Category: From The Editor

It Definitely Seems As Though We’re Careening Towards a ‘Her’ Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though within 18 months, we may very well literally live in the world of the movie “Her,” with the world of “Ex Machina” not being far behind. The issue, of course, is are we ready for both a political crisis and a technological “Petite Singularity” happening at about the same time.

It also makes me wonder if it’s inevitable for MAGA to transition into a neo-Luddite movement. It would make a lot of sense for this to happen because a lot of the people who would be the most disrupted by a sudden lurch into the future would be, well, MAGA people.

I also think that 2024 will be the first presidential cycle whereby a Universal Basic Income becomes a serious policy issue. Of course, to get it, we’re probably going to have to have a 30% VAT and tax the economic activity of non-human actors.

I can’t predict the future. I don’t know what is going to happen. But I am both concerned and intrigued. A part of me believes that much like a WW3 paused a lot of consumer technological development, so, too, will the Fourth Turning / WW3. We may be so busy bombing ourselves into oblivion that we just don’t have the mental energy to do anything with AI.

But once we sort out what post WW3 world order will be, the, yeah, I could see us zooming towards some pretty cool, pretty exotic technological developments.

Contemplating My ‘Hysterical Doom Shit’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that is looming large in my mind is the idea that by framing the future of the United States the way I do, that I’m in, in essence, making it more likely that my fears will come true.

The option that I don’t think about very much is the one advocated by “Mueller, She Wrote.” She posits that lulz, a combination of the weight of the courts and Trump losing all the time politically will somehow “save us” from ourselves. Given that I can’t predict the future, I suppose that’s a real possibilty.

It could be that that is exactly what is going to happen and I’ve been worried over nothing.

Someone on Bluesky went so far as to suggest that by me navel gazing in such a hysterical doom shit way, that I am actually making it MORE LIKELY that my fears will come true.

This has given me pause for thought.

I can’t predict the future. I just don’t know. I really don’t. I’m just extremely uneasy about the next 18 months.

Pondering Why It’s Taken Me So Fucking Long To Write My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Even though I have been in a VERY idyllic situation for writing my first novel, it’s still taken me far, far, far longer than it probably should have. I think some of it comes from I’m doing this in a vacuum and so all I have when it comes to how I want to write this novel is my own sense of storytelling a lot of arcane, arbitrary rules.

The ideal title for my first novel.
It would help a great deal if I had a wife or a girlfriend who could not only be my “reader” but who also might encourage me. As it stands, I have to self-motivated through a combination of anger at how no one takes me seriously and spite.

All of this is complicated by two things.

One, is, of course, my age. Even if I somehow stick the landing with this novel, I will probably be in my mid-50s before I see any sort of concrete success. If I wrote a break out hit novel that changed my life the way I feel I deserve, I will finally be in a position to settle down and have kids….just as all my peers are empty nesters with one eye on retirement.

The other complication is the fucking “Fourth Turning.” It definitely seems as though Something Bad is going to happen to the United States in late 2024, early 2025. What that “Something Bad” might be, I don’t know. But I’m working on the assumption that just as I’m ready to query my first novel in the fall of 2024, there is a good chance that there will be either a revolution or civil war in the United States that will make all of my hard work moot.

But there is also a chance that America will slip peacefully into a MAGA-themed autocracy, which would help me long term, given that the point of this projected six novel series on a macro, subtextual level is me ranting about how much I fucking hate extremism in a general and MAGA specfically.

I can’t predict the future. I have no idea what is going to happen. But I do need to wrap this first novel up soon rather than later.

A Lingering Fascination With The ‘Impossible Scenario’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to dwell on the following thought experiment — if a Galactic Empire was willing to zap a few hundred million people to a new, habitable planet, but you had to rebuild human civilization using only existing technology, how would you do it?

The most obvious solution is you first settle the planet with Americans then gradually bring everyone else from Earth to the new planet in that context. America is a nation of immigrants on an existential basis and so, as such, using it as the basis of a new “universal civilization” makes the most sense. In a way, it makes too much sense because once you zap people to the new planet, most of the macro problems are solved, which makes the story boring.

But the there is a central issue to the story that is the crux of why I continue to dwell on this “impossible scenario” for years and years — if you work on the assumption that a “The Other” sees all humans as equal, then you have all sorts of problems you have to deal with.

Earth isn’t one civilization, but several. Nothing is universal in the global human experience and the moment you decide there will be any sort of cultural standard, you are opening up a huge can of worms that will make everyone angry.

It’s just really, really fascinating to me how The Other would make demands upon humans as a collective that we’re just not prepared to do easily. So, whenever I have a little extra mental exergy — which is often — I return to this “impossible scenario” and weigh different ways it might be solved.

I’ve thought about this story so long that I probably need to think seriously about using it as the basis for some sort of novel.

A Major Revamp Of The First Act Of The Third Draft

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I loved the new first act of the third draft of the novel, it was just too long. So I dwelled a great deal on what to do about the situation and finally came up with a solution. I have totally re-imagined the first act in a way that makes it a lot more manageable.

In fact, it’s at least possible that I may be pretty close to the 100,000 word sweetspot. Or, if nothing else, I’m a lot closer to it than I was.

All of this happens in the context of needed a second creative track. I have three solid scifi concepts that I’m noodling on. But I just continue to drift towards my goal, which is not cool. I need to give my life a lot more structure. I can’t just keep drifting towards a general goal. I need to focus, focus, focus.

But I am pleased with the new direction the novel has taken. I’ve managed to cherry pick all the coolest scenes while whittling down the overall scene count to something that that is a lot closer to my goal. The scene count had ballooned to about 50 scenes, which is just way, way, way too many. Now, I’m under 40, which is much closer.

If nothing else, this new direction in the novel gives me hope. I hope that I will be around 100,000 words and I will still be on track to querying my first novel seriously in late 2024.

That, at least, is the goal. I can’t keep spinning my wheels. I’m definitely in put up or shut up mode at the moment.

A Hot Take On The BlueSky Twitter Clone

by SIhelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally got past the gatekeepers and got access to the BlueSky Twitter clone. It’s fine, I guess, but it’s so full of smug, wealthy Twitter liberal exiles that I find myself feeling extremely insecure about my drunk crank loser life.

The general vibe of BlueSky is a high end cocktail party before the booze kicks in. Everyone is normal and interesting and complains about First World Problems in the a way that is normal and expected. In short, BlueSky evokes the vibe of a mid-1990s WELL.

It’s all rather boring.

And the service is so small that it’s all rather disconcerting. I churn out my usual freaky weirdo content and I’m totally ignored. I guess that’s to be expected. But something about that also grates on my nerves. Something about the smug nattering nabobs of negativism ignoring me plays into my own insecurities about my lot in life.

It evokes a “what does it all mean” sentiment on my part.

This angst reminds me of my long-held belief that if you’re really weird, you will have friends and if you’re “normal” you’ll have friends. But if you’re like me and aspire to be “normal” but act like a freaky weirdo because you have no idea what you’re going, then, well, you’re fucked.

It’s also interesting to me that the very thing that makes the service so popular to its smug, wealthy users is the very thing that makes it a has-been in the Twitter-clone space: a lack of the great unwashed masses.

The want to have their private virtual circle jerk and yet they also want the service to be popular. Wanting these two things is not viable. Anyway. Lulz. No one listens to me.

I’m Starting To Sweat How Creatively Risky This Third Draft of My First Novel Is

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. This novel has gone in a direction I did not expect when I started working on this third draft. The general story is the same, but the there is a lot more character development in the first act. And my heroine is very…unique. She has a very Barry-like professional life in that she both owns an alternative weekly AND a strip club.

I really like this stark dichotomy because there is a lot of conflict that is generated and it is, in general, really weird and I’m a weird person. AND YET, the issue is that while “sex sells,” because of human nature and the needs of marketing, whatever else I might want to say using this novel will be overshadowed by the sex worker element of the story.

As such, I’m feeling a growing pressure to have a second creative track. Even though I think the new, more interesting direction the novel is going in great, I also know that I may be so wrapped up in the writing of this novel that I’m being extremely delusional.

I am a smelly CIS white male, after all. If I was a twentysomething transgendered undocumented person then, lulz, yeah, I probably would be safe in writing about a stripper cum newspaper publisher who solves a small town murder mystery.

But, like I said, fuck it. This is my new vision for this story and I’m willing to endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, come what may. But that doesn’t stop me from realizing I probably need a back up story to pitch in case literary agents think the novel is so bonkers and unbelievable — and maybe even too long — that they will just laugh at me.

Angst For The Memories, Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about being 50 and having the life I have at the moment is even if I manage to pull off any sort of success, it’s just not going to be the “normal” type of success. I’ve wasted way, way, way too much my life grieving over the failure of ROKon Magazine to the point that, lulz, any success I have is going to be surreal.

In other words, as I’ve often said, if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want. Even if I manage to somehow sell my first novel and I blow up with my DJ (novel) money, it’s not like I can just cruise into having the type of life I feel I deserve as a “success.”

The transition from drunk crank loser to “unique” successful old person will be surreal and jarring to the absurd degree. That’s probably one of the abstract things about getting older that people don’t tell you as a young person. Not all ages of your life are the same.

If I manage to write a break out hit novel, I’ll — at best — be in my mid-50s, a time when all my peers will be empty nesters and have one eye on retirement. This engenders no end of angst on my part.

I can’t change how old I am. I can’t change my personal history. Those things are so set in stone and immutable that I really — REALLY — need to manage my expectations. I could literally write a novel as popular as The Girl With Dragon Tattoo and I would still be, in the eyes of the elite, just a drunk bonkers crank.

It’s all very alarming and disconcerting. There’s just nothing I can do at this point to right my life so I have some semblance of a “normal” life. No matter what happens, I’m going to be weird at this point. If I just drift off into nothingness, then I’ve had a rather weird, uneventful life. But if I actually managing to make any sort of success of what time I have left on earth, all anyone will want to talk about is how I’m a success “later in life.”

Ugh.

Casually Mulling WW3

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite novels growing up was Tom Clancy’s Red Storm Rising. The biggest problem I had with it — even as a young man — was the scenario totally glossed over what the domestic reaction to WW3 would be. With that in mind, let’s imagine that the wars going on at the moment fused together and became WW3.

The nation that connects Ukraine and Israel is Russia. If what’s going on between Israel and Hamas escalates, it would be Russia that could potentially link the two wars.

It would go something like this. Hezbollah strikes Israel from the north at the direction of Iran. Things grow so bad that Israel feels an existential threat and the nuke the capital of Hezbollah’s patron, Iran. Once Teheran is rubble, the 75-year old taboo against using nukes would end and Russia might feel emboldened to nuke Ukraine.

Once this happens, it is easy to imagine China going after Taiwan and the DPRK going after the ROK. Throw in India and Pakistan nuking each other while central Africa goes at it and you have WW3.

It makes you wonder if WW3 would be enough to unite the extremely divided United States. I have my doubts. The problems with the United States at the moment are macro and existential. I don’t even think a world war could unite America at this point.

We are very, very fucked.

It’s really just a matter of what bad thing happens.

Anyway, I don’t know if the American press would be able to handle an actual WW3. It would be a very interesting situation, however. Once the initial freak out faded, I think America would probably go back to the same old Blue-Vs-Red political war that we’ve been experiencing for some time now.

One issue would be if the Draft came back or not. That would be something that would catch the attention of the average person to the point that WW3 wouldn’t just be “over there.”

It’s Comical How Few People Take Me Seriously

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For various reasons large and small, in general, no one listens to me and no one takes me seriously. This has been a problem my entire life. But I have proven time and again that I actually do have some worth and I have surprised people by ability.

As such, it will be quite interesting what the reaction will be when I produce a third draft of this mystery-thriller that is actually…really good? There are some obvious existential problems with the novel, but I do believe that soon enough I will be within shouting distance of a novel that a literary agent might take seriously.

Or not. Who knows. I can’t help who I am. I am well aware that I can come across as a drunk crank at times. Ok, I get it. But I also know I’m a hard worker — especially if it’s something I believe in — and I’m also a good enough writer and storyteller that I have a career as a novelist ahead of me if things work out.

But I also know I’m notorious for being delusional. So, lulz. Who knows. I continue to be weary of the the fucking “Fourth Turning” and how everything could collapse starting in late 2024, early 2025.

I know I worry about this possibility way too much. But I continue to be alarmed at where the United States is going these days and it definitely seems as though we may not making it through the 2024 presidential cycle in one piece. But I can’t predict the future, so, maybe, we’ll just punt our problems down the road another four years and I will be able to query my first novel in peace.