Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

The Fun Scenario I’m STILL Obsessed With

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here we are, again, with me mulling my favorite scenario. The scenario is — a Galactic Empire comes to humanity and says, “We’ll zap a few billion of you to three lush, habitable planets in a new solar system, but there’s a catch — you have to bootstrap yourself. No help from us.”

One day, President of Hollywood, one day.

Ok. After nearly 20 years of thinking, here’s what I’ve come up with. There is only one solution to this particular problem that makes any sense — you seed the three planets with Americans, selected by a diverse, large group of global “stakeholders.”

I keep vacillating between thinking you would need just a few people in each various settlements on each planet — maybe 100? — to thinking you could get away with maybe 60,000 each planet divided to settlements of 10,000. It only works if you use Americans, though.

This would ENRAGE everyone else in the world, but it’s the only solution because America is a nation of laws, immigrants and a huge, well educated population. But I think if you had a large group of global stakeholders actually PICK the Americans who would be the first inhabitants of each of these three planets, then it works.

Now, the fun part — the gist of any novel or screenplay — would be all the fucking drama about the specifics of how all of this was done. That’s why this scenario is soooooo addictive. I think I keep discovering different elements of game theory over and over again as I try to think of different ways the different groups would fight over exactly who would do what.

Anyway. Maybe I can write this novel or screenplay when I finally sell my novel.

Burn, Hollywood, Burn — The First Popular AI Generated Movie Is Probably About 18 Months Away

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are zooming towards a new, uncharted future when it comes to Hollywood-quality AI generated movies. It definitely SEEMS like within 18 months some scrappy startup will use AI to generate a “Toy Story” like movie that is created without the hand of man involved other than simply pressing a button or two.

So, it could be that in three years there won’t be any writers, or actors, or directors or below the line people involved in the production of movies — period. And that will just be the beginning.

It could be that by 2030, Hollywood as we currently know it will no longer exist. There will be two types of people left in Hollywood — Suits and Programmers. That’s it. There will be a small sliver of people producing “artisanal” movies, but most human stars will have gravitated to Broadway.

It’s even possible that places like the Catskills might make a comeback. Hell, even some sort of vaudeville might return. But the fact remains — the clock MAY be ticking on “Human” Hollywood. And I say this from the POV of someone who is hard at work on my first novel. It could be just as I finish it and begin to query it…all forms of marketable (human generated) entertainment will just be so much dust in the wind.

Canon

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I have pretty much built the cornerstone of the third draft by having a stable first chapter, I can get down to business. There is the issue of a ‘canon.’ To date, I have kept canon up to date in my mind by simply reading and re-reading what I’ve already written.

Heroine of my first novel looks like Corrie Yee, phenotype wise.
But that has led me to grow very unhappy with what I’ve written and, as such, rewrite everything. This has obviously slowed me down a great deal. But I took a look at the new version of the first chapter today and realized my heart wasn’t in it. This is a good sign — I can now throw myself into finishing the rest of the first act.

And what SHOULD happen once I finish the first act is things go very, very fast. That would put me on track to finishing the third draft of the novel no later than, say, around April 1st. That’s the hope, at least.

President of Hollywood, are you out there in the aether, reading?
Then I would have all summer to figure out how to afford a professional manuscript consultant to look at the novel before I query in in the fall — just as my world — and everyone else’s — is thrown up in the air because of a potential “perfect storm” of the Fourth Turning and a some sort of Petite Singularity.

Or we might actually punt our problems down the road such that I can try to enter the querying process in peace and quiet. If I legitimately thought someone in some way connected to the Hollywood industrial complex was interested in this novel I MIGHT post the stable first chapter of the novel just to give them a taste of what I have.

But I am well aware that by saying that outloud that some asshole will use a proxy to make it SEEM like someone with Hollywood connections was lurking out there in the aether reading this blog.

So, lulz, not going to do that.

But the first chapter is shaping up to be really, really good. I rewrite a lot of it recently because I used AI to give a sense if it was any good and it told me “not enough tension.” So, I reworked it to make the things a bit more tense and give the thing a bit more of a flow.

I am well aware that many, many other people are doing the same damn thing I’m doing and they’re not drunk cranks. I know anyone doing due diligence on me would probably conclude I was too much of a freaky weirdo to give a old drunk crank like me a chance.

Oh well. Slings and arrows and all that.

S1-D13-_-Pang-_-mysterious-postcard-RCL-work-day-5Download

Idle Rambling

I Just Don’t Know, Folks

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The moment I think I have a stable first little bit of this third draft of the novel, everything collapses. So, I dunno. I guess I have a stable first chapter? Maybe? It’s possible? I really like what I’ve come up with, regardless.

Yes, President of Hollywood, I’m working as fast as I can.
I’ve reworked the first scene YET AGAIN, this time so it has more tension in it and is more focused. But the changes I’ve made in the story have now forced me to rewrite everything that comes after it. This. Happens. All. The. Time. I think that’s a sign that my storytelling ability is getting a lot — A LOT — better.

I hope.

Anyway, I continue to fall apart on a physical basis. I have some real concerns about the state of my teeth. I don’t know what I’m going to do about that in the near to middle term. I have a fear things are going to get really, really bumpy, only to sort themselves out in a way I can live with.

It’s just going to suck in the near term. Ugh!

I hope I can sprint between now and Christmas when my next de facto deadline is. Christmas is when some relatives will return who I will feel compelled to show at least the first scene to. They were quite pleased with the last version I showed them, then I asked ChatGPT about what I had written and it said, in effect, “This sucks — no tension.”

So I went back to the drawing board and gave the first scene more focus and more tension. I’ve learned a lot of my problems come from simply having too fucking much going on in a scene. Just by cutting long, meandering scenes into shorter, more focused scenes, I fix a lot of problems.

I have also realized I have to hurry up. I can’t keep screwing around. I have a limited amount of time — I’m NOT going to live forever. I’m already in my 50s and not only may AI make all my hard work moot, the prospect of a significant political crisis in the United States starting in late 2024, early 2025, is a “not great, Bob” type situation.

Hollywood & Jennifer Lawrence, I WUV You in ALL CAPS

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love Hollywood and the movies. I love everything about them. I love the pomp and energy of a bunch of creative people getting together to entertain people. I listen to the Little Gold Men podcast a lot and really enjoy it.

Because I’m a delusional, ambitious crank, I often find myself daydreaming about who might play this or that character in any hypothetical Hollywood adaptation of these six novels I hope to one day write. Now, take all of this with a grain of salt — actually selling my first novel, much less SIX would be like winning the fucking creative lottery.

But I’m delusional and feel like gaming out some of the characters seen throughout the series. As I’ve said before, I think the heroine of first novel is first introduced to us looking a lot like this:

Corrie Yee

Meanwhile, one of my two male romantic leads looks — in my mind — like a young Jarvis Cocker.

Jarvis Cocker as a young man.

But all of this is very dumb. I’m just daydreaming. I have no reason to believe at the moment that any of this is anymore than mental masturbation. That doesn’t stop me from struggling to think of a character in this series that might be played by Jennifer Lawrence.

I suppose she would be perfect for the FBI agent later on in the series that causes our Hero no end of grief. She would need to dye her hair read, though. 🙂

Things Fall Apart: I Have To Hurry

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I fear there is going to come a moment in the very near future where the context of me writing a novel will change dramatically. I have written and developed this novel in a rather idyllic situation but all good things must come to an end. If nothing else, this knowledge encourages me to work as hard as possible to finish the third draft of this novel ASAP.

The thing about these fears is it could be that things will suck for a while…then turn out alright. Even if my teeth problems worse and I lose a few because I’m poor and can’t afford a root canal….then maybe I’ll sell this novel and have enough funds to fix that particular situation?

A guy can dream.

Anyway, I’m also old. And at the same age Stieg Larsson was when he dropped dead (50.) But he had sold three novels at that point. I, on the other hand, don’t even have a third draft finished.

The meaning of (my) life.
But this third draft will be the last structural draft. Any drafts beyond this will be just for editing. Though if I somehow magically find the funds to show this third draft to a manuscript consultant…I suppose I might have even MORE structural changes to implement.

Yet I know — KNOW — that this is a great story. The story is probably going to be closer to The Girl On The Train’s ~140,000 word count that the ~100,000 word sweetspot for a first novel. But, lulz, I’m hoping all the “spicy” scenes in the first act will get people interested enough to finish the fucking thing.

Now, To Edit The First Three Chapters Of The Third Draft

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to get positive feedback from people who have read the first scene of the novel.

S1-D13-_-Pang-_-mysterious-postcard-RCL-work-day-3Download

And after way too much tinkering on my part, I’ve finally managed to cobble together a stable first three chapters. Now, I have to go through an edit what I’ve written so it’s not embarrassingly bad. What I usually do at this point is go see my dad in the nursing home and read over what I’ve written.

This is both good and bad. It’s good because I force myself to clear up problems sooner rather than later. It’s bad because inevitably I find myself in a situation where I want to change everything. Hopefully this won’t happen again this time. Hopefully I can edit these first three chapters without wanting to totally rewrite everything and change the order of everything as well.

But, we’ll see.

Editing my copy before moving forward in the novel has really helped make the overall text much, much better. But it also sometimes causes me to feel rather burnt out. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels.

Hopefully it won’t happen this time. Things have — finally — stabilized to the point that I think I should be able to sprint pretty quick through the rest of the novel. And, yet, so much could go wrong. My teeth continue to give me problems. (This sucks so bad.) And there a number of known unknowns that could slow me down a great deal if they don’t break my way.

I’m very grateful for the rather idyllic writing situation I’ve been in the last few years. If things change, then, well, that was inevitable. But I’ve progressed far enough in the process of writing this novel that I will press forward, even if the context is different.

Living In Oblivion

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I know I have a lot of “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro once told me, in general, I’ve been living in oblivion for a very, very long time. I kind of flew too close to the sun in the 2006 – 2008 timeframe.

Vibe.
As such, I was kind of a mental prison of my own making for a long, long time. And embarrassing amount of time. But things have changed and I’m finally really focused on something that will — hopefully — let me live up to my potential: my first novel.

Occasionally with this blog’s Webstats, I see pings from places that make me scratch my head a little bit. Why would someone from — there — be looking at this blog of all things? I can never figure out if these mysterious people from exotic locales are interested my political ranting or my very public navel gazing about writing a novel.

It’s a mystery!

I fucking hate this test.

But just the idea that someone of note would give a shit about me — whatever the reason — is quite flattering. All are welcome, I suppose, as long as you’re not a fucking stalker. (Ugh.)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I wrap up this third draft of the novel when I hope to — which is no later than around April 1st. So very much could go wrong. Not only do I have lingering problems with my teeth, but the fact that Stieg Larsson died at 50 looms large in my mind.

Stieg Larsson

Being 50 at the moment makes me think about if I don’t wrap this novel up as quickly as possible that it will all be a lulz. I’m not writing A Confederacy of Dunces, after all — this is a modern pop novel that needs to hit shelves at some point in the near future, not 11 years after my death.

Hopefully, I won’t become so incapacitated from my teeth problems that I can’t continue to write as quickly as I have been the last few weeks.

My Characterizations Are Getting Much Better

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing I’m leaning into is how people can change over the course of 25 years. This is one of those things where even though it’s felt like I’ve been spinning my wheels for months, I actually am slowly stumbling across some new, important elements to the story.

Among these improvements is significantly better characterizations. I have two secondary POV characters that have gone from just meh “vibes” into really unique people with sharp edges that make them really, really interesting. I have long written on character specifically with Jessica Chastain in my mind as I write the character.

I really liked her in Zero Dark Thirty and, as such, in the last two novels in this six novel project I have a hardass FBI agent who drives my hero nuts. But now that I’ve been really rooting around in the events that lead to those last two novels — which are meant to be an allegory for how fucked up modern America is — I realize that there is a lot of interesting avenues I can go.

As such, we meet this future FBI agent as a 90s Riot Grrrl. This makes her transformation 25 years later even greater. So she goes from being depicted in the novel like this:

To this:

I think that’s pretty cool! So, over the course of six novels — and 25 years — we gradually see this character morph from a passionate Riot Grrrl into a very conventional, serious FBI agent who drives the Hero of the last two novels crazy with what an asshole she is to him.

That, at least, is the vision.