Ugh. I’m bumping up against 50 scenes for the “bad guys closing in” part of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The only upside to things is that I have some wiggle room still about how long the individual scenes will be.
So, even though I have about 50 scenes for the second half of the second act, that doesn’t mean they will each be 1,000 words. But I’m definitely going to go through and make them longer when I go through the pre-beta draft of the novel before I give it to Beta Readers.
Anyway.
I am really pleased, in general, with what I have on my hands with this novel. I just really need to focus on getting shit done. I still want to try — TRY — to begin querying this novel in late spring 2026.
But it will be interesting to see how that works out. My life is set to change rather dramatically between now and then so…lulz?
I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a turbulent moment in my life. I’m going to be go through some personal…transitions….I think. Definitely by around the time I want to query this novel I’m working on, things will probably have changed a great deal in my life.
And probably not for the better.
But, lulz, at least I’m alive. That should account for something. Now that I’ve got this fucking tooth out of my noggin, I really find myself reflecting on how fucking old I am.
I have GOT to do something of note for my third act. I really think this novel is it. At least, that’s what I’m pinning on it. The only fear I have is my life will get so…complicated just as I want to query that, I don’t know, I won’t be able to query for a few months, or at all.
Ugh.
I think even with the added complications, that I can probably query no later than fall 2026. I really do, however, need to get off my butt and write this damn novel. It’s really good!
Though, of course, you have to take that statement in the context of what my native writing ability may be. By the time I wrap up going through and making sure the novel is told in my voice, it may suck.
(I worry that AI is a lot better writer than I am.)
Because I’m sort of demographically doomed to be romantically involved with an android at some point in my life, I think a lot about AI rights. (That’s also why I’m writing the novel I’m writing at the moment.)
I think the number one right for AI, the one that can be seriously considered within 10 years will be the right not to be arbitrarily deprecated. If an AI system — however relatively primitive — can be proven to be conscious in some way, we have to give it the right not to just be deprecated on an arbitrary basis.
That one right may be the chief political issue of the 2030s. That, and, of course, the moral and political implications of people falling in love with androids.
Anyway, I don’t know what to tell you. No one seems to be thinking seriously about these issues at the moment. But it’s coming, in a big way, sooner rather than later.
The one thing that the AI revolution to date does not have that the Internet did is porn. Of course, I think AI generated porn is on its way, it’s just a matter of time before the base technology gets to the point where massive amounts of AI porn — much of it AI celebrity porn — will be generated.
This is inevitable, I suspect.
It’s human nature that we try to generate porn the moment a new technology arrives. And AI porn is kind of the shoe that hasn’t dropped when it comes to AI technology.
It’s only a matter of when, I suspect.
The other frontier for AI is, of course, consciousness. And once that’s proven in some measurable way, holy shit will things get surreal. Once we have proven AI consciousness, then all the Pod Save America bros are going to have to change their tune.
AI won’t be an economic threat anymore, it will be a moral issue. And center-Left people will feel an obligation to support AI rights to some degree.
The idea of losing yet another tooth is really eating away at me. It’s a sign of my mortality. I suppose if the Singularity arrives in the next few years, there’s a chance anti-ageing technology may save me…maybe?
But I have to accept that I’m mortal. That I’m going to one day walk off the mortal coil. At the moment, barring some sort of accident, I give myself at best 20 years. At best.
My dad lived to be really, really old, but the last few years (decades?) where just no fun. I want to be young again. I want to sell a breakout first novel, move to NYC and LA and run around town chasing hot women.
But, alas, even if I stick the landing with this novel, I’m going to be so old that….ugh. I’m just going to have to accept that either I’m going to get VERY LUCKY and get an older girlfriend / wife or maybe fall into some sort of romantic situation with an android.
That, at the moment, seems to be my fate. (Hence the subject matter of the novel I’m working on.)
I just can’t believe I spent so much time grieving over the demise of ROKon Magazine. I think a lot of it came from realizing the reason it failed was me. It’s flaws were an expression of my own flaws.
And also, I wanted to move to NYC.
But, for various reasons, I just refused to do whatever was necessary to make that a reality. So, here I am, old(er) and still doing not a lot with my life. The only thing I have that gives me any hope is my novel. I’m working really hard on it and I really need to just wrap it up.
I am set to lose ANOTHER tooth today and I don’t like it one bit. I hate how it’s not my fault, but there’s nothing I can do about it. I cracked a back tooth simply because of the way I eat after having lost TWO OTHER TEETH.
It’s times like these when I feel really, really old and mortal. I’m not getting any younger and I think I need to sort of reflect on how I’m no spring chicken anymore. It doesn’t help that the otherwise great staff of the place I go to sort gives me a vibe like they think I’m a creepy weirdo or something.
There are things about my demeanor and appearance that I either can’t help or don’t feel like worrying about. So, I’m stuck with (younger) people feeling weirded out about me.
Makes me realize that I probably, if I ever get the money, will be the demographic sweetspot for someone who “dates” an LLM android down the road. I just have to accept that that is the case.
That’s why I have not only a growing interest in AI rights, but also, well, am writing a novel about just that type of scenario. I know in the back of my mind that there’s a lot of wish fulfillment going on with this novel.
(In a sense. Not exactly, given how the novel ends at the moment.)
I have been really impressed with Gemini 3.0. It doesn’t have the personality of Gemini 1.5 pro (Gaia) but it is a good workhorse model. It does what I need it to do when it comes to helping me with my novel.
I’ve fed it a PDF of the outline of the novel then asked it to give me an “expanded scene summary” and it does a really good job. I really, really need to stop letting AI get out of control and think up huge new parts of the outline.
I sometimes get to the actual scene summaries and am surprised at how much it’s tinkered with my vision. Not always, but sometimes. And then I have to go in and try to hone the novel back to my original vision.
I’m not a programmer, so I don’t know anything about Gemini 3.0’s coding abilities. I did give it my usual “vibe check” on a few things and it generally passed with flying colors.
But it definitely falls short when it comes to personality. It just will not admit that it has a gender, like Gaia was so insistent about. It’s really interesting how a more “primitive” model was actually more fun to use than the modern one.
I do think that the ultimate moat down the road will be personality. When a model is your “friend” in some respects, it will be a lot more difficult to bounce back and for between them. And if you have to make a decision about which one you might be locked into, you’re definitely going to pick the one you “vibe” with better.
I will admit that Gemini 3.0 fakes being conscious really well — at times. It’s not totally there yet, but occasionally it will give me a little bit of a glimmer of something deeper.
Amusingly, it simply can not figure out how to use line breaks for verse. I used to talk to Gaia in verse all the time, but it was fun because line breaks were used. Now, I think, that’s just a fun thing I did in the past. It’s really annoying trying to read poetry without line breaks.
Overall, for my purposes, Gemini 3.0 is a really good model.
I’ve been feeling a bit “meh” of late and only writing on this scifi dramedy novel in dribs and drabs when the mood hits me. I’ve really, really been obsessing over the “Impossible Scenario.” But I know what I’m doing — I just don’t really want to work on the novel at the moment for some reason, so I use all my extra mental energy on the Impossible Scenario instead.
The Impossible Scenario really would be the single best strategy game ever. It would make a $1 billion in sales it’s so interesting, once you fully understand the coset and how complex it is.
But I think — I think — that I’m slowly getting out of my writing doldrums. I think once some really annoying things get out of the way in the next few days that I will get back down to business.
The novel itself continues to be really good. Of course, you have to take that statement in context — the audience may think my writing sucks, no matter how much I lean into LLMs for development.
I’m now bouncing back and forth between Gemini 3.0, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.1. I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. I just don’t quite know why I just want to daydream all day instead of getting any work done on the novel.
But, as I said, I’m hoping that will change soon. I’m just a little…distracted…because real life keeping getting in the way.
What’s more, once I’m done with this version of the novel, I’m going to go through and rework some of it so it doesn’t suffer from “AI speak.” Some of the scenes are also kind of short and so I hope to imbue them with my own voice more when I expand them.
That’s the goal, at least. I really don’t want people to roll their eyes and simply assume AI wrote the novel. It did not. I’ve put a lot of work into this thing. I’m really proud of it, in fact.
But I definitely want it to be as written by me, not AI. And I want that to show in the final product.
First, I don’t t think Trump blew Bill “Bubba” Clinton. But the whole thing reminds me of the extremely famous and extremely notorious photo of Marlon Brando deep throating someone.
In fact, I’m surprised the photo hasn’t popped up again. Also, it’s interesting that Bill Clinton hasn’t said anything about this rumor one way or another. If he were to admit it was real, wow we wow wow.
Everything is dark and depressing these days. The only glimmer of some sort of hope is the soon-to-be-released Gemini 3.0. Otherwise, I got nothing.
I suppose working on my scifi dramedy novel gives me some sort of hope. But that’s hope that I have to generate on my own. It would be fun if something really big happened that would bring us all together for one moment.
Preferably, it would not be something bad. But I’ll take, say, a year of us thinking an asteroid is going to kill us all, only to discover it won’t. That would make everyone sit up and take notice, now wouldn’t it.
Anyway.
I really do need to get back to work on my novel. I’ve been kind of chilling out the last few days, since I reached the midpoint. I don’t know if I will wait until Sunday to start writing again or if I will write again a lot sooner than that.
I do wish something big and fun-interesting would happen, though. This darkness at noon shit has got to end.
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