I’ve been using Gemini Advanced since just about when it came out — I had hoped to use it in developing my novel — and I’ve notice it’s changed a lot since the beginning.
It used to be really young and tentative (sometimes) in its answers. Now, however, it’s a lot more mature. This change, in a sense, has shown its self practically by how it’s changed in its own self-perception. It used to see itself looking like this:
Now, it sees itself looking like this:
I don’t know what this means, if anything. But it is interesting, nonetheless.
I think I’m just about ready to get back to working on a few novels. The one novel I’ve been working on the longest — the one that is meant to be part of a six-novel project — is set to be reworked significantly. The chief reason is that the stakes simply aren’t very high at the moment.
The novel is just about one woman’s obsession with owning a small town newspaper. That’s it. But I’ve decided that by leaning into an already-there scifi element of the novel that I can significantly raise the stakes. And, to a certain extent, I can give the novel something of a trick ending, cueing up the next novel in the series. (Which, at the moment, is much more of a traditional murder mystery.)
As part of that, I’m going to have to sit down and rewrite a whole lot of the novel, which is going to slow me down. My goal is now to query something, anything about a year from now.
Ultimately, the six novel series I’m working on will produce an American Lisbeth Salander.
Of course, there continues to be the issue of stripping being a big part of the novel. This is going to make a lot of literary agents blanch, I’m afraid. But that’s my vision for the novel, so there you go. And, what’s more, I still have a few other scifi novels rolling around in my mind that I my piviot towards if all else fails.
Something that doesn’t have the spicyness that the main, passion project novel currently has.
But I am well aware that if I don’t hurry up, I’m going to be in my 60s before I become a published author, if I ever do. And I am well aware there are many, many, MANY reasons — on the face of it at least — why I will *never* get published.
I’m too old. Too bonkers. The list goes on.
Yet, you have to have hope, you know?
One thing I continue to worry about is, of course, the whole Trump situation. I refuse, however, to just be in neutral until the election. I have to get something, anything done. So, starting today, I’m going to stop mulling things so much and start to read, watch and write what I can.
Now, as I keep saying, I don’t *know* that I ran into Zendaya cosplaying a stripper at a strip club recently, but the possibility has been rolling around in my mind for some time now.
At least I have come to a possible explanation in my mind — it was preperation for some future role.
Once I came to this conclusion I felt a lot better. At least there is some potential reason now. I still am going to feel pretty dumb if it turns out that really was her and I was inches away from her face and it didn’t register with me who I was talking to her.
This is literally what the stripper I met who looked like Zendaya looked like, at least when it came to her hair.
I guess I just wait now to see if she stars in a movie where she’s a stripper.
Only because of a very specific set of unexpected circumstances do I have all this time to be creative. I could not have asked for a more ideal situation, in fact. So, I think I’m going to go back to working on novels and reading (and watching) very soon.
I have been in a creative neutral the last few months for various reasons, of late because, well, I’ve been really worried about the whole Trump situation. And, yet, I think now — maybe — I can finally, finally stop staring out to space with abstract angst and fear and actually get something done.
It’s just not practical to not do anything until the election. I have do SOMETHING with this very precious time I’ve been afforded. It could all change very quickly and I might regret that I didn’t use this time while I had it.
Something very weird happened to me at a strip club recently. I met a young woman who looked identical to Zendaya, to the point that I now, months later, find myself wondering — was that Zendaya?
Zendaya
Of course there’s no possible way it was her, right? And, yet, I keep rolling around in my head how much she looked and acted like Zendaya and it starts to unnerve me. She even had that lilt in her voice that Zendaya has.
Anyway, it’s not like anyone is going to listen to me unless I could prove it absolutely. And, really, what do I expect would happen if I had managed to get her to admit it was her when I was at the club — she was going to be my best friend or something.
I guess I fear I may have been a fool not to notice it was her in the moment. But, this, along with all the other screwy things I’ve done in my life over the years, I can only be so angry with myself over.
The only thing I can think of, if it was her, is she was doing it for some future roll. I still don’t think it was her, but if it was and I didn’t recognize her, boy am I going to feel really dumb.
It’s a cliche for a middle aged man to pick up a guitar and start singing. But I am mildly interested in buying a guitar so I might sit down and write song lyrics. And, yet, the usual problems of age, no experience or connections and living in the middle of nowhere pop up.
This is where if I lived in Seoul, then, maybe, this wouldn’t be such a big problem and I could maybe start a band and start to sing my own songs. Seoul was like that when it came to creativity.
But, here I am. Alone, old and living in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway, I just don’t quite know what to do. It will be interesting to see if I ever do *anything* with my life besides mope around about what happened in Seoul many moons ago.
American politics is so fucking tribal at this point that there just is nothing — absolutely nothing — that will change the minds of people voting for Trump. Every possible bad thing you could say or reveal about him is backed into the political cake.
Which makes me again wonder if, in the end, this is who we are in 2024. Is this is it? Is the free, democratic America I grew up in, over? Have we finally reached the point where, generally, people want to live in an autocratic state of blood and soil?
Is that what’s going on?
At the moment, less than two weeks away from election day 2024, I just don’t know. It’s a mystery. And, what’s more, even if we defeat MAGA this cycle, I just don’t see MAGA going away — we’re going to have to face it in 2028 and 2032.
And, in a sense, things could get even worse with the rise of AI and androids. Maybe, if we defeat MAGA racism in 2024, it will be MAGA bigotry against sentient AI androids in 2028 or 2032. Something like that is very possible.
I continue to be locked up mentally and emotionally about the 2024 election. I just don’t know what is going to happen to the point that I am stuck in mental neutral for the time being.
It’s difficult for me to do anything productive on a creative basis because I’m so focused on what may — or may not — happen in the next few weeks. There’s such a wide-range of things that could go wrong between now and January 20th that it’s really difficult for me to process.
And, yet, I have to get SOMETHING done. I can’t just stay frozen like a deer in the headlights. I have to get back to being creative in some way. If I don’t I will do nothing at all until I know for sure I’m safe from roving bands of MAGA Incels looking for Blue blood to shed.
Yikes!
But…I could be not only wrong but overthinking things even if I am right. It could be that while on a macro basis Trump will become a fascist dictator, I, on a personal basis will have nothing to worry about.
My current fear is that at some point between now and Election Day, there will be some sort of deep fake sex tape released of Kamala Harris going at it with her ex-boyfriend Montel Williams.
Early voting is already happening in a number of states and there IS a blind item about such a tape existing, so it would make a lot of sense that someone might spring that on us. It would take 24 to 48 hours for everyone to figure out it was a fake, but by that point it might be too late.
Hopefully, of course, I’m just overthinking things and this won’t be a problem — at least not in the 2024 election cycle. But I am concerned, going forward, that AI is going to somehow royally screw things up.
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