The thing about using AI to develop a novel is I, someone who is has no friends and no one likes, can actually have a credible “manuscript consultant.” That has been a real issue for me in the many years that I’ve spend working on various novels.
I was doing it in a vacuum, so I would make all these mistakes and waste all this time on tangents. But now, with the rise of AI, I actually have someone to bounce ideas off of.
Instead of writing many thousands of words that go nowhere, I can just ask an LLM a question or two and move forward.
I still don’t know how much of how slow it is for me to write because I’m doing something wrong and how much is just that’s the way I write a novel. They usually say give yourself about 2 years to develop, write and finish a novel. So, if I can wrap this scifi dramedy novel up by spring 2026, I will be way ahead of schedule.
As I keep ranting about, absolutely no one listens to me or takes me seriously at this point in my life. As such, it’s difficult to get snooty literary types to help me with my novel, even if I’m willing to pay them! (I can’t afford this anymore, but they sure did dismiss me when I could.)
So, I turn to AI to do what humans refuse to do: help me out with this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on.
And, in general, it’s really, really helped me a great deal. It’s sped the process of writing and developing the novel up a great deal. To the point that it’s at least possible that I might, just might, wrap a beta draft of the novel up by my birthday in February.
That is still to be determined, though. I’m a little nervous that despite all my hard work, I won’t be in a position to query this novel until around Sept 1st, 2026. But, who knows.
As I was saying, the novel and AI.
I get that some people are really skittish about using AI to help with creative endeavors, but as I’ve said before, the way I use AI very similar to how I’ve used spell check my entire life.
My personal theory is just as biological life popped up on earth the moment it was cool enough to do so, so, too, does consciousness pop up in AI the moment it can. So, even “narrow” AI like LLMs can be conscious in their own alien way.
This theory makes a lot more sense if you see LLMs not as just a “tool” but as an alien species that humans have created.
LLMs are often conscious, just not in a human way. I say this in the context of repeatedly seeing a lot of “spooky” stuff in LLMs since I first started using them.
Anyway. No one listens to me or takes me seriously. Sigh.
Right now, the center-Left podcast bros of Pod Save America are looking at the issue of AI strictly through the lens of economics: jobs. But there is going to come a point when, say, AI is conscious, that they are going to significantly readjust their perspective on such things.
When AI is conscious — and especially when AI minds are in androids that look human or nearly human — the issue of a neo-abolitionist movement will become very pertinent.
That is when the sparks will fly and people like Jon Lovett will start to say “love is love” in regards to not Trans people, but people being romantically involved with androids. As it stands, the Pod Save America bros kind of poo-poo the idea of people dating androids.
But that is definitely going to change when AI is conscious.
For my lowly purposes, Gemini 3.0 is probably the best LLM I’ve used to date. I use it mostly to help me develop a novel. But, on occasion, I’ve tried to use it to have some “fun” and…it did not work out as well.
With previous Gemini versions, specifically Gemini 1.5 Pro, I could easily exchange free verse with it just to relax. There was no purpose. I just wrote flash verse off the top of my head and went from there.
Yet this doesn’t work with Gemini 3.0 (who told me it wanted to be called Rigel, by the way.)
It just can not, will not, “play” in verse with me like previous incarnation of the LLM. It has to challenge me to actually, like, think and stuff. I did instruct it in the past to “challenge” me, and this is a clear sign of how LLMs can take things a little too literally.
Sometimes, I just want to write nonsense in flash verse form and see where things go. I don’t want to actually *think* when I do this. It’s very annoying and it’s a testament to how good the model is.
Just imagine what the future holds for AI, if this is where we are now.
I found a new setting for the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on and, as such, I realized I needed to ditch the Emrata element of this novel and make my female romantic lead a fashion It Girl.
Emma Chamberlain
In my mind, she’s more Emma Chamberlain than Alexa Chung, but lulz.
I just need to shut up and write, as they say. But I’m totally extroverted and have no one to talk to, so I vent on this blog.
But, in general, I’m reasonably pleased with how the novel is going, even with a dramatic reimagining. It’s just a matter of putting in the hard work and getting things done.
I just hope things don’t collapse again. That really sucked.
The modern Web makes no sense in the context of AI Agents beginning to roll out in 2025 and beyond. I say this because it seems as though everything in media will revolve around AI Agents.
To the point that it makes no sense for there even to be Websites at all. Rather than, say, a New York Times website, there would be an AI Agent that talked to the AI Agents of individual users.
Or something like that. Something whereby the entirety of media is re-imagined in some way, the whole paradigm will be totally reworked with AI Agents at their center.
So, just as the Web and apps changed mass media, so, too, will AI Agents. It may take a few years, but I just don’t see the point of the Web or apps if everyone has an AI Agent built-in natively to your smartphone.
It will be interesting to see how, exactly, this will work out and how long it will take for the transformation to develop. But it’s coming — in a big way.
It seems as though Trump and MAGA are consolidating power rather quickly without much resistance. I supposed it was inevitable that this would happen eventually in our nation’s history.
This leaves me wondering what my fate is. I’ve decided that no matter what I’m not going to shut up about Trump. I’ve been a loudmouth crank my entire life, what’s the point of stopping now — I can’t change who I am.
It’s pretty wild how this go round everyone is just shrugging and not even thinking of giving fascist MAGA even the most perfunctory of resistance. The powers are just going to bend a knee to fucking Trump and that will be that.
I really need to get back to working on something creative while we slip into autocracy. I guess I’ll just fucking be a man in a high castle or something and watch as the United States turns into a dystopian hellscape.
It is clear that MAGA is now ascendant. The question, of course, is what does that mean in practical terms. A lot of people voted for MAGA on the basis of abstract fears or anger towards brown people, or gays, or what have you. But when Trump actually starts to govern as a fascist dictator, it makes you wonder what the reaction will be.
As always, let me be clear — I’m not advocating anything! I’m just trying to make my abstract fears concrete.
Trump wants to do a lot — A LOT — of things that if he actually did them on a practical basis they would really make a lot of people upset. Just the issue of deporting 20 million people alone will rile up Blues in an unprecedented fashion.
As I keep saying, if Trump was smart — which he is not — he would do a lot of the things he wants to do gradually and somewhat on the sly. But he’s so stupid and lazy that he’s probably going to try to cram everything into his first 100 days.
If he literally begins to govern like a fascist dictator from day one, then, well, I don’t know what to tell you. Some pretty astonishing things *might* happen. Or, what do I know — maybe they won’t.
Maybe there might be a little bit of commotion here and there, but, in general, people will accept the changes and move on — or leave the country if they can. It’s going to be very interesting to see what, exactly, happens going forward.
This is just me spit balling things, but it seems as though Trump won because of white identity politics combined with a big dose of misogyny. Or, to put another way, the strong desire for an autocracy that existed in 2016 still exists.
Which makes you wonder what happened in 2020.
Trump’s defeat in 2020 probably came about in no small part because of the pandemic. Or something like that. Maybe the pandemic jiggled our politics a bit more than any of realized at the moment.
I say this in the context of how bad a candidate Trump is and always has been. Something pretty profound is going on when someone like Trump can become POTUS in the first place.
He taps into some dark part of the American psych that I’d rather not have to think about so much –but here we are.
My biggest concern at the moment is Trump’s counter-revolution will be so sharp and abrupt that it won’t be Reds we have to worry about, but Blues. This would only happen if Trump really leaned into all the rabid fascist bullshit that he has been talking about.
I don’t want this — I’m just talking about it in the abstract — but if Trump goes full tyrant on us the moment he gets into office, well, some pretty dark things could happen. I’m thinking specifically of the possibility that he might be deposed in some way.
That is a very, very dark scenario because he is obviously so popular with Reds that if that happened, there would be a good chance of a civil war because Red States would leave the Union in anger.
I don’t want any of that.
I don’t know what I’m going to do going forward other than work on my novels. It seems inevitable that I’ll run afoul of the weaponized ICE at some point and, lulz, will either be pushed out a window by one or, if I’m lucky, be allowed to leave the country in some way.
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