It’s Clear That The United States Is Lurching Towards A White Christian Ethnostate The Moment Any Republican Becomes POTUS

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re doomed. We’re fucking doomed. The Republican Party is now a fascist one with one agenda and one agenda only — to establish the United States as an autocratic, MAGA-themed white Christian ethnostate.

The key thing to remember is that we can only punt this particular problem down the road so much. Even if we “vote harder” and beat Trump at the polls, the Republican Party is so fascist and radicalized that it’s inevitable that the pressure to transform the US into an autocratic white Christian ethnostate will remain.

So, if it’s not 2025 that we turn into an Christian autocracy, it will be 2029.

As such, there is a part of me — not a very big part — that feels like throwing down the gauntlet NOW so at least if we are going to have a big political / military fight over the choice of autocracy or freedom at least ding-dong Trump will be in charge of the fucking fascists, not someone with any sense about them.

But I only think that when I get really fucking frustrated with the chipper do-gooders who think that if we only “vote harder” that that will fix everything. But it won’t. There’s a good chance that even if the “vote harder” strategy works that Trump will demand a National Divorce to avoid prison time.

Or, put another way — the issue is, that barring some sort of Black Swan event pretty soon, late 2024, early 2025 could see some of the most dramatic events in American — if not human — history. I can’t predict the future. Who knows.

Is Tyler Perry The Canary In The Hollywood AI Coalmine?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As someone who fancies himself something of a “creator” — more specifically, an aspiring novelist — I have to blanch at the news that Tyler Perry has decided to shelve an $800 million investment because of the advent of technology like Sora.

It definitely seems as though This Is It.

It seems possible that we’re about to swerve into a totally unexpected future where our Her-like Personal Digital Assistant, on the fly, shoots out a personalized move in an ad hoc manner because it knows you so well that you don’t even have to tell it what you want to watch at any particular moment.

Things like “writing a novel” will be replaced by someone feeding a few lines of prompt into some future AI and that, as they say, will be that. But I do think I have a little bit of a window of opportunity.

A lot can still go wrong, but a lot can still go right. I just have to press forward. I have to believe in myself. And, if the absolute worst happens, then I can least use the writing and storytelling skills I’ve built since I starting working on this novel to work on something even better.

That’s the current delusional that allows me to get to sleep.

Hard Deadline For Wrapping Up The Third Draft of My First Novel: July 22, 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I first arrived in South Korea around July 22, 2004. So, if I can return to South Korea for a few weeks in honor of that event, I can at least be content that I’ve finished the third draft of my novel. I hope to finish the third draft of my mystery-thriller a lot sooner than that, but lulz, I want some slack in the chronology in case things don’t work out.

Me in 2004 with my students.

So, July 22, it is.

That will give me some time to find the money to pay a manuscript consultant to look over the draft and then start querying in either late 2024, or early 2025. Then, of course, I could find my self languishing for y e a r s in the querying process. If that is the case, I’m going to piviot to working on another novel while all that is going on.

Of course, AI could make all my hard work over the years moot as could the fucking Fourth Turning. But, who knows. I just have to believe, you know. I have a really good story and I just have to focus and trying to finish the damn thing before I either die like Stieg Larsson or World War 3 happens. (Or AI simply makes humans writing novels comically quaint.)

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

But, who knows. You just have to believe.

Watching House Of Cards 10 Years After Everyone Else Has Been Eye Opening From A Storytelling Perspective

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

They say if you have time to write you have time to read — or watch. And, now, 10 years after everyone has finished watching House of Cards, I’ve finally gotten around to watching it. And one thing is clear — I really need to up my game when it comes to my villain(s).

House of Cards

I don’t really show my villains that much and I really need to give their scenes more thought. I need to squeeze their hate out of them as much as possible while they’re on the screen — or page. The audience of the type of genre I’m working with — mystery-thriller — expects a lot more hate and nastiness form their villains than I’m showing them at the moment.

As such, I’m going to keep watching House of Cards and mentally take notes as to how to SHOW how hateful the evil people in the story are. I think some of it is just the natural transition from second draft to third draft. My storytelling ability is getting better and, as such, I’m feeling something of a learning curve that is going to slow me down some.

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

But I can’t slow down. I have to press forward. I’ve given myself a hard deadline of about July 22 to wrap up the third draft of this novel. That will be the 20th anniversary of my first trip to Asia. I want to be able to think to myself, at least, that I’ve written a mystery-thriller that I can be proud of, even if I then will have to piviot to querying.

So, that’s the goal — a finished third draft of my first novel by July 22, 2024.

What The Fuck Is Going On With Alexander Smirnov?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The entire point of the impeachment “investigation” into President Biden has simply make sure that when low information voters go to the polls in November they will THINK that Trump and Biden are equal on that front, even though they obviously won’t be.

And I think, in the end, if Biden is impeached, it’s probably going to be for some random minor scandal that pops up out of the blue that would otherwise be a lulz but for how the country is teetering on revolution / civil war.

But something very curious is going on at the moment with the “star witness” of the ding-dong House Republicans. Alexander Smirnov is clearly a Russian FSU operative and there is an air of mystery swirling around him that is unnerving.


What’s going on?

Is it possible that a real bombshell is about to drop, which is that House Republicans KNEW what they were doing and they were actually willfully aiding the disinformation objectives of a foreign power?

I have serious doubts that this is the case. But there is a weird vibe about the whole situation with a MAGA judge letting the guy go, then Smirnov being re-arrested today, presumably because he’s a flight risk.

The key thing to remember is – we are completley and totally fucked because about 38% of the electorate hates democracy because they hate women, minorities and the modern world so much that they would rather be a white Christian ethnostate than have to figure out someone’s pronouns.

And, in the end, I fear that we’re either going to turn “all Red” with a MAGA-themed autocracy, or we’re going to have a Blue revolution then a civil war. Fun times!

But I can’t predict the future. Who knows what is going to happen.

Megan Fox, Your Faux Sleeve Tattoo Is Making Me Nervous About My Novel & Its Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Megan Fox is something of a sex kitten bomb shell. She came out with what I suspect is a faux sleeve tattoo recently. Now, usually, this would generate nothing more than a meh from me, but the heroine of my novel has a similar tattoo so now I’m stressing out a little bit.

Megan Fox with a (probably) faux sleeve tattoo similar to the one the heroine of my mystery-thriller novel has.

My fear is that either sleeve tattoos will suddenly have “a moment” in pop culture and people will think I’m being a hack, or everyone wills say, “Oh, so just like Megan Fox.”

Ugh. This won’t at all be the case — I came up with this character element for my heroine totally independent and well before what is going on with sleeve tattoos at the moment.

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

Anyway, I’m probably way overthinking things. But all of this does remind me that I need to hurry up! I need to get this novel done ASAP. I’ve been drifting towards my goal for way too long. It’s crunch time and I need to get this thing done so I can maybe get a paid editor to look at it — ha, I’m too broke — and then begin to query it seriously in late 2024, early 2025.

Of course, even if I stick the landing, it could be five years before I’m a published author. I hate being old.

The Third Draft Of My First Novel May Be Too Long

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All systems are go with this third draft, but for one thing — the first half of the novel may just be too long. If you just count scenes, it’s possible that I will be coming in at about 160,000 total words for the entire story and that’s just way, way, too long — that’s a Stieg Larsson length novel.

Stieg Larsson novels, like The Girl With Dragon Tattoo are known to be a bit long.

This will be my first novel and I’m shooting for about, at most 140,000 words. And, really, it should be 100,000 words. I just don’t know what I’m going to do. I have been working on this novel for way, way, way too long and it’s time to wrap things up.

I have three major fears going forward with this novel — someone will steal a creative march on me, AI will render all human art moot and The Fourth Turning will cause the collapse of civilization. Those possibilities are making me feel rather nervous and prompting me to move forward as fast as possible.

But, in a sense, because all of those fear are out of my control, all I can do is just sprint. For personal reasons, I’m going to put a little bit of a pause on writing until this Saturday afternoon and I hope to use the free time to think a lot and to cool down creatively — I was running hot a little bit.

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

I think once this little pause is over that I will move a lot faster. I do, however, have to accept that I probably need a backup plan. I need a back up novel that I can develop and write in case something out of my control happens and makes the main novel moot.

Hopefully, of course, that won’t happen.

Everything Is So Dumb (AI Generated Art Edition)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, I get that people are upset that AI generated art won’t give them historically accurate depictions — but for one thing: fucking Nazis.


Do we really want a future where members of the Patriot Front can pump out millions of images to use as Nazi propaganda? Are Tech Bros really so willfully oblivious that they don’t see the harm in something like that happening? Some of them have gotten really, really worked up about there being ANY guardrails for AI.

It really kind of blows my mind.

Anyway, fuck that, fuck them and fuck Nazis.

The Final Countdown (For The First Act Of The Third Draft)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As far as the first act of the novel goes, I’m just about to the point where there — hopefully – won’t be too much change on a structural basis. As such, that will really aid in editing and writing the rest of it out.

My novel is meant to be a homage to Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Once I reach the second act, then things will slow down again because even though I know, in general terms, what the story is, I’m far from locking things down. But the general “Fun & Games” part of story — the first half of the second act — is, in general terms pretty stabilized.

One structural problem I have is the first half of the novel may be significantly longer than the second half. I don’t quite know what to do about that. And I’ve had at least one Reader suggest that my chapters are too long. While I understand where the person is coming from, they were the only person to complain about the length of the first chapter and Stieg Larsson’s chapters were about the same length — if not longer — than what I showed them.

And, really, shit to do with chapters is something that can be figured out in post-sale, post-production.

I just need to get the story done. And the word count is something I really worry about at the moment. I hope that I can come in at no more than 140,000 words — the length of The Girl on The Train — but I fear it will be closer to 160,000 words, which would be about the length of a Larsson novel.

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

But, in general, I’m very pleased with what I’ve come up with. One concern is how much sexxy time there is in the first act, so I’ve decided to embrace the issue by suggesting my heroine is a sex addict. So, rather than, being coy about that particular element of the story, I hope readers will simply accept — “Oh, ok, I should accept a lot of sex in this novel.”

The whole second half of this novel is in a great deal of flux. Especially in regards to the third act — I have only the vaguest idea of what is going to happen.

But, in general, things are moving a lot faster than they have been. I have to admit that I’m kind of embarrassed by how fucking long it’s taken me to get to this point. But, I’ve been doing all of this in a vacuum and that slowed me down a great deal.

It Definitely *Seems* Like We’re Doomed As Of Late February 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I can’t predict the future — no one can. But boy, oh boy, does it seem like we’re careening towards a very, very dark future. Because of various demographic and economic trends that are warping our political system, it seems as though we’re either going to turn into a MAGA-themed Russian autocracy in 2025, or we’re going to collapse into civil war / revolution starting in late 2024, early 2025.

In short — we’re fuuuuuuuucked.

And all because of vibes. The greatest nation in the world is going to either give up its democratic birthright or collapse into anarchy…because of vibes. Now, obviously, those “vibes” are being generated by a number of more serious issues — racism and misogyny being at the top of the list.

But there just doesn’t seem like there’s much we can do. Even if we defeat Trump, he could very well demand a National Divorce to stop himself from going to prison. And Biden is so old that….ugh. I just don’t want to think about some of the crazier, darker potential scenarios.

And let me remind you — it could be that somehow, someway we’ll muddle through our problems and somehow Trump will both lose and not start a civil war. Some Black Swan event could happen that make all my dystopian hellscape scenarios moot.

So, who knows.

But now, as of late February 2024 — we’re fucked.