Month: January 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Today was the first day I really sat down and began to sketch out some of the second thriller in this five novel series. I had already done this some when it was the second half of a twice-as-big novel, but this was the first time I’d done it seriously as it being its own thing.

I know, in general, what it’s about — the love of one woman for a dead woman’s very alive baby — but I have to figure out the details of the plot. I’m really, really REALLY digging deep into my own personal history to flesh out elements of the plot. I’m just bleeding all over the page, as it were.

It’s all very personal and a “deep cut” into a very specific moment in my life.

But things are going pretty well at the moment. It’s a lot of fun to see how far I can get before my self-imposed deadline of a few days from now is reached and I go back to working on the first novel. It’s very relaxing to leave the first novel, which I’ve been focusing on with white-hot attention for way too long now — and turn to the other novels in the series where I’ve not been so fixated.

That’s one of the upsides of working on such a huge project is I can work on all these different books and still stay in-universe. I have to admit, though, that I have several other really strong concepts rolling around in my mind — one about global climate change I love so much. But that global climate change story is going to be a movie if I ever get around to doing anything with it.

I still need to do a lot of reading. It’s so frustrating, though. I’m so consumed with reading, developing and writing my own stuff that to pull myself away from all that to read someone else’s work is really tough at times. Or maybe all the time.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Every once in a while, I like to switch gears and develop some on the other four novels. It’s a way of avoiding burn out and to move the overall project forward smoothly while staying in-universe. I’ve decided to do that for these few days in the late part of January, early part of February.

Now, a brief note on nomenclature. I doubt you could strictly call these novels “thrillers.” Though, to be fair, the last two novels — the ones that are the original first two novels I worked on for a few years — are the two that are meant to be thrillers. But none of the novels are strict thrillers, I don’t think. They’re meant to be fast paced, easy readers but…thrillers? I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m going to work on the second book tonight and tomorrow. It’s the least fleshed out at the moment. But I definitely know the ending and it’s really great. It’s ending was the original ending of a much bigger book that I cut in two when I realized there was simply too much going on and it worked far better as two books.

So, that’s one of several reasons why I found myself with five novels. But here I am — five novels to work on. And I’m not getting any younger. I’ve really got to hurry up and produce something, anything before I reach the same age as Stieg Larsson and promptly drop dead.

Each one of these novels is very strong as a conceit, but the issue is fleshing them out, giving them a plot and characters with motivation. My storytelling ability continues to get better and better, so that is what I hope — hope — will get me through the struggles I have a head.

But it’s easy for people who have been paying attention — all three of you — to poo-poo this all endeavor as just talk since, well, I’ve been writing about writing — and doing videos about writing — for a looooooooooooooong time. And, yet, I do actually have something I can show you if you get up all in my grill about it.

I have, in fact, finished something akin to a first draft of the first novel and am currently working on a second draft.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here I am a middle age CIS white male…writing five thrillers which, at their heart, are about different forms of a mother’s love. This did not happen intentionally. But as my storytelling ability has improved, I have come to realize how important it is for each of these five novels to have, well, a point. So, as such, the first novel’s point is about a woman wanting to protect her only child — a teenage son. The other four novels have a similar theme — at least on a macro level.

The question remains if I can pull this off given who — or what type — of person I am.

But the emotional heart of these five novels is, in general, the love a woman feels for another woman’s daughter. That’s the thing that ties all five novels together. My aim is to wrap things all up in the fifth novel in a way that gives everyone a satisfying conclusion.

At least, that’s the goal.

It’s going to require a lot — A LOT — of work. But I’m pleased that I’ve pretty much figured out what each of individual novels is “about.” I definitely know what the first novel is about and I definitely know what the second novel is about. The other three novels drift closer into Stieg Larsson territory in the sense that they’re a lot more traditional thrillers. Though the third novel is something of an homage to The Shawshank Redemption — in a way.

This homage wasn’t intentional, but as I’ve become more comfortable about what the novel is about that homage becomes more clear. But I have so much work to do. I need to start speeding things up some. I can’t keep writing about writing and not actually…write.