I think 2026 is going to be the year of a flood of Hollywood projects about androids, probably specifically androids as I imagine them. This is both unsettling and exciting.
It’s exciting because…maybe I might have fire in a bottle with this novel and unsettling because, well, no one listens to me. I could have a really good premise to a novel and because no one takes me seriously, lulz, it’ll be a moot point.
But I still believe in this novel. I just have to do the hard work. I just have to throw myself into it and hope some sort of unexpected disaster doesn’t strike. My natural inclination is to tell everyone what’s going on — and I have contacted a few people about this — but I also realize that generally no one listens to me so until I can “produce paper” for people to read, it’s kind of a moot point.
Anyway. I really, really need to work hard on this novel. I really need to get it done by sometime in spring 2026.
It’s rare that one of my predictions comes true. Well, it seems as though the whole premise of my scifi dramedy has been proven to have some validity to it with the advent of the Neo Robot.
It makes me wonder if, maybe, I’m…ahead of the curve? I’m sure every screenwriter with any ambition is writing a spec script which touches on many of the same themes and ideas as the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on at the moment.
The more I learn about the Neo Robot, the more I don’t know if I should be ecstatic or unsettled. The premise of my novel takes the concept of the Neo Robot and runs with it, takes it to its logical conclusion.
So, it’s sort of like if your Neo Robot looked like, and functioned much like, Pris from Blade Runner. That’s not an exact 1-to-1, but it gives you some sense of what I’m working with.
I have to steel myself for the inevitable — just as I’m about to query this novel in, say, April 2026, a movie will come out that totally blows me out of the water. So, I think I am — for one brief, shining moment — kind of in the pole position as to my general premise.
The reason I decided on this specific novel idea was I looked at all the android movies being made and not one of them addressed the specific question I wanted answered. Now, obviously, i should be reading scifi novels since this is a novel, but, lulz, again, I generally don’t read a lot of novels and I’m too old to start to write screenplays.
So a novel it is.
If I was going to comp this novel to another novel in vibe, if nothing else, it would be Andy Weir’s stuff. That’s my dream, to write a novel that was so accessible that you could literally sit down and read in an afternoon.
Anyway. Now I definitely have a reason to write as fast as possible. If I could have some sort of first mover advantage with this novel, that would be pretty cool. BUT, and this is a huge fucking BUT, I’m old(er), I’m a loudmouth crank, I live in the middle of nowhere and even if I stick the landing it could take a year or more to successfully query this novel.
Ok, I have to admit that there is an element of sex work in this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. Figuring out exactly where to introduce it and put it has been the toughest structural part of working on this novel.
These days, I’m imagining my female romantic lead of this scifi dramedy looking like Rachel Sennott.
The key thing was that I initially introduced it too soon it — stripping — too soon and it kind of was a downer, specifically how I introduced it.
But gradually, with a lot of help from AI as my manuscript consultant, I finally figured out the best way to approach things. I’m punting the spicy stuff until the second half of the novel, specifically the “bad guys closing in” part of the novel — the second half of the second act.
I’ve pretty much nailed down the first half of the novel, but the second half continues to be very much in flux for various reasons.
Now, in the past when I had stripping as part of the plot of a novel — specifically the Stieg Larsson homage I worked on for years and years — I couldn’t even get an actual human literary consultant to look at it. The moment they realized what I was doing with the novel, they pretty much told me it was trash and why was I even doing it to begin with.
But this go round, I’m hoping that at least, should I figure out where to find the money, that I can get them to at least read the first few chapters. Maybe?
I have my doubts. Literary types just refuse to take me seriously because they think I’m a drunk kook. And I will admit that at times in the past I have resembled that remark. But I’ve sobered up a great deal. The kookiness, however, remains and I just can’t help who I am.
The premise of this novel is zooming towards becoming a reality at a far faster clip than I might have otherwise imagined. So much so, that I have to prepare myself for a movie of some sort to come out — probably just about when I’m about to query in spring 2026 — that steals a creative march on me.
I say this because the idea for this novel is now, officially, in the zeitgeist. It’s like I predicted the conditions that this novel is based on so well that reality literally is catching up.
A lot of screenwriters are going to think the same thing at the same time — probably starting right about now — and the race will be on to write the first scifi dramedy based on all these androids that are now being built and produced.
But despite the risks, I’ve vowed to myself to keep working on this novel until someone comes out with a novel or screenplay that is so close to what I’ve come up with that I absolutely can no longer, in good faith, continue to work on it.
Though I will admit, I definitely feel some heat to actually get this novel done sooner rather than later. I definitely think spring 2026 is the sweetspot for trying to get this novel queried.
I used to think my female romantic lead of this scifi dramedy novel I’m writing looked like bombshell Emrata. But the character, in my mind, is evolving. I think she now looks more like Rachel Sennott.
Not that it matters, of course. Lulz. I have to accept that, barring something amazing happening, this novel is pretty much just me mentally masturbating. But it is a lot of fun writing it.
If I were forced to think of an “elevator pitch” high concept for this novel, I would say, “Annie Hall meets Her meets Ex Machina with a dollop of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
That, at least, is the goal.
My writing, even augmented by AI, is only so good. So, lulz. I have to accept that I going to fall far short of my goals in some respects. And I know that I’m “comping” this novel to three movies. I just love movies and don’t really think in terms of novels when working on a novel.
And, to be honest, if i was 25 years younger, I probably would be in Hollywood, slaving away as a screenwriter. But, alas, that is not to be. I’m stuck where I am at the age I am.
Really, my only complaint at the moment about this novel is I keep letting myself drift towards my goal instead of hunkering down and actually working. I could probably wrap this draft up in a few weeks if I just did that.
But, as it stands, I keep drifting towards my goal and it seems like it will be probably spring 2026 before I get to the point where I ready to query. And even then, it could take months, if not years of querying before I get anywhere near to traditional publishing of this novel.
While I’m waiting, I’m going to work on a different novel, I suppose.
I’ve learned a lot about novel writing working on this scifi dramedy. And that has a lot to do with AI. I just can’t afford a personal editor or manuscript consultant, so I lean into the ability of AI to be those things for me. Claude LLM, in particular, is really, really good at being an editor.
Anyway, I think — think — I have the “fun and games” part of this novel figured out. The “bad guys closing in” part of the novel may be a lot more difficult to deal with for various reasons. But I have a pretty good sense of what I want to do with it.
And, I think, I may have the third act figured out as well.
I don’t know what to tell you, folks. Things are dark in the United States and getting darker. All Republicans do is cheat and eventually, at some point, they’re going to do something so bad that Blues finally get upset and the country collapses into revolution and or civil war.
I just don’t see Blues wanting a National Divorce, so that’s why I think something like this may happen: what starts off as a revolution on the bar of major Blue states is only half-successful and the country collapses into civil war. Both sides use WMD on each other and, lulz, we the most powerful nation in the world bombs itself into the stone age of its own volition.
I could see such a civil war lasting between five to 10 years. There will be a WW3 while we’re busy blowing ourselves up and once we come out the other side, if we’re lucky and Blues win, THEN maybe we’ll finally have some sort of global government, probably in the context of living in a post-Singularity world with ASIs running around.
But that’s the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is ultimately ASI has to step in and rule a semi-post nuclear hellscape and we only unite as a species in that context. And who knows, maybe Elon Musk programs the One-ASI-to-Unite-Us to be MAGA.
That’s a very real possibility, the way things are going.
I keep a very, very close eye on my Webstats and something strange happened recently — a person from LA looked at my “replicants” tag. Given the nature of the novel I’m working on, this is causing some creative existential angst.
Is someone going to steal a march on me? Is someone going to come up with a screenplay identical — or nearly identical — to the premise of my novel? I just have to, of course, write such fears off as a hazard of being a creative person.
And given how personal and unique my novel is, I hope — hope — that even if someone comes out with a screenplay SIMILAR to what I have with this novel, it won’t be so similar that I have to stop working on the novel.
If anything, if someone else came out with a *somewhat* similar concept, but my idea was still as personal and unique as it is now, it might be seen as a “13th Floor Vs. The Matrix” type situation.
The moral of the story — don’t overthink things. Shut up and write.
I once talked to a guy from UPS or FedEx and he talked about their drivers like they were robots. I keep thinking about that with the inevitable fusion of AI research with android development.
There is going to come a point when we stick LLMs (or whatever) into humanoid android bodies and they’re going to deliver packages to people’s door instead of human worker drones. The way it looks, this is going to happen a lot sooner than any of us might otherwise expect — like between 2030 and 2035.
And that’s just the beginning.
There are 3 million high paying transportation jobs connected to semis that could go poof! in the next 10 years as self-driving semis are rolled out safely. All of this makes me think about not just the economic consequences, but the political consequences.
Is it possible that AI and androids could totally shake up our existing Right – Left divide, just like the rise of Trump did? Is it possible that there will be a serious Neo-Luddite movement? Will there be demands for UBI and job carve outs whereby humans are the only ones who can do some jobs?
I just don’t know the answer to any of these questions, but I do know we’re going to need — or get — some answers sooner rather than later.
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