In my mind, the heroine of the first novel in what is intended to be a six novel project looks like a model named Corrie Yee.
My heroine’s phenotype is identical to Corrie Lee.
My heroine is 32 as the six novel story opens. There are some differences between the two women, but Yee has the general look and vibe I’m focusing on in my mind as I write her.
I know damn well that there ever being any sort of Hollywood adaptation of this novel would be like winning the lottery. But it’s nice to dream, you know?
I’m old enough to remember how Madonna ran around quite naked in the late 1980s, early 1990s. It’s rather startling that someone like Dua Lipa — who clearly might be willing to nude for Playboy if it was still culturally relevant — is content with just the occasional spicy snap or faux nudity of a music video.
Its the rise of not just online porn but specifically OnlyFans that makes you realize what a brave new world we live in. Playboy is now a long-forgotten cultural backwater, a legacy brand. Meanwhile, mainstream culture in general has grown not only “woke” but rather chaste.
Of note — the moment MAGA Republicans have power again, they’re probably going to effectively ban online porn. It’s possible that soon enough that because of that specific act that Playboy may again have mass media appeal. I can’t predict the future, but such a thing is definitely one of those unexpected consequences of major policy changes.
I say all of this knowing how fucking dark the Playboy empire was in the shadows. But I do have an appreciation of the (romanticized) Playboy ethos. It would be so cool to bring back something like Playboy After Hours. That was the epitome of cool.
I’m taken aback by how much star power Miss Universe Sheynnis Palacios has. It is easy to imagine her becoming the next big Latina star in Hollywood. I think she can speak English well enough to improve it to the point that she could speak English for English audiences.
Sheynnis Palacios
Stranger things have happened.
From the many, many Tik-Tok videos I’ve seen of her, she’s got It. She sparkles and I think she would be a great Bond Girl at some point in the near future. There is a lot for Hollywood to work with, provided, of course, that she can act. I still find it amusing that for her beauty Emrata just can not act. She’s got everything Hollywood could ask for in a starlet, but the ability to fucking acct.
But Palacios is an unknown. She’s definitely got an organic personality that seems like it might be the basis of a Hollywood career. But, who knows. Who knows about anything?
I’m a bit worried. A year from now, the country COULD be tearing itself apart as we lurch towards either a MAGA-themed autocracy or something akin to a civil war. I live in a really deep-Red area of Virginia and one of the signs that Something Bad is about to happen is if I don’t feel safe anymore.
If I have to flee my bum fuck Egypt home for a Blue part of Virginia…oh boy. Things would be careening towards a dark place. But to even speculate on such things really is hysterical doom shit.
It could be that Thanksgiving 2024 will be just…Thanksgiving. Nothing will change and I will do it like I always do. But, I dunno, bruh. It definitely seems as though the moment Election Day 2024 arrives things will be…bumpy.
By Thanksgiving 2024, either incoming POTUS Tyrant Trump will have made it clear who he’s going to arrest…or Biden’s re-election will cause a Secession Crisis and we’ll all being worried about Texas leaving the Union before January. But I just don’t know. It could go either way. It really could.
It might be that nothing of note happens by Thanksgiving 2024. But if Trump gets re-elected we are in DEEP TROUBLE.
I measure the development of this novel not in words but in scenes, with each scene being about 1,000 words. So, I’m aghast that my first act has ballooned to 60 scenes. If you assume 60 + 50 (25 + 25) + ~30….oh boy. If I assume 60 scenes for the first act, then about 50 scenes for the second act and maybe 30 scenes for the third act…I got a problem on my hands.
“I can’t wait forever!” — President of Hollywood I have a real problem on my hand. That would be ~140,000 words. And, yet, maybe not. A lot will depend on how long each scene is and I wildly miscalculated that issue with the second draft. I came in at 80,000 words after allotting myself 100,000 words. The issue was that all many of third act scenes were really, really short.
There are three ways to solve this issue.
One is to just accept that I’m going to blow past the sweetspot of ~100,000 words and take comfort in the fact that The Girl On The Train is about 140,000 words. Another is to hope that I’ve totally misjudged things again and the story will somehow magically fit into the around 100,000 word range. And, last of all, is the most drastic — cut the thing into two.
I think my best bet at the moment is it just finish the novel then take an assessment. If I fall within around 140,000 words, then I think I’ll just fight for that vision and try to pick a novel of that length.
Or I might write another — maybe scifi — novel that DOES fit into the ~100,000 sweetspot and then once I sell that use the success of that novel to sell my first, longer novel.
The point is to 1) finish the novel 2) tell a good story.
I let a young woman read the first scene of the third draft of the novel and, much to my delight, she wanted to read the next scene. Given that women read a lot of novels, that is a very, very good sign. And she didn’t blanch at the sex worker angle of the story that has been added to the third draft.
JLo doing her thing in Hustlers. So. That made my day.
I continue to have some emotional turbulence in my personal life at the moment because of Thanksgiving, but I have managed to squeeze out some copy nonetheless. I’m still hoping to lock down the first three chapters by the end of the month.
I have to write faster.
But, as I keep saying — there are plenty of known unknowns. There are plenty — PLENTY — of things that could go wrong. I can think of at least two events that would cause my entire life to be thrown up in the air. I can’t think like that, though.
Just as I got finished writing a post about how I was paring back some of the more unique elements of my heroine’s appearance, I completely reversed myself. This happens all the time and it’s part of my creative process. I get really insecure about something, change my mind, then change it back when I grow more comfortable about whatever it was that was bothering me.
Anyway. For the time being, I know what my heroine looks like — Nicole Scherzinger in her early 30s. It’s not a perfect one to one, but, in general, that’s the general image I have in my mind as I write. And I’ve sprinkled in some magic fairy dust to make flesh out that general phenotype.
The reason why my heroine has a tattoo is specifically to tell the reader that a specific thing is REALLY important to her. Because it helps with plot and character, I’ve decided to put it back in, even though there was a moment there when I thought I should take it out.
Yes, President of Hollywood — time for me to put up or shut up. But I’m really pleased with my heroine. I think she’s really engaging and interesting and people will want to spend some time with her — at least long enough to finish the damn novel.
I have very, very low expectations for this novel — no matter how good it is — because, lulz, I’m a bonkers middle age CIS white male living in the middle of no where who has never gotten anything published before.
Maybe it won’t be this novel, but my NEXT novel that I get published. But finishing this novel and it not suck will be the greatest accomplishment of my life to date.
If nothing else, my heroine is very unique and interesting. She’s definitely her own thing. And yet, she’s obviously influence by a combination of Lisbeth Salander, Fleabag, Mare of Easttown and Jlo in Hustlers. You know, the good stuff.
Now to finish the novel and bring her into the hearts and minds of (millions?) of people.
Things are going really fast with this novel. But there’s one thing I find myself suddenly pondering in an unexpected way — what my heroine looks like. I had all this stuff about her thought out then something hit me. And that is the “hat on a hat” problem.
My heroine looks like a younger Nicole Scherzinger in my mind. I know how this happened — the moment I put her in a position where she might be seen stripping “to relax” everything else needed to be rethought. As such, I’m pretty sure I’m going to pare back some elements of her appearance. She is already going to be “the girl who strips” and it would be a little too much for her to have a SECOND weird thing about her in the guise of some sort of tattoo that would serve as a mental marker in people’s minds.
I don’t like the idea that reviewers would simply say I was turning Lisbeth Salander into a stripper. Ugh.
So, I think any tattoos that my heroine has will be far more discrete than I originally imagined.
But I will note that I have a tendency to say one thing then do another when it comes to this novel. And, yet, I am starting to understand a number of elements of this novel a lot better. I’ve really fleshed out a number of secondary characters that before were rather meh.
I’m leaning into the idea that, lulz, a lot can change about a person over the course of 25 years, so it’s ok if I introduce a character one way and then they endup totally different at the end of the six novel project.
Anyway, because of personal and emotional turmoil caused by Thanksgiving, I fear I won’t get nearly as much work done on this novel as I’d like. Ugh. It’s so frustrating that I have to pause the novel while I wait for a private storm to pass.
I’m feeling cute (and drunk). I might delete this with severe prejudice. But this is the latest first scene of the third draft of the novel. I would prefer if you read it and have some sort of opinion about it that you email me at migukin (at) gmail (dot) com.
Not sense the 1930s movie The Shape Of Things To Come has a movie so predicted the future. Every day, it seems as though “Her” is pretty much our future in, what, 18 months?
If that is the case, then, holy shit. The entire knowledge economy is about to be totally re-imagined. And that will happen in the context of the fucking Fourth Turning. Or, put another way, holy shit are we in for a bumpy road over the next 18 or more months.
We could see a total transformation of the technological and political landscape in a rather abrupt manner. Late 2024, early 2025 has at least the making of a “holy shit” moment in human history. By 2030, the entire geopolitical world could be re-formed into something new and exotic, especially if you think a few regional wars might go hot with a limited nuclear exchange.
But remember — the whole thing will be scary as shit while it’s happening. There will be no narrative or value to what happens. And, if things get as bad as I fear, there will be long stretches of time where communication itself is something of a luxury.
Anyway. We definitely seem to be rushing towards some sort of “Petite Singularity” in the very near future. Buckle up.
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