nothing else. That’s the thing about Hollywood and starlets, you just never know.
You never know who is going to live up their obvious potential and who isn’t. It’s all very strange. I’m sure most of the reason why all these strange things happen in Hollywood is backstage drama and antics that we may never know about.
But Ms. D’Amelio definitely has stage presence. Her recent stint on Dancing With The Stars was a star making turn, at least in my opinion. Her performance on that show should at least get her foot in the door, should get her in the mind of casting directors for the next teen horror movie or romcom.
Maybe she and Pete Davidson will find themselves in a movie at some point. Who knows. I look forward to seeing what happens next with her.
I’m an Old, so it’s weirdly amusing that the Youngs have made the issue of “Nepo Babies” such a big deal. Is it really that big a deal that famous and powerful children often become famous and powerful, too? Well, have I got news for you, Youngs — this, just like sex, is not a new invention.
Family portrait.
There were Nepo Babies before the Romans walked the earth. The Nepo Baby I’ve noticed of late is Heidi Klum’s 18-year-old daughter Leni Pose. The two of them posed in a lingerie ad recently which, of course, was really a “coming out” of sorts for Ms. Pose — who is demonstrably a babe, if not as tall as her mom.
Though, of course, the whole exercise is a bit cringe if you ask me. But a mom’s gotta do what a mom’s gotta do. I suppose in Ms. Klum’s mind doing a lingerie ad photoshoot with her daughter is a way of passing the baton of the family business to the next generation.
I think the growing notoriety of Nepo Babies says more about the growing sense among younger people that the system is rigged against them, which, of course, it is.
But unless we have some sort of French-style revolution in the United States, I fear Nepo Babies are here to stay. It’s just human nature for Nepo Babies to exist, it’s just because of how fucked up America’s economic system is at the moment — combined with the vagaries of Tik=Tok — people are so aware of their presence these days.
The Traditionalists in my family are enraged about a whole host of issues that have been fed them by either Fox News or Right wing podcasts. As a someone who is by nature a center-Left person to varying degrees, I am alarmed at this development.
The situation is so dire, with my Traditionalist relatives assuming that all center-Left people are “groomers” and members of the “woke cancel culture mob” that wants to turn everyone gay that it’s beginning to sink in that maybe this marriage, this Union, can no longer be saved.
As such, I continue to have the idea of the practical nature of a National Divorce rolling around in my mind. It seems, on paper, at least, that if all the Reds in Blue States left for Red States and vis versa, that Blues would definitely be in a better position to thrive than Red States.
The key issue is, if all the highly educated, well trained Blues simply no longer live in Red States, those very Red States are going to have to figure out to pick up the slack. And there are plenty of very smart Reds who could be trained to help that very thing happen.
But. And this is a very big but — the whole reason why Reds hate Blues is they hate taxes that are…often used to train people. So, Reds would find themselves in a position where they could finally gut the tax system so only the Poors paid taxes….but they would also have to find some way for a massive re-training effort of all the good ol boys who are no longer driving trucks cross country, but are ready to “learn to code.” (I’m not picking on good ol boys, a lot of them really are very smart, but I use the term as a shorthand for your average Red State person, even though that may not be entirely fair.)
Add to this that the natural inclination of Red States with the power to do whatever they want on race relations is to go to extreme and you have a very unstable situation. Say what you will about corporate sensitivity training, it’s a lot better than having a race war in Deep South states.
Meanwhile, the case can be made that Blue States shorn from Red States would thrive. You would have California as your economic hub. And, the absence of all those center-Right truckers will eliminate the friction when it comes to Elon Musk flipping the switch on automation of the trucking industry. I’m not suggesting the a Blue Republic would be some sort of utopia, but I do believe it that once things were stabilized that it would thrive.
Of course the “once things stabilize” phrase is doing a lot of work.
It’s very possible that after their initial joy that Blue States are leaving the Union, Red States would freak the fuck out and start to bomb Blue States into submission, which would cause them, in turn, to return fire. Then you have the two sides bombing the most stable, most powerful, wealthiest democracy to ever exist….into the Stone Age.
Just figuring out what constitutes a Red or Blue State would likely be the source of severe political violence. Throw in WW3 happening at the same time because the United States is out of commission and…oh boy.
Anyway, hopefully we won’t have to worry about that. Hopefully, something other than civil war, autocracy or military junta will happen and all my hysterical predictions on the issues before us will be just that. But, who knows at this point?
The thing about JK Rowling’s extremist TERF views is on one hand you have to give her credit for being willing to suffer for her opinions on a controversial subject but on the other hand there is the issue of what she believes in the first place.
One thing that helps is I’m neither particularly invested in the trans rights issue nor am I a fan of Rowling. I honestly just don’t care one way or another one either issue. For me, the issue of Trans Rights, while admirable, is so controversial and gives fucking MAGA fascists something to bludgeon the center-Left with that it’s extremely problematic — so much so that I honestly can’t even come up with an opinion.
It’s because of trans rights — and especially the whole “protect trans children” issue that the Traditionalists in my family think that the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to “groom” children and turn everyone gay.
Now, obviously, there is a lot going on for them to think this way. From what I can tell, my Traditionalists relatives simply parrot a combination of Fox News and Right Wing podcast talking points. They don’t really care about how real these talking points are — they’re so enraged by how fast American culture is changing that they are willing to use hard power of a MAGA controlled government to crush the soft power of the “woke cancel culture mob.”
I continue to struggle with the implications of this. America has a fascism problem and I honestly don’t have any answer as to how to fix it. We definitely seem to be beyond the historical Even Horizon for Something Bad happening, really, really bad.
I say this because by ANY Republican who becomes POTUS is going to be an autocrat sooner or later. To be a Republican in good standing is to be someone itching to be an autocrat. Add to this the fact that Trump has shown no indication that he’s going to retire — in fact, he seems just about to start officially running at any moment — and it seems to me that Trump, unto himself, continues to be a potential reason why we have a civil war starting at some point between late 2024 – early 2025.
Anyway, back to the point of this post — Rowling does herself no favors by being such a rhetorical pugilist with the very people who would otherwise be her biggest fans. But what’s the point of having opinions — however unpopular — if you’re not willing to suffer for them?
The usual caveats apply. It’s not like she’s a Nazi. There are a lot of good people who essentially agree with her view. And that’s what makes the whole issue so difficult to untangle in the first place.
As I keep saying, the old adage about how someone goes bankrupt gradually then all at once can definitely apply to the prospect of the United States imploading into something akin to civil war between now and spring 2025. Now, there is so much I simply can’t game out.
I’m wrong all the time, so I suppose it’s at least possible that somehow, someway we’ll escape the existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta and drift through another presidential election cycle without addressing the serious structural problems within the American political system.
And, yet, I can’t help going to the grocery store and looking around and seeing all the different types of people walking around and imagining a time in the not-too-distant future when what you believe politically will become existential — over and above the other problems that will explode into the foreground like potential Qanon-inspired genocide and race wars.
I know that sounds hysterical, like I’m thinking up some sort of liberal-progressive version of The Turner Diaries, but I have a great unease about what’s going on to happen to the United States over the course of the next few years. There is every reason to believe that it’s possible that the otherwise wealthiest, most powerful democracy the world has ever seen could very well implode into civil war and general chaos.
And the very diversity that makes us so strong could be the thing that destroys us as Qanon flavored MAGA fascists attempt to found a white Christian ethno state in the rubble of the country I love. The cities might be emptied and there could be American Killing Fields. The political map of North America could be completely redrawn as Canada is consumed by the blackhole that the United States has turned into.
Again, I’m probably being hysterical. But the United States keeps lurching towards a darker and darker future. What that dark future ultimately is, remains to be seen.
So, tonight we learned that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was prepared to punch the fuck out of Donald Trump had he gone to Capitol Hill on January 6th. I don’t know about you, but just the idea of her doing that is quite cathartic.
Everyone needs to hear Nancy Pelosis response to hearing the news that hearing Trump might march to the Capitol on Janury 6th. pic.twitter.com/PhiM045IDp
Now, obviously, it’s better for all concerned that Speaker Pelosi didn’t get her chance to live up to that treat. And, in a way, had such an event happened and it be recorded — it would have been one of the darker, yet zany events in modern American history.
It would have been a real life parody of something you might seen in a zany Coen Brothers movie like Burn After Reading. But it definitely gives you some sense of how dire the Trump Era was and how much worse it will become whenever dingus Trump becomes president again.
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