Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

Will The Looming Advent of AGI Make My Efforts To Write A Novel Moot?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. It definitely seems as though at some point between now and sometime in 2025 we may develop Artificial General Intelligence which would be “a human mind in a box.” It would be able to do pretty much anything a human can do — and better.

One of the things it could give push-button access to is the ability to…write a novel.

As someone who has been struggling to write a novel for several years now, this gives me pause for thought. And, yet, I create for the sake of creation. As such, lulz, so what. I want to personal — human — satisfaction of finishing a novel and this going through the querying process, even if that, unto itself, is going to be a real bitter struggle.

But I’m really enjoying developing and writing this novel and would like to think that, in the end, we’ll give a lot more cultural value to stories created by the humans relative to those created by AGI.

I often compare the situation to what is found in the Blade Runner universe where “real” animals have a lot more value that synthetic ones. I think the same dynamic will happen when it comes to stories.

That’s my belief, at least.

Burn Hollywood Burn — Hollywood May Be About To Be Severely Disrupted By Sora

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though the Petite Singularity is careening towards a reality just about when I predicted — at some point in late 2024, early 2025, just as political Fourth Turning is also taking place.

So, it’s possible, we’ll have something akin to a Perfect Storm of disruption in which we kind of lurch forward with a Vibe Shift where we come out the other side in a totally new political and technological era.

Or not, who knows.

But it does seem as though after about 20 years of being in one era — the post 911 era — that we’re about to enter a new, unknown era. It could be that a lot sooner than any of us could have possibly predicted, the movie Her will just be our reality.

We will have AGI and instead of there being *any* humans involved in the production of *any* entertainment, it will all just be AI generated. As an aspiring novelist on the cusp of wrapping up my first novel in a few months….I don’t quite know what to make of that.

Will The Mythical ‘Woke Park Slope Moms’ Like My Novel?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, let me be clear — I have always been making a joke about “woke Park Slope moms” whenever I mentioned them as an audience for this novel. And, the more I think about it, the more I realize I’ve failed even if I was being serious — this novel is shaping up to be a trashy, somewhat pulpy page turner with a lot of spicy scenes and a curious premise: a part-time stripper’s obsession with owning a community newspaper.

A building in the Park Slope area of NYC.

I think if this novel is popular among “woke Park Slope moms” it will be popular for the very reason why it’s not “woke” — it has a lot of spicy scenes. The downside, of course, is that I’m a smelly CIS white male writing those spicy scenes, sometimes from a female POV.

But these are wine moms we’re talking about, so it’s at least possible that the same dynamic that made 50 Shades of Gray a big hit might be in play when it comes to this novel. I really like what I’ve come up with. This novel is colorful, different and interesting — just like me.

A lot will depend on marketing of this novel once I somehow, magically, manage to get an agent and then sell it. I really want this novel to be an old brown shoe to people who read the Stieg Larsson novel’s 20 years ago. If I can tap into that same audience, then, well, we’re cooking with gas.

It will be interesting to see what happens, of course.

Once More Unto The Breach! — Things Are Moving Really Fast With The Third Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m on the cusp of gaming out the third draft of my first novel to just about the midpoint any day now. Then, the hard work will be to well, write. The way I develop and write my novels can be so ad hoc, fluid and haphazard that it slows me a down a lot.

The heroine of my novel looks like Morena Baccarin.

In fact, most of the work I’ve been doing since I started developing what is now potentially a seven-novel project — if I don’t croak before it is wrapped up — is just improving my storytelling ability. There is A LOT about nuts-and-blots of structuring a novel-length story with multiple POVs that I know absolutely nothing about.

And now I’m worried that somehow, someway, screenwriters from Hollywood are going to read this blog and cherrypick the best bits of the novel and I’ll wake up to news that a character fitting my heroine is going to be in a movie soon. And, yet, you know, I’m such an extrovert that it’s not like I would be able to be quiet about such things.

I am who I am.

The point is to finish the first novel in the project as quickly as possible. I’m just a broke-ass kook living in the middle of nowhere with a great idea for a novel that I’m willing to put the effort in to finish.

My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo much like the one Megan Fox now has, even though I thought of the idea first!

As of right now, I hope to finish the first novel of this series at some point between now at around July 22, 2024 — the 20th anniversary of my first trek to South Korea.

I also have two other novels that I’m trying to develop. One is the sequel to this first novel, while the other a pandemic themed scifi novel. It’s really, really good. I’ve been fucking around with AI to develop it and it’s made me an “10X” writer….ha!

Yes, I know, in the end, AI will make all writers moot.

I’m At A Loss As To What I’m Going To Do About Querying My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m well on my way to finishing the third draft of my first novel. The novel will tell a coherent, cohesive story. It’s not the story I thought I was going to tell when I started this process a few years ago — but it tells a story. And, what’s more, it ques up a number of successor novels in the same universe that will be really compelling.

The heroine of my novel looks like Morena Baccarin.

At least, that’s what I believe.

I am soon going to wrap up the “actively delusional” part of this journey and enter the world of reality where I have to convince liberal white women who make up the majority of literary agents that I can tell a good story about a part-time sex worker who is trying to buy a community newspaper.

At least I can explain the story a lot easier than before. It used to be that the story was a lot more muddled and difficult to explain. Now, I understand what the story is about.

But there are A LOT of problems.

Like, what novel do I “comp” this novel to? What genre is this novel, since the murder doesn’t happen until well into the second half of the story. I just don’t know. And, when you add how bitter people seem to become whenever they enter into the land of querying, well, lulz, oh boy.

My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo similar to the one that Megan Fox now has, even though I came up with the idea first.

I’m going to have to shift gears bigtime once I finish the novel and start to query seriously. So much so, that I don’t even know if I can continue to write, even though I know I have to. Querying is a job and struggle unto itself, it seems.

But I do have a number of other stories I want to work on while I query the first novel. And I hope to have the second novel in the series I’m working on — one that is a traditional murder-mystery-thriller done pretty soon as well. It will have most of all of the same characters as the first novel and a few new ones.

It will definitely be interesting to see how things work out. I’m sure I’m going to make many, many, many, many mistakes and probably have already made a lot by just being me.

The Point Is To Tell A Good Story

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, my first novel isn’t going to be a murder mystery thriller. It’s a novel essentially about a power struggle over a community newspaper that will serve as the cornerstone of what could be a open-ended seven novel project. But, given how fucking old I am and how even if I stick the landing I could be in querying hell for years — I’ll just be glad to finish A Novel.

The heroine of my novel looks like Morena Baccarin.

As such, I’m zooming through the third draft of my first novel.

Though, I will note one annoying thing about all of this — way too many people get all excited and promise to read a chapter here or there only to ghost me. I can never figure out if this means they hate what I gave them and don’t want to give me ANY opinion, they realized they just didn’t want to anything and ghosted me or there’s some third thing going on that I don’t know about.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with the state of this first novel and I’m really beginning to think about the second novel in the seven-novel project as well as a few scifi novels that will serve as a “back up” option in case something happens with the main creative track.

My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo similar to this one that Megan Fox has now. Even though I thought of the idea first!

I still refuse to even think about self-publishing. While I play pretend and give myself five years from the point when I start to query to get traditionally published before I self-publish….I know that’s just a dumb thing I tell myself instead of the truth: I’m never fucking self-publishing.

Human Hollywood Is Going To Need Legal Carveouts To Survive In The Age of Generative AI Like Sora

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think we’re one (severe) recession — or less — away from Hollywood being reduced to two types of people plutocrats and programmers. And, given how fast LLMs are approaching the ability to wrote code — Hollywood may just be plutocrats who license their content to LLM companies.

It could all happen a lot sooner than any of us want to think about. It could be by the end of the decade that we just don’t really have a “human” Hollywood anymore, to the point that the far Left and the far Right will come together in some new anti-tech MAGA movement that demands legal carveouts for human workers in entertainment.

Or not. What do I know. But I, in general, the trends do seem to indicate that Something Big is going to happen with “human Hollywood” in the near, near future.

I Have A Villain Problem

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Watching “House of Cards” about a decade after everyone else has really opened my eyes to how piss-poor the villains of my novel are. I know what’s happening — my writing and storytelling ability is really getting a lot better so some things I didn’t really think about at first are coming to the forefront of my mind.

House of Cards

The villains of Stieg Larsson’s novels are horrific, while mine are just…there. There’s nothing really scary or notable about them. This is all happening so late in the process, of course, that I have only a limited amount of time to improve their characterization.

But I’ve at least realized it now, rather than when I try to pitch the novel.

I really need to dig deep — fast — and think up ways to make my various villains memorable and hateful. This is going to be really difficult because my usual way — which is to drift towards my goal and daydream until I come up with a solution — just isn’t going to cut it.

If I use that method, it could be next year before I nail down everything and I just don’t have time. Around July 22 – 23 is my deadline and that’s what I have to work with. If I don’t get where I need to be by that point, I’m really afraid that the window of opportunity I have to sell this novel will close and we’ll all be consuming AI generated entertainment, or the fucking Fourth Turning will happen — you name it.

Anyway. Onward.

The Name Game

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I try to do what is right, I really do. And when it comes to developing and writing a novel, there are all the unexpected landmines floating around that you have to avoid.

Lisbeth Salander is the type of name that is so great I wish I could think of something as strong.

One is the subject of names.

In general, I feel pretty safe with all of my character names. And YET it is inevitable that somehow, someway along the process there might be a hitch. There is one character — a huge character in the project six book series, in fact — who has a surname that MIGHT be a problem.

S1-D13-_-Pang-_-mysterious-postcard-RCL-work-day-1Download

But I’m really, really being paranoid, all things considered.

And I’m not attached to that specific name. If I have to, I have a few backup names I’m willing to switch to. I’m very pragmatic about such things, I just want to be a published author and if it requires a significant rethinking of some element of the six novel project to become one, so be it.

In general, things are going pretty well with this first novel. I’m rather pleased. I just have to press forward. I can’t keep just driving towards my goal. I have to give my life focus and structure if I’m going to wrap this thing up by no later than around July 22th.

Is Tyler Perry The Canary In The Hollywood AI Coalmine?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone who fancies himself something of a “creator” — more specifically, an aspiring novelist — I have to blanch at the news that Tyler Perry has decided to shelve an $800 million investment because of the advent of technology like Sora.

It definitely seems as though This Is It.

It seems possible that we’re about to swerve into a totally unexpected future where our Her-like Personal Digital Assistant, on the fly, shoots out a personalized move in an ad hoc manner because it knows you so well that you don’t even have to tell it what you want to watch at any particular moment.

Things like “writing a novel” will be replaced by someone feeding a few lines of prompt into some future AI and that, as they say, will be that. But I do think I have a little bit of a window of opportunity.

A lot can still go wrong, but a lot can still go right. I just have to press forward. I have to believe in myself. And, if the absolute worst happens, then I can least use the writing and storytelling skills I’ve built since I starting working on this novel to work on something even better.

That’s the current delusional that allows me to get to sleep.