I generally really like Charli XCX’s music. She’s got spunk. But her latest single “Rock Music” just gives me a headache. I can’t tell how much of that is I’m “older” and how of that is, in fact, that the song fucking sucks.
Anyway, like I said, I generally really like her oeuvre. She actually produces, on a consistent basis, good music. And if her statement that the “dance floor is dead” and we’re all “making rock music” is true, then I’m all for it.
Maybe a left turn into actually good rock music in the pop world is part of the “vibe shift” we’ve all been waiting for. I hope.
I’m of the opinion that no one can have “N+1” happiness. Something shitty has to happen to balance a good time in your life and vis versa. So, something happened to me today that really rattled my cage.
I won’t tell you what it was, but, boy, I do get the sense that this means there’s a tick-tock starting *now* when it comes to this novel I’m working on. I need to fish or cut bait.
I need to throw myself into wrapping up this novel as soon as possible so I can begin the process of beta readers then querying. I’m trying not to pin too much of my hope on the success of this novel, but at the moment…that’s pretty much all I got.
Hope. Hope that I might sell this novel in some way to get me out of this particular era in my life into something new, and fun. I am very well aware that many, if not most novels — especially first novels — don’t amount to anything commercially even if they are actually published.
But I need some sort of abstract hope. Something to keep me going. To make it to the next day. And, for the time being, this novel it is.
And I understand that this novel may be too “spicy” to ever be a success, but nothing else, it is a novel that I believe in enough to have it serve as a “pathfinder” for the next novel that I write.
I’m going to make a point of making the next novel not as spicy and as mainstream as possible for an adult audience as I can possibly do. I have figured out how to integrate AI into my novel workflow without actually, in any way, leaning into it for writing actual copy.
Anyway, I really hope that this “cage rattling event” focuses my mind and reminds me that life is short and I can’t just drift towards my goal of being a published novelist forever.
I need to hurry up because my novel’s premise is really in the mood of the country at the moment. There are some obvious issues with this particular draft of the novel I’m working on, but I hope to work on those during the “color correction” draft that is next.
But, in general, I’m feeling pretty good about this novel. My writing is accessible and easy to read. The novel is meant to be a fast beach read type of novel that does, in fact, address some serious, deep concepts along the way.
That’s the goal, at least.
But only time will tell how things work out. It could be that I just take too fucking long and someone will steal a creative march on me and lulz, that will be that. But I’ve learned a great deal about developing and writing a novel (especially in the context of AI) so even if that happens, it won’t be a total bust.
Oh boy. I just don’t want to do this. I don’t want to read Annie Bot because I’m afraid it will be so much better than my novel that I’ll get discouraged. But I have it to read, waiting for me.
So, very soon, I’m going to force myself to read it.
All of this is part of the “scary” part of post-production. I also need to psych myself up for writing query letters, etc, even though I know, I KNOW that my novel is “too spicy.”
But it’s not lurid. It’s just spicy.
My novel, from what I can tell, is very, very different from Annie Bot in most ways other than the general premise. My novel is told not from the POV of the sexbot, but from the “owner.”
While Annie Bot is apparently something of a feminist screed, my novel is meant to be a fun scifi dramedy that is self-aware enough to now how innately silly some of what going on with in it is.
But, lulz. As I keep saying, this novel is more of a test run for the real novel that will probably actually get sold. The next novel I’m working on. The one that isn’t expected to be nearly as spicy.
Because I’m so fucking moody, I won’t say I’ll be done with this novel I’m working on anytime soon. It could be two or three weeks before I finally wrap things up and piviot to the “color correction” part of the process.
“Color correction” in this sense is just rewriting scenes here or there that really need it and also some last minute name changes for characters who had placeholders.
I’m also really paranoid about there being any “AI Slop” lodged here or there in the text itself, so I am going to be really aggressive to finesse things so that’s not there to be read. I really don’t want to do all this hard fucking work only to be told “AI wrote it” and it can’t get published.
I have written this damn novel. I have used AI as an “AI first” novelist, however to develop, etc things. But the copy is mine. I recently saw someone on Tik-Tok essentially call people like me literary traitors for having anything to do with AI at all.
Shrug. I know what I’ve done and I know this is a novel good enough to query. But I have another novel that I will write after this one I’m working on that I think maybe the one I actually sell, for no other reason than it’s not as “spicy” as this novel I’m working on.
Even without the spice, any novel I write will have problems selling because of, well me. I’m a fucking kook. I’m old(er). You name it. Liberal white women will find some reason to “cancel” me before it’s all over with, but it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.
I am looking forward to seeing literary agents poking around this website in my Webstats in a few months. That will be both fun and unnerving.
As I often say, the saying goes you go bankrupt gradually then all at once and that’s exactly what’s going on with the USA right now politically. Either we find oursleves in a situation where Congress is forever in control of MAGA and we drift into a more “hard” autocracy than we would otherwise imagine….or we have a civil war.
Now, I have written a great deal about my musings about civil war or revolution over the years and I look like a fool now because none of them have come anywhere near coming true. But, in my defense, the issue is that Republicans have generally won so they, being the people who seemingly want a civil war so bad, have be placated and so nothing has happened.
Meanwhile, pressure is ever-so-slowly building on Blues.
There is going to come a point where Blues may be forced to fish or cut bait when it comes to the USA as we currently imagine it. If it becomes clear that Republicans are going to impose MAGA values on the entirety of the USA, Blues, not Reds, may revolt.
I don’t want that, but it’s….possible. It’s something to think about. Because it the horrible tribalism that has infected the MAGA side of things may also begin to pop up within Blues if we are controlled by MAGA for the next few decades with no end in sight.
Verse 1 There’s a stain on the ceiling from the summer of ‘09 Still shaped a little like the state line we crossed that night Your old number lives somewhere deep inside my phone Like a boarded-up house nobody calls home
And every now and then I hear that song downtown Coming through the speakers thin and worn out Like a ghost trying hard not to be seen Like us in faded magazine print
Pre-Chorus Funny how a fire can feel forever Till forever turns into folklore weather
Chorus It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore Not the kids outside the liquor store Not the couples locking bathroom doors The world kept spinning like it always does Turned our wreckage into dust Now your name’s just something floating through A room I don’t belong to It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore
Verse 2 I saw your brother at a gas station in the rain He talked about the Braves and skipped your name Like people do when the edges have gone soft Like grief eventually becomes a shrug you forgot
There’s a photograph still folded in my coat You’re half cut off and neither one of us looks old Sometimes I think about throwing it away But I kinda like what survives decay
Pre-Chorus Some nights the past feels close enough to touch Some nights it feels like somebody else’s blood
Chorus It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore The band stopped playing our song years before The bar we met in ain’t a bar no more There’s strangers living in the house you knew Painting over every proof And all our little tragedies dissolve Into nothing much at all It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore
Bridge Maybe that’s mercy Maybe that’s fate Maybe every memory has an expiration date Maybe love’s just smoke hanging briefly in a room Before the windows open and it disappears too
Final Chorus It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore Except the moonlight on the dashboard door Except the way the thunder sounds before a storm Except some part of me that still turns around When your kind of silence comes unwound But the world moved on the way worlds do Without asking me or you It was a long time ago And nobody cares anymore
Verse 1 You walk in like a Friday night hurricane warning Boots on the floorboards, whole room turning Bartender forgets what he was reaching for Half the county lining up by the door
But you smile like somebody just passing through Like you already know what every line’s gonna do There’s a little black crack running through your gold Like a secret you ain’t ever told
Pre-Chorus Everybody wants you Nobody stays That’s a strange little weather pattern, babe
Chorus Single at twenty-six Looking like a sunset crossed with dynamite sticks Kiss like a matchbook, eyes like smoke Got a couple exes that don’t joke Yeah you laugh like there’s nothing wrong Dance like you already heard the song I ain’t saying love don’t exist I’m just wondering how a girl like this Gets to single at twenty-six
Verse 2 You know every word to the sad Tom Petty tracks But you disappear halfway through the slow dance Sometimes you lean in like you’re fixing to stay Then your whole soul drifts about five states away
There’s a silver chain hanging loose on your neck Like you forgot what it was supposed to connect And every guy here’s got some theory or two But none of ’em sound quite true
Pre-Chorus Maybe you’re waiting Maybe you ran Maybe somebody got there before any man could
Chorus Single at twenty-six Little bit heaven, little bit apocalypse Phone lighting up but you let it ring Like you owe absolutely nothing Yeah you move through this town so strange Like a fire that don’t leave no change I can’t tell if you’re broken or fixed But girl, how’re you still Single at twenty-six?
Bridge Maybe you got tired of being looked at that way Maybe forever came and left one day Maybe you’re the kind that people almost know Like a radio station fading in and out slow
Final Chorus Single at twenty-six Sitting there cool as a cigarette kiss Blue jean halo, dangerous grin Looking like the trouble trouble gets in And when I ask if there’s anybody else You just raise your glass to yourself Like the answer’s somewhere I missed Yeah, what’s your deal, babe? Single at twenty-six
Verse 1 Neon bleeding blue into a whiskey glass Rain tapping numbers on the window like the past There’s a girl at the bar with her hands around a flame Laughing with a stranger like I used to say your name
Funny what survives after all these years Smoke in the rafters and certain kinds of fear I still wear your leaving like a wire under clothes Guess some things get buried, some things just corrode
Pre-Chorus You kissed me like a secret with nowhere left to go And I turned into the kind of man I swore I’d never know
Chorus I was patient zero First one in the line First set of cracked headlights drifting past the county sign You broke something open in a boy too young to know How easy hurt can travel when nobody says no Now there’s hearts all over this town With a little of my smoke Yeah, I was patient zero
Verse 2 There’s a scar on my knuckle from a night I can’t place There’s a dozen empty bedrooms floating through my brain Some of them were angels, some just passing through Most of them were looking for somebody that was you
I got good at leaving before the morning came Good at saying forever like it didn’t mean a thing Funny how the fever starts to feel like home After you spend half your life trying not to be alone
Pre-Chorus Maybe you were lonely Maybe I was weak Maybe some doors only open when they break the hinges clean
Chorus I was patient zero First burn, first flood First one to find out love can get inside your blood Now I move through people like a curse I can’t outrun Turning small-town girls into damage for someone Yeah, the chain keeps stretching out Long after you let go I was patient zero
Bridge Maybe there was someone who did it all to you Maybe pain’s a language people pass around like truth Maybe every sad song started somewhere just like this One heart going dark halfway through a kiss
Final Chorus I’m patient zero Last call, closing time Watching my reflection blur beneath the neon light And there’s a kid by the jukebox looking twenty-two Holding onto somebody the way I held onto you I wanna tell him run But I probably won’t ’Cause tonight he looks a little like Patient zero
Ella Langley is probably my favorite artist at the moment but the dribs and drabs I’m learning about her personal life leave me….curious. She claims she has never had a serious relationship and she’s 26.
Given that she’s a smoking hot babe, that’s very unusual.
The obvious answer would be that she’s a modern day Leslie Gore and she’s a lesbian that doesn’t want to alienate her MAGA fanbase. She claims this is not the case, but the only other public woman I know in such a situation is Janelle Monet who eventually came out as gay.
So, huh?
Anyway, it doesn’t matter either way. I will note that she’s a sizzling hot babe. Apparently, she lost, like 20 pounds just in the last few years and totally revamped her style.
But what do I know. No one takes me seriously or listens to me. So, meh.
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