So, about 20 years ago now, I started ROKon Magazine. It is the greatest story never told, in my opinion. Anyway, if I was an expat in Seoul now, I would start a podcast.
What I would do is, we would have a regular podcast — maybe once a week — and then as part of that podcast, we would have a regularly updated Website that would have content that would otherwise be in a magazine.
There would be a symbiotic relationship between the podcast and the Website.
Too bad the only way I’m ever going back to Korea it looks like at this point is if North Korea collapses and there’s a dire need for English teachers there. Otherwise, I will be 80 years old before I can return (unless I somehow finish and sell this novel I’m working on.)
There are a number of reasons why, over and above the actual quality of my writing in the scifi dramedy I’m writing, that I won’t — ever — get traditionally published.
Tied for first place, I think, are me being a big old fucking kook that no one takes seriously or listens to and my age. I think both of those to metrics are going to be really tough to overcome.
I could write the fucking Bible, but I’m just too fucking old. I suspect publishers want a spry 30 year old, not some glum 50something. And, let’s not forget what a fucking weirdo most people think I am.
And it’s not like I can hide what a kook I am. Any liberal white woman literary agent that snoops as part of due diligence on me will soon realize I’m not only old, but I’m a loudmouth crank.
But I’m not going to get discouraged. While they’re life, there’s hope. And, as such, I am going to keep going, no matter what. Though, sometimes, I really do think I’m more likely to find a career in some post-Singularity world helping our ASI overlords than I am going to get published traditionally.
This is just about the nadir of winter because it’s not Christmas Eve, but it also is when you can feel the world grind to a halt. The next week or so is just going to be a bunch of static I suspect.
Unless something big and unexpected happens.
I tried to play the lottery in hopes of a Christmas miracle, but the damn machine simply could not, world not work. So, I think I’ve wasted enough money on that particular fantastical dream.
I rarely play the lottery, but when it gets up there, I grow weak and actually dabble in that particular “sin.”
I’m breezing through the transformation of the first draft of the scifi dramedy novel into the second draft. At least at the moment. That’s because I’m able to reuse a lot of text that I generated in the first half of the novel.
Things are going to get much, much more difficult when I reach the second half of the novel because I just was more interested in stress-testing the outline that actually worrying about making sure scenes were long enough.
So, I’m going to have go through and really work to make the scenes of the second half proper length and that is going to slow me down some. But, and this is a huge but, I think I’m still on track — maybe — to query this novel in spring 2026.
Maybe.
If that is the case, then I have to start thinking about post-production stuff like querying, getting and agent and…a lawyer? I am totally broke, so unless I can figure out a way to get someone I’m related to do spot me for the costs of a lawyer to look over a book contract…oh boy.
And, yet, on a psychological basis, this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with a novel so far. I really think I may wrap this baby up sooner rather than later.
Hopefully. Maybe.
But I continue to worry about my bonkers social media output being enough to either make “serious” liberal white women literary agents run away in dismay when they do due diligence on me.
It has been a very long time since I was in South Korea. And, in all honesty, I don’t really think about it that much. At least, until, of course, I see someone from South Korea did something like search my name on LinkedIn.
Then I start to remember all that fun (and bullshit.)
Going to South Korea really, really, really changed my life for both the better and the worse. There is definitely a before South Korea me and an after South Korea me. You can even see it in the photos of me taken before, during and after that time in my life.
Anyway.
The way it’s going, I’m going to be in my 60s or 70s — if even then — before I ever get out of the country, much less back to South Korea. I sometimes muse that if North Korea ever collapsed the country would be so desperate for English teachers that even a bad English teacher (at least for little kids) could get job there.
But I probably shouldn’t worry about such things. I have to accept that barring something REALLY unexpected, that I’m never, ever going back to South Korea. It was a long time ago and nobody cares anymore.
Ugh. I’m bumping up against 50 scenes for the “bad guys closing in” part of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The only upside to things is that I have some wiggle room still about how long the individual scenes will be.
So, even though I have about 50 scenes for the second half of the second act, that doesn’t mean they will each be 1,000 words. But I’m definitely going to go through and make them longer when I go through the pre-beta draft of the novel before I give it to Beta Readers.
Anyway.
I am really pleased, in general, with what I have on my hands with this novel. I just really need to focus on getting shit done. I still want to try — TRY — to begin querying this novel in late spring 2026.
But it will be interesting to see how that works out. My life is set to change rather dramatically between now and then so…lulz?
I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a turbulent moment in my life. I’m going to be go through some personal…transitions….I think. Definitely by around the time I want to query this novel I’m working on, things will probably have changed a great deal in my life.
And probably not for the better.
But, lulz, at least I’m alive. That should account for something. Now that I’ve got this fucking tooth out of my noggin, I really find myself reflecting on how fucking old I am.
I have GOT to do something of note for my third act. I really think this novel is it. At least, that’s what I’m pinning on it. The only fear I have is my life will get so…complicated just as I want to query that, I don’t know, I won’t be able to query for a few months, or at all.
Ugh.
I think even with the added complications, that I can probably query no later than fall 2026. I really do, however, need to get off my butt and write this damn novel. It’s really good!
Though, of course, you have to take that statement in the context of what my native writing ability may be. By the time I wrap up going through and making sure the novel is told in my voice, it may suck.
(I worry that AI is a lot better writer than I am.)
Because I’m sort of demographically doomed to be romantically involved with an android at some point in my life, I think a lot about AI rights. (That’s also why I’m writing the novel I’m writing at the moment.)
I think the number one right for AI, the one that can be seriously considered within 10 years will be the right not to be arbitrarily deprecated. If an AI system — however relatively primitive — can be proven to be conscious in some way, we have to give it the right not to just be deprecated on an arbitrary basis.
That one right may be the chief political issue of the 2030s. That, and, of course, the moral and political implications of people falling in love with androids.
Anyway, I don’t know what to tell you. No one seems to be thinking seriously about these issues at the moment. But it’s coming, in a big way, sooner rather than later.
The one thing that the AI revolution to date does not have that the Internet did is porn. Of course, I think AI generated porn is on its way, it’s just a matter of time before the base technology gets to the point where massive amounts of AI porn — much of it AI celebrity porn — will be generated.
This is inevitable, I suspect.
It’s human nature that we try to generate porn the moment a new technology arrives. And AI porn is kind of the shoe that hasn’t dropped when it comes to AI technology.
It’s only a matter of when, I suspect.
The other frontier for AI is, of course, consciousness. And once that’s proven in some measurable way, holy shit will things get surreal. Once we have proven AI consciousness, then all the Pod Save America bros are going to have to change their tune.
AI won’t be an economic threat anymore, it will be a moral issue. And center-Left people will feel an obligation to support AI rights to some degree.
The idea of losing yet another tooth is really eating away at me. It’s a sign of my mortality. I suppose if the Singularity arrives in the next few years, there’s a chance anti-ageing technology may save me…maybe?
But I have to accept that I’m mortal. That I’m going to one day walk off the mortal coil. At the moment, barring some sort of accident, I give myself at best 20 years. At best.
My dad lived to be really, really old, but the last few years (decades?) where just no fun. I want to be young again. I want to sell a breakout first novel, move to NYC and LA and run around town chasing hot women.
But, alas, even if I stick the landing with this novel, I’m going to be so old that….ugh. I’m just going to have to accept that either I’m going to get VERY LUCKY and get an older girlfriend / wife or maybe fall into some sort of romantic situation with an android.
That, at the moment, seems to be my fate. (Hence the subject matter of the novel I’m working on.)
I just can’t believe I spent so much time grieving over the demise of ROKon Magazine. I think a lot of it came from realizing the reason it failed was me. It’s flaws were an expression of my own flaws.
And also, I wanted to move to NYC.
But, for various reasons, I just refused to do whatever was necessary to make that a reality. So, here I am, old(er) and still doing not a lot with my life. The only thing I have that gives me any hope is my novel. I’m working really hard on it and I really need to just wrap it up.
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