I have finally finished “a draft” of this scifi dramedy. Now, to go through and color correct it some by changing names and rewriting some scenes here and there. I’m going to try not to get bogged down with the re-writing…but that’s a real danger.
After I finish the color correction, that’s when I will give that draft to Beta Readers to read and give input.
I’ve noticed that there’s a real chance that this novel will it the vibe of the culture in just the right way and get at least a little bit of traction. Maybe. But I really, really need to manage my expectations.
If I don’t, my poor old heart will deflate in a major way. All I want at this point is to see what it’s like to query. That’s it. Just querying at all with a novel I believe in will be a big deal.
Oh boy, am I broke. Very, very poor. But I need a haircut. So, lulz, I’m set to get a pretty expensive haircut — all things considered. So, I can’t just spend all my money on energy drinks and other “beverages.”
Once I get this haircut, I’m going to buckle down and wrap up this third to last draft of the novel I’m working on. (This one, color correction one, then post-Beta Reader one.)
Anyway. I’m reasonably pleased with my life at the moment other than the severe lack of funds. I going to be very, very poor for the next fortnight or so. But, like I said, I hope to use that “extra time” to focus on finishing this draft of the novel I’m working on.
I hope to wrap this draft of the novel up by the end of the week. That’s the goal, at least. I really don’t want to rush through things like I have in the past. I really want to methodically go through and write scene after scene until the end of the novel as necessary.
This novel is shaping up to be pretty good, if a little spicy.
I have about two chapters left before I will wrap up this draft of the novel I’ve been working on for about two years now. I’m confident that it’s good enough — another one last pass for “color correction” to at least query without being laughed at.
I continue to have two lingering worries.
One worry is it’s too spicy. Given that GenZ is so prudish the idea of a man who subscribes to a stripper android so they can be together may be too much for them. Hell, it may be too much for a lot of people. And, yet, I continue to believe in this idea. I believe in it enough to at least test the waters of querying.
The other issue I have is it has taken me some time to figure out how to properly use AI in my workflow and I’m a little nervous that maybe a few instances of “AI slop” have slipped past me. So I’m really self-conscious and paranoid about that and in the “color correction” pass I’m going to rewrite scenes as necessary to get rid of it.
I still don’t know if it’s going to be this fall our this January when I query. I just don’t know yet. I think — maybe — it’s going to be January before I can query simply because it may be more a struggle than I’d like to find beta readers. Or, I could grow bold and say “who needs beta readers?” and just go without them so I can meet my September deadline.
Well, if nothing else, I suppose this novel might catch the eye of Sydney Sweeney if it actually gets published. There is a lot of spicy content in this novel, but I’d like to think that it’s done in such a matter-of-fact, droll fashion that it won’t turn off too many people.
I hope.
At the same time, there’s a chance that despite the spicy content, some starlet like Sydney Sweeney may be willing to be an android stripper in a Hollywood movie inspired by my novel.
But, I don’t know. It’s one of those things that could go either way. It could be that this novel is just too spicy to even past muster to get published since most literary agents — at least in my imagination — are liberal white women who might blanch at all the spicy content.
Or, at least, that a man is writing it.
That’s why I see this novel as a exploratory novel. I’m going to test the waters of how, exactly, I will go through the querying process. Then the NEXT novel, maybe, the one that has less obvious sex in it, might be the one I get published. But I’m kind of running out of time.
If I don’t hurry up and get something, anything done, I’m going to be in my 60s before I might be able to hold a novel in my hands that actually was found on bookshelves. And all of this is happening in the context of the fucking Singularity rushing towards us.
A part of me is growing really nervous about how spicy this novel I’m working on is. There will be some people who dismiss it out of hand once I describe the premise. In fact, it got a chuckle out of someone just a few days ago and that took me aback.
But it was a young woman, so maybe…that’s not as bad as you might think. And that chuckle only made me feel like hunkering down even more to finish this thing. I know there’s an audience for it, somewhere. I know it’s good enough to at least query.
It being sold is a different issue altogether.
Having said all that, here is what I have to do next:
Finish The Novel This goes without saying. I’m well into the third act of the novel now. I just need to get it over with. I need to focus and stop drifting towards my goal. I’m really growing nervous that some disaster will strike ASAP that will make it a lot more difficult to finish the novel sooner rather than later. So, I need hurry up!
“Color Correct” This is where I will just go through and change a few names and maybe rewrite a scene here and there just to make sure they either don’t seem like AI wrote them or they suck. I have done everything in my power to prevent this novel from seeming like “AI slop” but I’m paranoid I may have missed a stray paragraph or sentence here or there so part of color correction will be to re-write such things out of existence.
Beta Readers / Read Annie Bot This is going to be tough. No one likes me and I have no friends — other than the few stalkers who read this blog religiously, apparently (grin) — so, man, is it going to be tough to figure out how to get someone, anyone to spend the time necessary to finish an roughly 100,000 word novel. (I still don’t know how long this novel is, yet. That’s another thing I have to do. I’m guessing it’s between 80,000 and 100,000 words. But I’ll find out soon enough I guess.) I also need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. I just don’t wanna. I want to play and daydream, not read a novel that is apparently a feminist screed that comes to dramatically different conclusions about sexbots than I do. But, lulz, I gotta do it!
Query This is the big issue going forward. I have eyeballed September as when I want begin to querying process….but it’s possible that for no other reason than how difficult it is to find beta readers…I’m either going to have to forgo beta readers altogether (or at least in part) or I’m going to have to punt querying to January. I say this in the context of their apparently being two “seasons” for querying — fall and spring.
People can be so weird. Especially anonymous people online. But the idea that Olivia Rodrigo’s recent decision to wear a baby doll dress is anything more than just fashion or a homage to the Riot Grrls of the 90s feminist punk-grunge era is something that gives me pause for thought.
The Dress In Question
It gives me pause for thought for more than one reason. This is happening in the context of all the wild stuff happening on Euphoria on HBO. So, I’m trying to figure out what the “vibe” of the marketplace is as I wrap up my novel about a man who “subscribes” to a sexbot.
That people would get so upset about something as banal as a baby doll dress given that I remember Madonna’s “Erotica” book and general era…really leaves me scratching my head. And it makes me really nervous about how my novel that is “spicy” might hit the marketplace. What literary agents might think about it.
And, yet, as I keep telling myself, I can’t pin all my hopes on the idea that I can sell my novel and “make it big.” I’m not even sure I’m that good a novelist to begin with.
But I do believe in myself. I do believe that this specific novel I’m working on is at least good enough to not get me laughed at. I still struggle as to why people — especially young people — are so fucking prudish. What is going on with that?
And I understand why some people are so upset about the dress. There is a certain logic to it, I guess.
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’m using three different AIs for various elements of this scifi dramedy I’m working on. But the one that helps the most is Claude. I feed it a scene I’ve written and it gives me really good advice.
I’m really doing everything in my power to remove any “AI speak” from the novel. I want this novel to be as human-written as possible. I have to admit that as I go through this latest version of the novel I realize I got lazy last time and told AI to “gently” edit my copy, only to have it dramatically rewrite my vision of things.
But, this time, I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that if it’s on the page, a human — me — wrote it. I definitely get advice from AI, but the actual writing is done by me.
All of this really is slowing me down.
But there’s a chance that once I actually get into the third act things will speed up dramatically. Maybe? I don’t know yet. But I do hope that within one to two months I will start to assemble beta readers then a month or so after that, I will start to querying process.
It’s possible that I’m just too old and I’m wasting my time. It’s possible that, on the other hand, that it will be the NEXT novel that I work on that I will successfully query. This novel, my expectations are pretty low, given how “spicy” it is. I just want to see how far I can get through the querying process.
If I fail, then I dust myself off and try again with a new novel.
Oh boy. I’m making my way through the text of this scifi dramedy I’ve been working on for some time now and I find myself very moody, as usual, when it comes to the actual writing.
I’m in the twilight of this rather great situation I find myself in when it comes to writing a novel and here I am spending way too much time just daydreaming. I need to stop spinning my wheels and actually get some work done.
I say that in the context of knowing I’m going to wake up and everything will be changed. I won’t have near as much time to write and the whole context will be totally different to the point that everyhting will suck.
And all of this is happening in the context of me really, really needing to be careful with my expectations about what will happen once I start to query this novel. Successfully querying a novel — especially for someone like me — is literally like winning the fucking lottery.
So, I really need to go into the whole querying situation with my eyes open. I can’t have really high expectations like I have in the past with the first novel I actually finished. The key issue is this novel is really, really spicy and that could be a huge turn off to the typical liberal white woman who is, in my imagination, your average literary agent.
But the whole point is to just see how far in this process I can get before it’s clear that I need to start working intently on my other scifi novel I have rolling around in my mind. Only time will tell, as they say.
Things are going at a nice little clip with this scifi dramedy I’m writing. I’m hoping that I can write at least three scenes a day. If I did that, that would help a lot to ensure that I can wrap this novel up in time to query around Sept 1st.
I still have not done basic things like read books on querying or read Annie Bot, my novel’s comp novel. But, lulz.
One thing I’m a little nervous about is that despite my best efforts to edit out as much “AI speak” as possible, that somehow, if this novel was put into a AI detection software that it would say that I had used AI to actually write the novel.
While I admit that I’m an “AI First” novelist, I see my use of AI as more like modern, advanced spell checking than an excuse to not actually write the damn novel. I have done so much work!
But everything and everyone is horrible and I’m sure I’ll be fucked one way or another.
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