Tag: I Love Hollywood

I’ve Tentatively Locked Down The First Chapter Of The Third Draft Of The Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have handed out the first chapter of the third draft of the novel in an effort to sort of force my hand. I have to lock down things sooner rather than later or I’ll wake up in a year an be exactly where I am now.

My goal is to write a novel as popular as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

So, I am going to chill out for a little bit today then sit down and see if I can flesh out chapters two and three. Then, I can use the first three chapters as a cornerstone for the rest of the novel and things will go really, really fast. That’s the hope.

The big issue is word count. At the moment, I’m hoping to come in at no more than 140,000 words. My fear is that I’ll be closer to 200,000 words. If that happens, then I’m going to split the novel into two.

A first novel with 200,000 words is just too fucking long. I would never be able to get a first novel of that length published. So, like I said, splitting the novel into two would probably be the best option.

And I also need to start working on the various scifi novels I have floating around in my mind. I really need to stop daydreaming about these stories and start writing them.

Once I Stabilize The First Three Chapters Of The Third Draft Of This Novel, Things Should Move Really Fast

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am so close to stabilizing the first three chapters of this novel to the point that things might start to go really fast. One huge problem I face is I’ve so forked the story from what it was intended to be in the second draft that I have a huge amount of writing, rather than editing, ahead of me.

My dream is to write a novel as popular as Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I’m going to have to just throw everything up in the air and reimagine a lot of the novel on a specific basis, with the third act really being something I have to work on. The third act of the second draft s u c k e d. It was horrible. So these days I spend a lot of of my time thinking in the back of my mind about how I can straighten out some serious problems in the third act.

Anyway. My storytelling and writing ability have both gotten significantly better. Some of it is I’ve being using AI some to help develop the novel — but not write it — because I’m doing everything in a vacuum and I have nothing to go on but my gut.

And sometimes my gut just doesn’t cut it.

But, in general, I’m very pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. One key thing I have to do is stop being such an absolute perfectionist. The point is to finish a third draft THEN go back and edit it some. This business of forking the Goddamn thing all the time has got to stop.

If It Wasn’t Taking Me So Long To Simply Finish The Novel, I Might Daydream About Sydney Sweeney Playing A Character In The Movie Adaptation

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve talk about this before, but as I write this novel, there is a character that I keep imagining Sydney Sweeney playing in any hypothetical movie adaptation. It is comical for me to any propose such a thing at this point in the process — I haven’t even finished the fucking novel yet.

But I’m a fan of Ms. Sweeney and daydreaming about such things give me a brazen excuse to show you a picture of her.

Sydney Sweeney

She’s a real babe — as you can tell — and she’s exactly the phenotype that I have rolling around in my head as I write a secondary character in this novel. The character is kind of a wild child who serves as both a little bit of comic relief and a “truth teller” who helps move the plot along.

But, as I said, I’m being silly to even worry about such things at the moment. I just think Ms. Sweeney is hot and I wrote this post as an excuse to show a picture of her.

Petite Singularity: The Combination Of AI, Robot Tech and Apple Vision Pro Will Lurch Us Into The Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m well aware of all the problems with both Apple Vision Pro and existing AI models. But I’m old enough to remember the early days of the Internet and how in fits and starts that technology gradually took over the world.

Again, remember, before I continue that there IS the issue of The Fourth Turning to worry about. It could be that much like WW2 delayed the development of TV, so, too, will the collapse of the US and WW3 could delay the actual Petite Singularity from happening.

But back to the point — when AI Generated Media is available on something like an Apple Vision Pro, then, lulz, we’re definitely in a Burn, Hollywood, Burn type scenario. In fact, the only way I could see Hollywood surviving such a thing is Washington passing some sort of carve outs for humans created art.

I could also see passive, human Hollywood surviving in some way if we, as a society, begin to give human-made media some sort of specific cultural value. In line with that, I could see Broadway really becoming culturally white-hot because Hollywood has been consumed by the technologies associated with the Petite Singularity.

And that doesn’t even begin to address how things might be disrupted if we can figure out a way to stick LLMs into android technology. It’s at least possible that if all the DDD jobs that immigrants come to the US to fill simply are done by androids…that MIGHT solve our border crisis. (Though, I will not that the racism of the Right is white hot that it could take decades for them to calm down about the lack of those sweet, sweet white babies — even if technology makes their concerns moot.)

Who knows. I can’t predict the future. But I do think that the next 18-odd months could be some of the most eventful on both a technological and political manner in recent human history.

Slow & Steady Wins The Race

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel is getting really, really good. It’s just taking a lot longer than I would prefer for me to get past the thrashing around in the water phase of things. But I am slowly but surely getting close to the second act.

The dream is to write a novel as successful as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Of course, I still find myself worried about how long the whole thing is going to be.

And, of course, I still need to work on some backup stories in case disaster strikes.

But, in general, not only does the novel flow really well, but there is an ebb and flow to things that I think will appeal to readers.

It does help that I’ve stopped drinking entirely. I hate being a dry drunk, but hopefully — hopefully — I will be able to focus structuring my life in a much better way.

I have to stop pissing my life and time away by daydreaming so much.

A Ping From My Successful Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For health reasons, I’ve decided to stop drinking full stop immediately. It seems this is example of a ping from my successful future — something is going to happen to make me a success just as I’m both too old to party with 24-year-olds AND I can’t even drink.

So, if that’s not a sign that I’m going to break out with my DJ (novel) money soon enough, I don’t know what is. I won’t be able to get wasted and go home with some smoking hot babe.

Any dating with be done sober and with women who are too old to have babies. Sigh.

It’s all very deep. I have to accept that I’m going to be 20 to 30 years too old to have the type of success I feel I should have. Any “success” I have will be that of a very late bloomer who is frantically doing everything in his power to cram in as many colorful and cool things into the twilight of his life.

It’s going to both suck and be great (if surreal.)

So, that fits the way my life has been to date so obviously it’s going to happen. Barring my becoming a Blue Revolution leader in late 2024, early 2025, even if I stick the landing with my novel, I’m not going to be published author until I’m in my mid-50s.

As such, I will have a very limited amount of time to do all the cool shit I feel I deserve to do. And, even then, it won’t be in the way I always dream it would be.

Ugh.

Hollywood Is A Dead Industry Walking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I love Hollywood. But I’m also a realist. And with the advent of the Apple Vision Pro and all these AI image generators at the same time….oh boy. It is clear to me that barring some sort of “Fourth Turning” event starting in late 2024, early 2025….”human” Hollywood is about to have its goose cooked.

The very idea of humans being involved in any sort of entertainment creation may be pretty quaint. And I say this as someone working as hard as possible to finish a novel. As long as the AI Generated Media is “good enough,” audiences will gravitate to it.

We are probably 18 months away from a Toy Story-level AI-generated movie being produced and released. And once that happens, it could spook everyone so badly that Hollywood might demand some sort of carve outs legislation that requires humans be involved in the generation of art, no matter what.

Or not. I could happen so fast that there’s just not time for the slow moving U.S. Government to get around to doing such a thing. But I do think we have to realize that Hollywood is about to be disrupted in a rather dramatic fashion a lot sooner than any of us may have otherwise realized.

It Appears That The Novel Has Stabilized

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have printed out a few chapters of the first act and now I hope to go through and make sure that the mystery-thriller elements of the story are evenly spread across as much as possible.

The basic scenes are fine, but I need to keep reminding readers that this is all leading up to a mystery-thriller Big Event that will make the novel a traditional thriller in the guise of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

The structure of this novel is much more like The Girl Who Played With Fire, however. I have about 50 scenes of lead up to the event that kicks off the second act of “the special world” and gets us going into what the novel is really about — murder in a small town.

The biggest problem I have at the moment is I’ve changed so much of the first act that I have to accommodate those changes in the rest of the novel. That is really slowing me down.

But I need to stay focused. I know I have a really great concept, I just have to build it out in a way that the novel fits the genre of mystery-thriller. It doesn’t help, of course, that I’m just not very dark or twisted in my writing. I find it really difficult to write that way.

Ugh.

Wish me luck.

Hollywood Has Hit The Iceberg

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The release of the Apple Vision Pro it’s only a matter of time before it is combined with AI generated media (AIGM) and Human Generated Media (HGM) is totally and completely disrupted to the point that it’s comical.

It’s only a matter of time.

Barring a revolution / civil war / WW3 kind of delaying things starting in late 2024, early 2025, there is a real chance that by 2030 “real” entertainment in will be about 1% of what people consume.

There will be additional cultural value to live entertainment to the point that Broadway could become white hot. It’s even possible a lot of what are now movie theatres could be converted to live theatre venues for no other reason than people — especially young people — will still need an excuse to be a dark theatre with someone (on a date.)

But I think my long sought “vibe shift” is here. It may take a few new versions of the AVP for it to happen, but once they become slimmer –and more affordable — there will be some future shock when people are seen out in the wild wearing, say, the AVP 4.0 or something.

It’s coming. And I don’t think Hollywood as we traditionally conceive of it is prepared. There just not going to be much use for ANY human involvement in the creation of the moving image when not only is everything generated in a very personalized manner by AI, but people are watching such things in the “immersive media” of a AVP headset.

A lot of the timeframe as to when all of this is going to happen depends on what happens between now and early 2025. If things are pretty peaceful — which I hope — then things are going to go very very very fast to the point that there might even be some sort of legislation passed in hopes of saving human Hollywood.

I’m afraid it won’t help, though — the future is AI and AVP.

An Issue Of Verisimilitude

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If I ever needed a clear sign that, in general, no one takes me seriously, it’s my overall failure to get anyone from my past life with the press industry to answer my call for help about something. (I finally got one person, but that’s really not very many given how many people I reached out to.)

The issue is, I really want to make the situation I’ve come up with for my heroine — that she owns both a strip club (where she occasionally strips to relax) and an alternative weekly — as real as possible. Like, how would that REALLY work out, especially in mid-1990s Richmond, VA?

I’m WELL AWARE that because of human nature and the needs of marketing, that there is a real risk that this novel would be reduced down to two tropes being fused together — “hooker (or sex worker) with a heart of gold” and “sexy slutty assassin” solves a murder mystery.

I think about this even more given how many men my heroine beds in the first act for the purposes of the plot. All the sexxy time is not gratuitous and definitely serves the overall plot. And, in general, I don’t even really show the spicy stuff that much. I do show it some, but it’s hopefully not so much that people get turned off.

And, what’s more, I’ve cut back the sex in the second act. I don’t know, but I think that best practices for storytelling is you delay sexxy time as much as possible. But, lulz, I never do anything the right way.

But the story is getting much, much better in general. I’m really pleased. But I have to prepare for people to attack me for how much sexxy time there is in the novel. While I’m very sex-positive and don’t see my heroine’s sexual activity as “slutty” I’m afraid there will be some people who think I’m replicating Debby Does Dallas with how my heroine seems to have so much sex on the fly.

Ugh. Anyway. Wish me luck.