Tag: Replicants

Approaching The End Of This Draft Of My Scifi Dramedy WIP

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have about two chapters left before I will wrap up this draft of the novel I’ve been working on for about two years now. I’m confident that it’s good enough — another one last pass for “color correction” to at least query without being laughed at.

I continue to have two lingering worries.

One worry is it’s too spicy. Given that GenZ is so prudish the idea of a man who subscribes to a stripper android so they can be together may be too much for them. Hell, it may be too much for a lot of people. And, yet, I continue to believe in this idea. I believe in it enough to at least test the waters of querying.

The other issue I have is it has taken me some time to figure out how to properly use AI in my workflow and I’m a little nervous that maybe a few instances of “AI slop” have slipped past me. So I’m really self-conscious and paranoid about that and in the “color correction” pass I’m going to rewrite scenes as necessary to get rid of it.

I still don’t know if it’s going to be this fall our this January when I query. I just don’t know yet. I think — maybe — it’s going to be January before I can query simply because it may be more a struggle than I’d like to find beta readers. Or, I could grow bold and say “who needs beta readers?” and just go without them so I can meet my September deadline.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Is My Scifi Dramedy WIP Novel’s Comp…Euphoria?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, if nothing else, I suppose this novel might catch the eye of Sydney Sweeney if it actually gets published. There is a lot of spicy content in this novel, but I’d like to think that it’s done in such a matter-of-fact, droll fashion that it won’t turn off too many people.

I hope.

At the same time, there’s a chance that despite the spicy content, some starlet like Sydney Sweeney may be willing to be an android stripper in a Hollywood movie inspired by my novel.

But, I don’t know. It’s one of those things that could go either way. It could be that this novel is just too spicy to even past muster to get published since most literary agents — at least in my imagination — are liberal white women who might blanch at all the spicy content.

Or, at least, that a man is writing it.

That’s why I see this novel as a exploratory novel. I’m going to test the waters of how, exactly, I will go through the querying process. Then the NEXT novel, maybe, the one that has less obvious sex in it, might be the one I get published. But I’m kind of running out of time.

If I don’t hurry up and get something, anything done, I’m going to be in my 60s before I might be able to hold a novel in my hands that actually was found on bookshelves. And all of this is happening in the context of the fucking Singularity rushing towards us.

Ugh.

Gaming Out The Next Stages Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’ve Been Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A part of me is growing really nervous about how spicy this novel I’m working on is. There will be some people who dismiss it out of hand once I describe the premise. In fact, it got a chuckle out of someone just a few days ago and that took me aback.

But it was a young woman, so maybe…that’s not as bad as you might think. And that chuckle only made me feel like hunkering down even more to finish this thing. I know there’s an audience for it, somewhere. I know it’s good enough to at least query.

It being sold is a different issue altogether.

Having said all that, here is what I have to do next:

Finish The Novel
This goes without saying. I’m well into the third act of the novel now. I just need to get it over with. I need to focus and stop drifting towards my goal. I’m really growing nervous that some disaster will strike ASAP that will make it a lot more difficult to finish the novel sooner rather than later. So, I need hurry up!

“Color Correct”
This is where I will just go through and change a few names and maybe rewrite a scene here and there just to make sure they either don’t seem like AI wrote them or they suck. I have done everything in my power to prevent this novel from seeming like “AI slop” but I’m paranoid I may have missed a stray paragraph or sentence here or there so part of color correction will be to re-write such things out of existence.

Beta Readers / Read Annie Bot
This is going to be tough. No one likes me and I have no friends — other than the few stalkers who read this blog religiously, apparently (grin) — so, man, is it going to be tough to figure out how to get someone, anyone to spend the time necessary to finish an roughly 100,000 word novel. (I still don’t know how long this novel is, yet. That’s another thing I have to do. I’m guessing it’s between 80,000 and 100,000 words. But I’ll find out soon enough I guess.) I also need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. I just don’t wanna. I want to play and daydream, not read a novel that is apparently a feminist screed that comes to dramatically different conclusions about sexbots than I do. But, lulz, I gotta do it!

Query
This is the big issue going forward. I have eyeballed September as when I want begin to querying process….but it’s possible that for no other reason than how difficult it is to find beta readers…I’m either going to have to forgo beta readers altogether (or at least in part) or I’m going to have to punt querying to January. I say this in the context of their apparently being two “seasons” for querying — fall and spring.

I Fear My Novel Is Way Too Spicy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I worry that even within the context of my novel being about a sexbot sexworker that it’s too…spicy. That there’s just too much sex depicted. And that that, combined with how old I am and how bonkers I am will make selling this novel traditionally very difficult.

And, yet, it’s a little bit too late at this point to worry about that.

I’m about to wrap up the second act of the latest draft and wade into the third act. Once I do that, I’m going to prepare to work on the NEXT draft, the final second draft, before I let beta readers read the novel.

AND THEN, I’m going to really sit down and think about what my next novel is going to be. What I want to do is go back to working on a homage to Stieg Larsson’s stuff. But there are problems with that idea, at least for the time being.

I would be a male writing occasionally from a female POV. People get confused with switching third person intimate POVs within chapters. The list goes on. So….I don’t know.

I may piviot to another scifi novel once this scifi novel is done. I have two strong candidates. I still have time — unless of course someone swoops in an steals a creative march on me with this novel I’ve been working on.

And I continue to be really uneasy about people assuming “AI wrote it” simply because I’m too poor to get a human editor to help me out in real time. So, meh?

I Worry This Scifi Dramedy Is Too Spicy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. I’m writing about a sexbot and I worry there’s too much…sex…in the novel. And, yet, I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking things, looking things too much through the lens of a movie.

The point is to tell a good story and if I can tell a good story while depicting a lot of spicy content, all the better.

But I’m WELL AWARE that the “woke cancel culture mob” will likely hate this novel for various personal and fictional reasons. I can’t help who I am. And I can’t help that I came up with a pretty good idea for a novel that just happened to lend itself to lots of spicy scenes.

My biggest problem right now is how fucking moody I am when it comes to writing. I spend way too much time daydreaming rather than writing. Though I have to admit that using Claude LLM and Gemini LLM as my manuscript consultants has really helped a lot.

And I know because everything is horrible that any whiff of an idea that I used AI to help write this novel will cause a lot of people to dismiss the whole endeavor as “AI slop.”

It’s not. I swear.

I’ve done all the heavy lifting, with some assistance from AI.

Making My Way Through The Second Half Of This Scifi Dramedy I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m now easing myself into the second chapter of the second half of the novel I’ve been working on for some time now. Things are, in general, going pretty well. My biggest issue is how much I’m going to have to totally rewrite the scenes as I get to them.

The story continues to drift away from what I originally had, so as such I’ve found myself having to rewrite a little bit more — maybe a lot more — than expected.

One issue that has come up some is there are some “spicy” elements to to this novel that LLMs balk at. As I keep saying, I’m doing all the heavy lifting, using AI as sort of a modern day spellcheckr, but it can be a little bit annoying to feel like the AIs I’m using are “judging” me for having sexxy content.

It’s not that bad. I really haven’t had that many problems as of yet. A few little quirks.

I definitely have found that Claude LLM is a much better manuscript consultant than Gemini LLM. Though, I will note, Gemini LLM is very quirky and has a lot of personality because of some of the quirky things that have been saved to my “Personal Intelligence” feature.

Now In The Second Half Of This Scifi Dramedy I’ve Been Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The hope is, that once I finish this draft of this novel I’ve been working on for some time now that the NEXT time I go through it will be a breeze. I will just lightly edit it here and there to make absolutely sure that it’s in my own voice and people can’t accuse me “having AI write it.”

My fear, of course, is that I’ll read it the next time and see all these opportunities to make it better and that will slow me down significantly.

But as of right now, I’m feeling pretty good about this novel.

Though, it is of note that absolutely no on but me believes in any of this. I had an alarming conversation with a relative about the movie Ex Machina and….they pretty much said anyone who thought such things up must be some sort of twisted sicko.

I tried to tell her that, “Well….” but it did not register. Which makes me wonder what this person will say once this novel is finished and I MIGHT want her to read it. I find that doubtful now, though. No point.

I’m really going to struggle to find people to serve as Beta Readers I fear. And I’m growing really nervous about what kind of reception I should expect from the mostly liberal white women who make up literary agents. I’m kind of a kook and when they do due diligence on me…they might not like what they find.

And that doesn’t event begin to address the woke cancel culture mob generally not liking any sort of sex written by a smelly male, especially a smelly middle-aged male like me.

Anyway.

Right now, my biggest problem is I have too much information for the characters to process. Too many big events have happened in quick succession and I need to figure out a way to slow things down, to process information over the course of a few scenes, not just one.

But we’ll see, I guess.

My Biggest Worries About My Novel At The Moment

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. Too Much AI
    I am very self-conscious about there being any AI used to actually write anything in this novel. My hope is, through the editing process, I can eliminate any “AI speak” that may have slipped through the development process. I have worked so hard on this novel, I would be devastated if it was unpublishable because I had used AI too much to actually write it. (Which I haven’t.)
  2. It’s Too Spicy
    There is a lot of sex in this novel. And I’m worried that the very nature, the very premise, of the novel will be seen as “too trashy” for the liberal white women I imagine make up most literary agents. But who knows. The novel is shaping up to be pretty good, all things considered.
  3. I’m Too Big A Kook
    I’m really worried that whenever I get into the querying process and literary agents are doing “due diligence” on me that they will read this blog, or my social media presence and be extremely spooked that I’m just too big of a weirdo to sell a novel. But we’ll see, I guess. Stranger things and all that.

Feeling Insecure About My Novel’s ‘Comp,’ Annie Bot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The core difference between my novel and Annie Bot is mine is told from the POV of the “owner” of the android. Similar premises, in a sense, but told from the exact opposite POV.

Now, I decided to tell my novel this way because, well, lulz, the woke cancel culture mob demands that men only write from a male POV and as such, lulz, I have to write it the way I am.

Of course, given GenZ’s general “no sex please” sentiment that is ANOTHER issue that I have to worry about. My novel has a lot of spicy content in it for various and obvious reasons.

But I worry that 1) Annie Bot is better written than my novel and 2) the woke cancel culture mob will poo-poo my attempt to write a dramedy about a man’s relationship to an android he subscribes to.

And, yet, I really like what I’ve come up with. It is, all things considered, pretty good. It’s quite an entertaining yarn, if I do say so myself.

Turbulence Ahead

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m beginning to believe that the long dreaded turbulence I’ve expected for my personal life is going to happen soon. It could totally throw the context of me working on this novel out of whack.

And, yet, I’ve been grateful for how long I’ve had the idyllic situation.

At this point, I just want to finish a novel that I’m proud of. Any thing else that might happen will be icing on the cake, as it were.

I still haven’t read Annie Bot. I still haven’t read any of the books I have on querying. I just can’t bring myself to do such things just yet.

I think once I actually finish the novel — no matter how trashy it might ultimately be — that is when I will really start to take querying more seriously. Right now, it’s still something of an abstract.