Of ‘Wokeness’ & The Novel ‘The Forever War’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The problem with defining “woke” is it’s such a hodge-podge of different concepts that are framed relative to the needs of the Far Right. So, it’s difficult to come up with any clear sense of what it means in any practical basis.

But I guess another attempt to define it would be:

Woke, to be: Having a heightened awareness of past and current structural problems in regards to racial and gender inequality, with a particular emphasis on LGBQT+ rights.

Yet, that is not the whole picture.

Perception is a very powerful thing. And, at the moment, the perception among a lot of white conservative men is that they risk, at the hands of the “woke cancel culture mob” being “canceled” simply for being conservative and or believing in traditional heteronormative values.

This is where the idea of being “Red Pilled” comes from. For a lot of white conservative (Christian) men, there is a real fear that they are something of an endangered species with the “woke cancel culture mob” demanding that everyone become gay.

The problem is, this is a situation generated, in part, from a combination of technology and generational changes in societal expectations. It’s all happening so quick that your typical middle age CIS white man, as they say, simply can’t process or “grok” what the fuck is going on.

There is a book from the 1970s, called The Forever War, which probably is ripe for Chris Pratt to star in the big budget Hollywood adaptation. As I understand it, part of the plot is some dude coming back to earth from some sort of space war and everyone on the planet is a gay hippie. Seems like the type of subject matter a conservative like Chris Pratt might really like.

Here’s what Wikipedia has to say, in part, about The Forever War.

Almost entirely through luck, Mandella survives four years of military service, while several centuries elapse in real time. He soon becomes the objectively oldest surviving soldier in the war, attaining high rank through seniority rather than ambition. He and Potter (who has remained his last link with the Earth of his youth) are eventually given different assignments, meaning that even if they both survive the war they will likely never meet again due to time dilation. After briefly contemplating suicide, Mandella assumes the post of commanding officer of a “strike force”, commanding soldiers who speak a language largely unrecognizable to him, whose ethnicity is now nearly uniform (‘vaguely Polynesian‘ in appearance) and who are exclusively homosexual. He is disliked by his soldiers and he assumes this is because they had to learn 21st century English to communicate with him and other senior staff and because he is heterosexual.

Engaging in combat thousands of light years away from Earth, Mandella and his soldiers need to resort to medieval weapons to fight inside a stasis field which neutralizes all electromagnetic radiation in anything not covered with a protective coating. Upon return, the strike force learns this is the last battle of the war. Humanity has begun to clone itself, resulting in a new, collective species calling itself simply Man. Man is able to communicate with the Taurans, who are also clones. It is discovered that the war started due to a misunderstanding; the colony ships were lost to accidents and those on Earth with a vested interest in a new war used these disappearances as an excuse to begin the conflict. The futile, meaningless war, which had lasted for more than a thousand years, ends.

Man has established several colonies of old-style, heterosexual humans, just in case the evolutionary change proves to be a mistake. Mandella travels to one of these colonies (named “Middle Finger” in the definitive version of the novel) where he is reunited with Potter, who had been discharged much earlier and had taken trips in space to use time dilation to age at a much slower rate, hoping for Mandella’s return. The epilogue is a news item from the year 3143 announcing the birth of a “fine baby boy” to Marygay Potter-Mandella.

Anyway, as I keep saying, we’re past the event horizon for something really, really bad happening at some point between now and, say, spring 2025. I don’t know what it will be, but it’s going to be bad. It could be civil war, autocracy or military junta.

All I know is — barring something I can’t predict — MAGA is going to try to steal the 2024 election in a very brazen manner and Blues either bend a knee or demand a National Divorce.

Pick a side or a side will be chosen for you.

Catturd May Be The Most Dangerous Man In America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t profess to know the ins and outs of the mysterious world of MAGA-themed “comedy” but I know that there is one MAGA account that can get something trending and that’s Catturd. I know nothing else about Catturd and don’t want to know.

But imagine this scenario — it’s some point just after Election Day 2024 and Catturd decides to weaponize its account’s ability to get things trending on Twitter. As it grows more and more clear that MAGA is going to brazen steal the 2024 the country begins to fall apart.

So, just as the bolts are popping of the country and we face an existential choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta, Catturd starts getting various forms of MAGA disinformation trending, which helps subtly set the framing of democracy’s final collapse.

I probably overthinking all of this, but I really worry about this possibility.

Time To Rock & Roll With This First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have got to start to rock and roll with this first novel. I have to stop daydreaming so much and drifting towards my goal and start to be a lot more focused. I am so close to finishing a solid first draft of my first novel and I’m well aware that every day I haven’t finished it another day that disaster could strike and this rather idyllic (for writing) situation that I’m in could end rather abruptly.

And, what’s more, I keep thinking about the other five novels I want to write in this project. The idea is — once I finish a really good first draft then I will know how to write the other five books a lot quicker. At least, that’s the dream. The reason why I love this huge project so much is, well, it’s pretty much my autobiograhy.

If I finish all six novels and then you read them, by the time you finish the six novel you will know me, way, way, way, way, too well. You’ll know me so well that if you have the briefest conversation with me in real life you’ll realize most of the elements of the universe I’ve come up with are, well, real. Maybe not 1-to-1, but you definitely get a sense of the “truth” of it all.

Anyway.

Time to put up or shut up. I really need to buckle down and try to get something, anything done sooner rather than later. And I need to read a lot more. It’s the only way I can flesh out these characters. The whole thing has a lot of “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro might say, but it’s up to me to live up to that potential by putting in the hard work necessary to produce professional grade copy.

The Trumplandia Conundrum

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had a really great, interesting conversation with a center-Right person today and as a center-Left person, it was very illunative. My biggest problem these days is when people come at me from the Left and I’m aghast, saying, “But I’m on YOUR side.”

So, it was a refreshing change to talk to someone from the center-Right who wasn’t MAGA and, as such, wasn’t completely bonkers. My chief take away is America is in a lot of trouble, mainly because the Left’s “woke cancel culture mob” continues to drive conservatives straight into the arms of MAGA fascism. It’s very alarming.

And, to me, the crux of MAGA is how much of it is performative done in the service of using bad faith arguments to “own the libs” and how much of it is actually hardcore wilful ignorance that wallows in the “cruelty is the point” aspect of MAGA.

I continue to be at a loss on which end of the spectrum MAGA inhabits. There is a cult-like element to MAGA, yes, but some of it is so over-the-top and dumb that it makes you wonder who’s zooming whom as the old song goes. Are the dumb hero worshiping theatrics of MAGA just one big troll? Is it not so much that MAGA believes that Trump is some sort of god-like figure sent to save America from the “woke cancel culture mob,” but rather because of extreme negative polarization it’s all something of a joke that MAGA people don’t REALLY believe?

I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

I keep reading a great book about the rise of the Nazis and while MAGA and the Nazis share a lot — and I mean A LOT — of traits, Hitler was an actual Great Man who bent history to his will as he felt necessary, while Trump is just a lazy idiot who is an avatar, a vessel for white Christian rage over how the “woke cancel culture mob” wants to turn everyone gay.

Maybe MAGA is both things at once? Maybe some people are MAGA because it gives them a sense of belonging, while others want to just “own the libs” with bad faith arguments while still others are so alarmed by the “woke cancel culture mob” that they are willing to embrace regular old fascism.

But I will note one thing — the Right’s echo chamber is far, far more developed and all consuming than the Left’s. A combination of Fox News and Right wing podcasts give Traditionalists (white Christian men) easy to understand talking points that make them able to sleep at night as the country continues to slide into fascist MAGA autocracy.

It’s because of all of this that, at the moment, I just don’t think Blues have it in them as a movement to do the one thing that otherwise they should do — demand a National Divorce. I think, in the end, when MAGA autocratic fascist steal the 2024 election in broad daylight….Blues will bend a knee. And those Blues who can’t handled living in a MAGA-themed autocracy will simply leave the country.

I suppose it’s for the best. I don’t want a civil war.

‘Old Brown Shoe’ — Of ‘Mare of Easttown’ and Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium Series’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things, at the moment, are going really well with this first draft of this first novel in a projected six novel project. The fact that I’m turning 50 soon is really weighing on my mind. I have to put up or shut up. There is still a lot I don’t know about how to write the best possible novel I can, but things feel like they’ve stabilized some.

These six novels are heavily influenced by both the TV show Mare of Easttown and Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Series. That’s the vibe I’m going for, at least. If you like those two creative works, then I hope to write six novels that you will feel are very similar, like an old brown shoe for your mind.

The influence of Mare of Easttown on these six novels is the protagonist for the first few novels is much like Mare, even if her job is totally different. The two women are about the same age and have similar things happening in their lives. Family is really important for both of them and they find themselves in very unusual circumstances because of issues out of their control.

My homage to Mare and her connection to my homage to Lisbeth Salander serves as the motional heart of these novels. I like the idea that we get to see over the course of a number of novels the events that lead up to why my American, POC homage to Salander ends up the way she does. All of this is happening, oddly enough, because Trump was a lazy idiot and wasn’t able to successfully steal the 2020 election.

It was in early 2021 that it occured to me that not only I had a massive backstory that I would like to actually show the audience, but that all the ranting I was trying to do about Trumplandia in two books set in late 2019 and early 2020 would be kind of quaint and out of date if Trump wasn’t president.

So, I not only started from the very beginning of the story — in early 1995 — I created a Mare of Easttown-type character to serve as the protagonist for the first three novels in a six novel project.

The plan is, over the course of six novels and 25 depicted years, you will get to see not just how a very strange situation occurred somewhere — the original allegory for Trumplandia that I thought up — but the ebb and flow of the lives of a series of characters during that timeframe.

So, in a sense, a lot of the development for this first novel was a lot easier because I had characters in 2019 – 2020 and simply thought about what they would be doing 25 years earlier. Despite this, it’s still be a real struggle to get to where I am now.

The learning curve for developing and writing just this first novel has been very, very significant. But I think I’m getting close, at least, to where I want to be. I just need to put up or shut up. I need to wrap the second draft of this first novel up by spring 2023 so I can try to query it as part of the fall 2023 querying season.

What If I’m Right & Big Tech Can Read Our Minds?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t really believe Big Tech can read our minds. I just don’t have any cold, hard evidence I can point to and have someone who is “normal” believe me. The idea that the technology exists — but is somehow being hidden — for technology companies to peer into our minds is just too fantastical for anyone with a “normal” life to take seriously.

So, I’m just daydreaming about this. I like to run scenarios and so I’m just thinking out loud. I’ve done this before, I think, but I feel like doing it again just for fun and to get it out of my system.

The key thing would be who knows that this technology not only exists but is being used in a practical manner for commercial reasons? A subsequent question would be, of course, if Big Tech is monitoring our minds, then what can the NSA? The NSA is often times a few years more advanced in such technology because there is a practical intelligence use for it.

In fact, one reason why I have my doubts about Big Tech being able to read our minds is it would be such a huge, powerful secret. It just doesn’t seem like the type of thing that could be kept a secret. Of course, if you limit your concerns on this issue to just Tik-Tok being able to read your mind, then the possibility such a secret could be kept grows significantly.

What is interesting — an a little disappointing — to me is if Big Tech eased us into the idea that Digital Telepathy existed, then we could get cool shit like $1,200 “mindcaps” that would replace an array of existing media devices. We could, maybe, “watch” TV and movies using our own minds. We could send “mind mail” to each other. Record dreams. All sorts of interesting commercial applications — and abuses — come to mind. Strange Days and Dreamscape are two movies that come to mind that play with such technology and its practical, real world applications.

I suppose the fear — if such technology exists — is that people will freak out and want to storm Silicon Valley so they can burn it to the ground. The idea of “mind rape” being used in regards to Digital Telepathy definitely does enter your mind when thinking about such things.

Anyway, I have no proof. Just a mild unease. Whatever Tik-Tok is doing — if it’s doing anything — seems to be most potent when it comes to things associated with the body. When Tik-Tok pushes you a video that seems to make reference to things about your own fucking body that only you know….that’s enough to weird you out.

And it’s not like when Target started sending pregnancy related stuff to a house of a teenage girl who hadn’t told her folks yet. I’m limiting my concern to only those specific instances when Tik-Tok pushes me a video for something that is very similar to something I’ve thought about really hard and there is absolutely no one or no thing that knows about it besides me.

The issue for me is — either way, there needs to be some regulation. If Digital Telepathy exists, we need regulations and if it’s just an instance of alographtms being really, really good…we need regulations.

Hot Fun In The Thriller

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m really at a loss as to how to write a sex scene. I once read a quote from a novel writing book where some guy said that people in novels have far, far more sex that anyone in real life.

So, I have to get over myself and figure out how to write a sexxy scene so I can stay in the game. Otherwise, I risk essentially writing a YA novel. Ugh. Fucking Ugh. Nothing against YA novels, but that’s not my vision for this project.

With that in mind, I have to mull how to tastefully depict some of my characters getting it on. I’ve already written one half-hearted sex scene, but I think I’m going to go back to it at some point and punch it up some. It has got to be better than it is right now. Right now, it’s kind of meh.

The thing about sex scenes is they drain all the tension out of the story. I’m sure there is some rule of them as to where to put sex scenes in the progression of the plot, but I have no idea what I’m doing so I put this particular sex scene where logically it would make sense.

But I have figured out a way to keep the tension going by the scene I use to break up the few scenes that make up the knocking boots event. I just have to keep thing moving and not let all the tension in the story drain out of it, even for a moment.

The Conundrum That is Writing A Thriller

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The first novel I’m writing, at the moment at least, probably doesn’t fit safely within the “thriller” genre for no other reason than it’s just not dark enough. It’s just not my nature to write about dark, scary things. But I am well aware of the expectations of thriller genre readers.

So, as such, at some point in the process of writing this novel, I’m probably going to have to give significant thought to amping the darkness up significantly. As it stands, I have an interesting, intriguing story that will keep you reading…but I’m not so sure it’s really as dark and twisted as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

It is because of one specific scene in The Girl With Dragon Tattoo — if you’ve read the book, you immediately know which one I’m talking about — that makes it both extremely engaging and extremely problematic. The scene is what gets you hooked for the fate of Lisbeth Salander because you find yourself really caring about her. And, yet, the scene is so horrible, you feel kind of traumatized having been exposed to it in the first place.

What I imagine the heroine of my first novel looks like.

I have a few ideas as to how to am up the twisted, dark nature of this novel, but it’s not going to come easy. People are just too quick to make assumptions about you if you write something too terribly dark and twisted in your novels and people already think I’m bonkers.

It’s going to be a real struggle to flesh out the potentially darker elements of this story. I already been squeamish writing a specific scene which isn’t even all that bad — there’s no sex or gore — but I was kind of nervous that audience members, especially women, might be turned off by the implications of what was going on.

But, lulz, everyone — so far — that I’ve mentioned the scene to were blase. Only time will tell. I do know the general conceit of this six novel writing project is really, really good. But I’m going to have to focus on taking things to the next level by making it clear that I’m writing thrillers.

The Name Game

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lingering concern about the name of woman who will be the center of this six novel project when the last novel is finished. I think a lot about what a great name “Lisbeth Salander” is because her first name is a variation on a pretty traditional name and her last name evokes the image of a small creature that’s quick on its feet: a salamander.

Lisbeth Salander

With that in mind, I have toyed with coming up with a slightly different name for my eventual heroine. That, combined with a minor risk of there being a perceived conflict with someone else’s IP, makes me think again and again if I can do better with a different name.

And, yet, the name I’ve come up inhabits a murky gray zone of IP because there is more than one way to look at it. I really like the name I’ve come up with, really grown very fond of it and I’m going to keep using it until something happens that makes it clear I have to go with something else.

My fear, of course, is everything will be great…then the IP problem will surface because the novel is a success and that will make continuing the rest of the series far more problemlatic.

But, for the moment, I think I’m overthinking things. There just is no reason for me to change the name at the moment and I think if I get anywhere near selling the first novel the issue of kinda sorta getting close to someone else’s IP will be addressed and decided one way or another.

Even though I love the character’s name, I’ll change it at the drop of a hat if it becomes an obstacle. I just hope I’m not too late in the process to easily change it.

My Hot Take On Sydney Sweeney As The New ‘Barbarella’ 

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In a clear sign that the old Hollywood adage, “Nobody knows nothing” when it comes to making movies we learn today that Sydney Sweeney is going to star in a remake of the extremely campy 60s movie Barbarella.

Sydney Sweeney

And, unto itself, there’s no problem with that. I’m sure she’ll do a great job and more than a few young men’s puberty will begin when they see the opening scene of Sydney Sweeney as Barbarella slowly taking all her clothes off in zero G.

My only complaint is not that Sydney Sweeney is starring, but that the obvious choice to play a modern day Barbarella — Miley Cyrus — was not chosen instead. Cyrus looks and acts like 60s Jane Fonda and is definitely as big a wild child as Fonda was in the 1960s.

Or, put another way, Sydney Sweeney just doesn’t jump to mind as someone to play Barbarella the way that Cyrus does.

Anyway. No one listens to me, anyway.