by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I finally approach the Big 5-0 I am having to come to grips with how, in a sense, I’ve just waited too long to get what I’ve always assumed I would one day get. Or, to put things another way — even if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want.
While I have “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro once said, even if I manage to write and sell a breakout first novel that success will happen in the context of me being a middle aged man, not a young man. I still look forward to some success (any success, really) the world is very, very cruel and, as such, the world is cruel to late bloomers like me.
Even if I manage to overcome all the obstacles associated with my age and become a success, it’s not like I will have the same experience as if I was 24. I might be able to become a smug bi-costal liberal who laughs at the Poors of middle America as I fly over them….but it’s not like all the years of not doing anything will suddenly not have occured.
A lot of doors have slammed shut for me, never to open again. I could be in my mid-50s by the the novel hits bookshelves even if I stick the landing. That’s because of the post-production process of producing a novel. So, if you factor in everything between finishing the novel and when it comes out I could very well be 55.
And if that is the case then, well, oh boy.
It’s not like I can date a 24-year-old woman, date a few years then settle down and have kids. Most of my “normal” peers are now gaming out retirement as empty nesters while if I got what I wanted and had the money to afford all my dreams I would be AT LEAST 20 to 25 years behind everyone else my age.
Again, I’d still be very grateful for the opportunity, but I have to manage my expectations. Unlike Stieg Larsson, I’m not a famous journalist. I’m pretty much just a brokeass nobody who wants to tell people a great story.
I think some of this comes from how it’s beginning to dawn on me as I ramp up writing the second draft of this novel that I am going to have to stop being so fucking delusional and put on my big boy pants. I’ve finally gotten far along in the process where delusion has to be put aside.
I have to take writing this seriously because maybe just writing a great pop novel won’t be enough. While all things being equal I know this novel is getting really good, because I’ve lived such a dissipated life for so long…. I don’t know. I don’t like to think about that.
I can come across as a drunk crank — a “delusional jerk with a good heart,” if you will and the world is a brutally cruel place to anyone who doesn’t do things the way you’re “supposed to.” And I’m also beginning to grow alarmed that even though I’m anti-MAGA, because I can come across as a kook at times who doesn’t follow the media narrative of the “woke cancel culture mob” that I may not be Blue ENOUGH for the publishing industry.
That definitely gives me pause for thought.
Keep the faith.
