I have an event on April 19th that I would like to have a version of the manuscript of the novel good enough to hand to people in person. As such, that’s my new hard deadline — April 19th.
I hope to write a heroine as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.
Now, the version that I want to hand to people is still going to be pretty rough relative to, say, a literary agent, but it’s going to be good enough, coherent enough, that I won’t embarrass myself by physically handing a copy of the novel to people.
As such, I have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. Things are kind of falling apart in the second half of this novel at the moment because I’m reusing a lot of copy from previous versions that don’t quite make any sense unless you’re, well, me.
My heroine has a sleeve tattoo same same, but different to the one that Megan Fox now sports — even though I thought of the idea first!
So the first step is for me to finish SOMETHING. That is going to require me to sprint in the next few days. Once I finish A Draft, I can use what time I have left to go through and rewrite scenes to give the story some consistency. Having such a tight deadline forces me to not only focus but to make some decisions that maybe I wouldn’t have made otherwise.
After the April 19th draft is handed out, I can go back to work improving the novel with a lot more time to sort out nit-picky shit that I might have ignored simply to get something into people’s hands.
For a long time, I thought this novel was a murder mystery like Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. Because of this assumption, I spent months — years — spinning my wheels, struggling to figure out how to make the story work. It wasn’t until I realized that the first novel in this series is actually more foundational than that that things began to click.
My novel is about a part-time stripper who is obsessed with owning a community newspaper in rural Virginia.
This novel isn’t about a murder, it’s about one woman’s struggle to own a community newspaper. Throw in that the woman is a part-time stripper and a few people do die during the course of the story and you got yourself a pretty good shot at a novel that is interesting enough to actually get published the traditional way.
What’s more, this is meant to be part of a six or seven novel series that ends with a NEW series about a Lisbeth Salander-type woman. So, in a sense, my vision for these novels is you get to see how one Salander-type woman had such a fucked up youth that she would turn into someone you want to read a lot of books about.
Writing a novel as accessible and popular as Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is my dream.
That’s the thing about Salander, from my point of view, the reason she was the way she was is she had a really fucked up upbringing. Had she had the opportunity have a normal youth, she might not have gone bonkers the way she did.
So, now that I understand the nature of this first novel in the series, I find myself dwelling seriously about how successful I will be when it comes to querying this novel. At the moment, I honestly don’t know.
I’ve never queried a novel and it could be that despite all my hard work that over the years that, lulz, I’m still not good enough. But I know I’ve accomplished one thing — I’ve written a novel that at least won’t embarrass me.
Because of her politics, the fact that AOC is drop dead gorgeous is a far more touchy subject than you might think. On Twitter, at least, you can’t even make a joke about it without people jumping down your throat.
AOC being hot and young.
Ok, I get it, we have to judge her exclusively on her mind, not her looks.
Or, should I say, we SHOULD judge her exclusively on her mind, not her looks. But can you imagine the epic blow up on social media and the hysterical MAGA echo chamber if even ONE photo of AOC in a skimpy bikini somehow was leaked? It would break the Internet.
The Right would demand her expulsion from Congress while at the same time they might break their penises from masturbating so hard to the picture.
Which, of course, is exactly why she keeps her physical beauty under wraps. But you have to hand it to AOC — she’s been very, very lucky. It says something that there is NOT ONE photo of a young “Sandy” in a string bikini enjoying a hot NYC summer on some rooftop.
It’s crazy.
The demand for such a forbidden non-existent bikini picture is so potent that people keep coming to this site thinking I have one, when all I ever do is write about how the pictures they want so bad don’t exist!
Maybe there’s something going on that I don’t know about. It is possible that she closes off beaches so she can wear a bikini? Are the press protecting her in some way? If so….lulz. I don’t care.
I totally get why she is on lockdown about such things. I just find it really hysterical that so many people search for such photos, thinking that somewhere on the Internet they exist.
But it is really sad that she has to be so careful about her body. She’s human and we should be able to respect her mind while at the same time she have the right to wear a bikini in public if the mood hits her. And, yet, here we are, with that being impossible because of what renobs the Right is made up of.
Now, let me put the following in context — the Millennium novels not written by Stieg Larsson after his tragic death continue to be published and I can only assume are doing reasonably well. So any quibbles I have with them can easily be seen as just my usual crackpot delusional rantings.
My dream is to write a heroine as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.
But having said all that, I will give you my first impressions of the latest novel featuring Lisbeth Salander, “The Girl In The Eagle’s Talons.”
I’ve only just begun reading and I’m taken aback by how the novel doesn’t feel like a Stieg Larsson novel. The chapters are a lot shorter. The author doesn’t use surnames to refer to people. The novel just feels like it’s…there. It’s just like any other novel you might pick up, at least so far.
At the moment, I have potentially seven(!) novels that I want to write set in the same place populated by pretty much the same characters. I want my novel to feel like a Stieg Larsson novel the moment you pick it up. There are some obvious caveats.
I’m not nearly as good on the structural backend as Larsson was, for one thing. But I have studied one of his novels, The Girl Who Played With Fire, a lot and I believe I have a sense of how to make my first novel an old brown shoe to anyone who knows the original Millennium novels.
Nathalie Emmanuel pretty much looks literally like my heroine in this picture.So much so I’m worried someone is going to steal a march on me creatively!
When you pick up my novel, I want you to glance at the first page and “get” that this is meant to be an homage to the original Millennium novels, even if it’s totally and completely different outside of a few elements of style and some form follows function elements.
Anyway, I’m being very, very delusional. I’ve not even begun to query yet and it’s very possible because of the following issues that I will never succeed in becoming a published author:
My Crazy Drunk Behavior in Asia I was kind of a wild animal in South Korea back in the day. And it’s not like I’ve hidden how bonkers I was. It’s just not in my nature to do such a thing. So any liberal woman women literary agent worth her wine is going to smoke out how bonkers and crazy I was back in the day. And that, unto itself, may be enough to steer them clear of me, no matter how much I’ve changed since then.
My Not Doing Anything For About 20 years This is another tough issue for me to have to address during the querying process. I have not done _anything_ of note since late 2011. That’s….a long time. But, here I am, wanting to bootstrap myself out of this particular situation by writing a break out hit novel. Yet I suppose it’s possible that, by definition, could be the thing that prevents me from getting published. I could write the fucking Bible and because I’m a nobody, I just won’t be taken seriously as an aspiring novelist — and never will be.
My Being Bonkers I’m kind of a kook. And the more due diligence is done on me by the typically liberal white women who are literary agents the more they’re going to think, “Uh, no.” There remains a lot of a taboo about having mental health issues, despite what everyone wants you to think when you’re bonkers, so…I dunno. Though I SUPPOSE it’s possible that could be used in some sort of marketing campaign for the novel, “bonkers author makes good,” that sort of thing.
The Nature of The Novel Offending Liberal White Women I got nothing against liberal white women, it’s just I worry that the nature of my novel — that of a part-time sex worker who wants to own a community newspaper — may be a little too much for them to stomach in the context of being my literary agent. If I was a transgendered, undocumented woman, rather than a smelly CIS white male, it would be different, but I “don’t have a lot going for me demographically” as one woman recently mentioned when I wanted her to look at the first chapter of my novel.
As I lurch towards the querying process, which can be quite brutal from what I can tell, I have to let sink in the fact that I could very well, uh, fail. So, let’s go through the reasons why this might be.
My Crazy Drunk Behavior in Asia I was kind of a wild animal in South Korea back in the day. And it’s not like I’ve hidden how bonkers I was. It’s just not in my nature to do such a thing. So any liberal woman women literary agent worth her wine is going to smoke out how bonkers and crazy I was back in the day. And that, unto itself, may be enough to steer them clear of me, no matter how much I’ve changed since then.
My Not Doing Anything For About 20 years This is another tough issue for me to have to address during the querying process. I have not done _anything_ of note since late 2011. That’s….a long time. But, here I am, wanting to bootstrap myself out of this particular situation by writing a break out hit novel. Yet I suppose it’s possible that, by definition, could be the thing that prevents me from getting published. I could write the fucking Bible and because I’m a nobody, I just won’t be taken seriously as an aspiring novelist — and never will be.
My Being Bonkers I’m kind of a kook. And the more due diligence is done on me by the typically liberal white women who are literary agents the more they’re going to think, “Uh, no.” There remains a lot of a taboo about having mental health issues, despite what everyone wants you to think when you’re bonkers, so…I dunno. Though I SUPPOSE it’s possible that could be used in some sort of marketing campaign for the novel, “bonkers author makes good,” that sort of thing.
The Nature of The Novel Offending Liberal White Women I got nothing against liberal white women, it’s just I worry that the nature of my novel — that of a part-time sex worker who wants to own a community newspaper — may be a little too much for them to stomach in the context of being my literary agent. If I was a transgendered, undocumented woman, rather than a smelly CIS white male, it would be different, but I “don’t have a lot going for me demographically” as one woman recently mentioned when I wanted her to look at the first chapter of my novel.
ROKon Magazine started in late summer 2006 when I met the now-late Annie Shapiro. The whole saga / drama lasted until about 2008, if I recall correctly. If you want to read the whole messy booze-fueled drama from my POV, here it is:
The story is pretty damn interesting, if I do say so myself. But it was all a long, long time ago — nearly 20 years now, and there’s really no reason for anyone, even me, to be interested in it anymore.
I mean, I daydream about someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge wanting to write a screenplay based on the story, but, lulz, that’s just a daydream. And I do draw upon what happened back then a GREAT DEAL for the novel I’m writing. But I just find it very curious that anyone — ANYONE — would be interested in ROKon Magazine.
And now that I’m on the cusp of querying, I wonder if white liberal women literary agents doing due diligence on me are going to be really into all my bad behavior back then. All I can say is — I’m sorry. It was a long time ago and I’ve grown so much as person relative to what happened back then that it’s like I’ve had a brain transplant.
Otherwise, you’ll just have to accept me for who I am.
I’ve only been to LA once and that was about 20 years ago on my way to South Korea. But, now, just about 20 years later, I find myself pondering a return to LA once I finish my novel.
Now, obviously, instead of one novel, I should have three solid scripts finished before I head to LA. But, lulz, I never do what you’re supposed to and I’m very, very, very delusional. What’s more, it could be years before I can afford to get anywhere near LA and I will be even more fucking old than I already am.
It’s all very depressing.
But if I did go to LA, I would have to figure out where I would stay and for how long. I would also have to figure out how I would get around since I wouldn’t have a car and I wouldn’t feel like renting a car to drive in the horrific LA traffic. That is one reason why I love NYC so much more than LA — you can walk anywhere you need to go in NYC — or take the subway.
Anyway, the reason why LA is so enticing is I know I’m a good schmoozer. I know that, through sheer force of will, it’s at least possible that I might be able to talk my way into a cocktail party and have a loud, interesting conversation that catches the attention of some mover and shaker.
Again, did I mention how delusional I am?
And, like I said, this is all potentially years in the future. And a lot could happen in just the next 18 months that will….uhhh…complicate any such plans. It’s difficult to travel anyway, much less LA if the United States is bombing itself to rubble because of a revolution / civil war.
And if we turn into an autocracy, I could be dying in a Trump-branded concentration camp, rather than looking for opportunity in LA.
Sometimes, I feel like I should just lie in my bed, twiddle my thumbs and wait to die. I’m old and I’ve wasted way too much of my life grieving over a dumb zine in Seoul. But every time I get into this mood, I immediately think, “Well, once more unto the breach.”
I hope that the heroine I’ve come up with is as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.
It’s just not my nature to give up, even though that’s exactly what I should probably do — give the fuck up.
So, I’m going to keep going with this novel as well as a back up novel. All I can say in my defense is I’m an eccentric and, as such, I willing to throw myself into something which objectively will never happen successfully — querying my first novel.
But I just refuse to self-publish, no matter what. I would rather fail on a spectacular level than self-publish because to me self-publishing is a huge co-out. I need and crave the validation of a third party — in this case a literary agent — so I can turn to people who have told me I suck as a writer all these years.
It definitely seems as though Russia is primed and ready for another revolution. As I’ve written before, if I was going to take over Russia, I would wrap myself in the imagery of the Russian Empire. I would wait until their was some sort of popular revolt then I would strike — the populace is ready and waiting for something to rally around.
I propose that Russia be a constitutional monarchy with, who knows, maybe Prince Harry being the new Tsar. It seems clear to me that the Russian people need and want the sense of belonging that a new Tsardom would bring with it. Too bad that this is just not a viable proposal, even though on paper it would work.
With global climate change, Russia is going to find itself in a situation where it maybe the the future, even if it doesn’t really want to be. And, to me, making Russia liberal constitutional monarchy would be just the thing to allow Russia to rise to its potential.
It will definitely be interesting to see how things shake out.
The only thing stopping me advocating Biden resigning the presidency because of his age is we just have no precedent for such a thing happening. It’s just not something presidents in the US do.
So, I guess we’re stuck with Biden. A very, very old Biden who looks dodders around like he should be in a nursing home. But he does continue to be really sharp mentally, so, lulz, what do I know.
Look up the Election of 1872.
I continue to grow more and more worried that SHOULD — God forbid — something happen to Biden, that we may find either there being a massive political firefight at a brokered Democratic Convention, or, worse still something really fucked up AFTER Election Day.
But, here we are. There’s just not much any of us can do but hold our collective breath.
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