2024 Predictions

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

  1. Biden and / or Trump will have a major health scare in 2024
  2. Biden will be impeached.
  3. It will be Biden v. Trump again.
  4. I have no idea if Trump is going to win re-election or not, but it definitely SEEMS like he will win again.
  5. If Trump loses, he’s going to scream about the need for a National Divorce.

Future Headlines: Blue Meanies & The Taking Of Trump Tower, Day 20

March, 2025
NEW YORK CITY — A radical resistance group calling themselves “the Blue Meanies” continued their occupation of Trump Tower, with no end in sight. The group’s long-term seizure of the NYC landmark was made possible in large part by the support of not just of the population of the city, but the city government.

There continue to be rumblings at City Hall that if the Trump Administration attempted to recapture the tower that a “free state” would be declared. These events happen as the Trump Administration’s long-term viability continues to be questioned.

The U.S. Military has all but halted its operations in major Blue portions of the nation as a Women’s Strike called 48 hours ago has now expanded into a General Strike. Millions of Blues across the United States have simply not gone into work, causing a brutal slowdown in national economic activity.

“This is far worse than what happened briefly during COVID,” Morning Joe economic analyst Steve Rattner said. “We risk a long-term global depression if this continues just a few more days. The economic pressure on the part of the Blue Meanies to do something about the Trump Administration is real.”

All indications point to the Blue Meanies leader Jon Stewart — who has been repeatedly photographed in various comic poses within what was once Donald Trump’s inner sanctum — is at the center of the growing national opposition to the Trump Administration.

“I think we need to take a long, hard look at the 14 Amendment,” Stewart said in a late night press conference deep inside Trump Tower. “It is clear that Trump isn’t even legally president and, as such, can legally be removed from office. In fact, I believe the office of POTUS to be vacant.”

Stewart denied rumors that he expected to be installed as acting president by the U.S. Military if Trump was forcibly removed from office.

“We, and everyone else, just want the Constitutional process to be followed,” Stewart said.

Meanwhile, the president has made it clear that the seizure of his beloved Trump Tower “will not stand.” Given the reluctance of the U.S. Military to follow his orders, he has put out a call for “MAGA shocktroops” to flood Blue areas of the country which are currently resisting his rule.

The governors of several major Red States have called a conference to co-ordinate what their response might be if the goals of the Blue Meanies are met and Trump is deposed.

“Secession is not off the table,” Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tweeted.

The chaos in the United States has not gone unnoticed by the outside world (see related stories). All evidence suggests that the DPRK may invade South Korea at any moment. The rumors that Trump may be using his “special relationship” with Kim Jung Un to start a distraction on the Korean peninsula were vehemently denied by a White House spokesman.

I Have A Great Scifi Concept, But For One Thing…

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The president of Hollywood.

I have a great, great scifi concept rolling around in my head, but there is one problem with it — if I don’t do it right, it might come across as racist. This is ironic, given that the entire point of the concept is to attack, well, racism in modern America.

But it’s one of those things where given how fucked up everything is in America these days, if I’m not careful, the logline might doom the story. But the idea is very intriguing to me because it addresses the biggest problem with all the apocalyptic pandemic fiction that is out there today.

That particular issue is enough of a pet peeve of mine for me to be willing to throw myself into writing a novel that hinges on the specific weakness such pandemic stories typically have.

But who knows. I have a lot on my plate at the moment. And I can be kind of unfocused, so I may just keep doing what I’m doing, which is futzing with the mystery-thriller I’ve been working on for years now.

How To Hard Reboot The Terminator Franchise

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Sarah Connor is right behind you, bub!

Enough time has passed that The Terminator franchise can be hard rebooted. You start from the beginning with a new, young cast. You redo The Terminator only with a significantly bigger budget. And, if you really wanted to go crazy, you might could even use AI to use a “young” Ah-nuld to play the Terminator role again, only in a new, rebooted story.

But should you do this, you make a crucial change to the plot in an effort to surprise audiences — you use the multiverse concept to throw them for a loop. It could be the big secret of the reboot — that when the dude is sent back in time to save Sarah Connor — he doesn’t realize he’s been sent into a DIFFERENT TIMELINE.

How, exactly, this would work in what would be a new, open-ended franchise, I don’t know. But that’s why they pay Hollywood suits the big bucks.

Hollywood Needs To Get Over Itself And Give Us Young Indie Movies Using AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Hollywood is so dumb. It is clear that technology has reached the point where it could simply license Harrison Ford’s image and then churn out Indian Jones movies like Bond movies without having to worry about recasting him or rebooting the franchise with someone like Phoebe Waller-Bridge.

The audience wants Harrison Ford, so why not give him to them?

There is a narrow window of opportunity, however. Soon enough, everyone will have the opportunity to generate their own personalized Indie movie in the comfort of their own home through a digital personal assistant like from the movie Her.

But the point remains — Hollywood is strangely timed about something that is clearly the future. In the future, every major franchise can live forever through AI generated movies.

It’s inevitable.

A Dramatic Decision

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After months of hard work on the first act, I took a scalpel to it and cut a number of chapters off. NOW the first act’s length makes sense. Rather than an enormous 65 scenes, it is at about 24. That number may increase a little bit, but I’m going to try to keep it at no more than 30 because the second act is about 60 scenes.

The upside to this very dramatic turn of events is I know the relationship of my different characters far better than I did. And there’s a lot of backstory I can allude to rather than show.

Of course, I think if I had a wife or a girlfriend who was my “reader” that I wouldn’t have gotten myself into such a dumb situation in the first place. But, I can’t help that I have no friends and no one likes me.

My next task is to totally revamp the beginning of the novel to accommodate the new beginning. There are some basic elements to the beginning of the novel that I am going to have to somehow shoehorn into a beginning that takes place deep into what was once the first act.

But even starting the novel where I do, I still solve a major problem with the previous beginning — people felt too much was being thrown at them. The new beginning has a little bit of lead in to the Big Event that gets the story going. I’m really pleased — at least at the moment — with what I’ve managed to come up with.

I was really sweating it there for a moment. I was afraid that readers were going to have to wade through way too many words to get to the point of the story. I’m a bit annoyed that I spent so much time all these scenes that will now be on the cutting room floor, if you will.

But those are the breaks, I guess when you have no one to help you. There is a chance that some of those scene will ultimately be used. I have a tendency to use scenes I’ve already written here and there when I need something. It’s like object oriented programing.

Huh

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find myself in something of a creative pickle. On one hand, the first act of my mystery-thriller makes total sense. But it’s way too long at over 60 scenes. For it to fit the traditional structure of a novel, the second act would have to be 120 scenes.

That is just not going to happen.

I continue to struggle with different ways I might shorten the first act, but the beginning I have works really well and the overall plot progression is fine. It’s just too long. So, I guess what I’m going to do is just write the entire third draft of the novel and see what happens.

I’ve changed so much of the first act that I may figure out a way to bump up some of the scene count of the second act — just no where near 120. It *might* get up to maybe 80 total scenes, but even that would be pushing it. I still have to leave some room for the third act.

Ugh.

It’s all so frustrating. Everything is working out with the third draft other than the length of the first act. But I have to press forward. Maybe after I’ve finished the third draft, someone can give me some advice as to how to make its first act shorter.

This problem is bringing the issue of a fall back story to the front of my mind. I have three solid scifi novels to choose from. All I have to do is think up some characters and game out a plot for each of them. The universes are very well thought out by this point.

It’s all a bit overwhelming at the moment, but I’ll figure something out.

I always do.

People Are Totally Missing The Point Of The Scenario Found In The Coming A24 Movie, ‘Civil War’


By Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is a lot of discourse online about how the producers of the coming A24 movie, “Civil War” apparently are completely clueless about modern American politics. But, to me, it’s clear they know damn well what they’re doing by coming up with such a weird scenario for a civil war.

Had they decided to do a hyper realistic Blue vs. Red scenario, it would have been a no-win situation. They would have had to have picked a “good” side. Or, really, even if they had been non-judgmental about who was “good” and who was “bad” in the civil war, both sides in real world would have gotten VERY ANGRY at how “objective” the producers were trying to be.

So, the producers of the movie punted and came up with a fictional scenario with no connection at all to the real world. The more I think about it, the more I realize there just was no way for the producers of “Civil War” to give people what they want — a battle royal between Reds and Blues in movie form.

As an aside, I think what we need is a Threads-type movie about a civil war in the United States. Any civil war / revolution in the United States will suck so bad that we’re all going to regret we let it happen, no matter what our politics may be.

The Most Powerful Nation In The World May Be Felled By ‘Vibes’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about modern America is, ostensibly, the country is doing quite well. The economy is doing great. People are taking home more money. In general, we’ve had something akin to peace an prosperity for decades now.

But.

For a lot of people — especially on the Right — the vibes are “off.”

That’s it, they just in general don’t like the vibes. They don’t really have any specific thing that bothers them, other than a general sense that the evil liberals who make the “media narrative” are out to get them. That’s it. That’s all that is bothering them.

In short, a lot of Republicans feel like Blues are mean to them.

As such, they’re willing to latch on to the fascist movement that is MAGA because they want to “make America great again.” And, in general, they can’t event explain that that even means. You try to pin them down as to *when* they want America to go back to and they just stare at you in silence.

The reason this is is they know if they say, well, “X year” then people like me can point to specifically how that year sucked compared to what we have now. So, all they can say is nothing combined with a handwave about how mean liberals won’t let them go off on gay people, or whatever. Pick your scape goat.

It is that sense of the “vibes being off” that is pushing people who should know better into the arms of fascism. These Traditionalists conservatives often cite things like the 2020 COVID lockdowns, and people being “canceled” for being conservative or the “gay agenda,” but in reality, the just don’t like the vibes the country is giving off at the moment.

And it grows more complicated when you factor in how different Red and Blue sees the country. Blues are upset with the corruption and ignorance of Red America, while Red America just, in general, has a spiritual sand wedgie. I suppose you could say that the “bad vibes” that Reds feel come from the general macro trends of the browning of America and women’s increased sexual and economic agency.

Reds want dudes to be on top, butts in church pews and the nuclear family back where everyone gay has the good sense to be in the closet. Some of this, of course, is caused by social media speeding up social change. Some of it is caused by the “bowling alone” trend in American personal life.

But the fact remains — Traditional conservatives feel at a loss about modern America to the point that they would rather give up their democratic birthright to a fascist ding-dong than join forces with the center-Left to stop his tyrannical rule.

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. We have about a year to find out one way or another what is going to happen.

Future Headlines: ‘Saturday Night Dead’

February, 2025:
NEW YORK CITY — A so-called “glorious revolution” began last night when ICE agents interrupted the live broadcast of Saturday Night Live to arrest the show’s executive producer Lorne Michaels for “crimes against the people.” A stunned nation watched in horror as Michaels was cuffed and frog walked out of 30 Rock by armed ICE agents.

“Viva the glorious revolution” Michaels screamed as he left the studio.

Within moments of this scene, a large crowd of New Yorkers assembled in front Fox News studios, The Wall Street Journal and Trump Tower. Things grew violent when ICE agents repeatedly fired upon the crowd. The sheer size of the crowd grew too large for the ICE agents, however and the so-called “Taking of Trump Tower” began (See Sidebar.)

The rest of last night saw unpreceded violence across the nation. Cities ranging from NYC, to LA to Chicago descended into chaos. Reports that the U.S. Military — called into these cities last month upon the invocation of the Insurrection Act by the president — were refusing to fire on protesters or, in some cases, were joining them.

These events take place as the America has been on edge since the Second Trump Administration began last month.

“It was only a matter of time before something happened,” one political analyst told the press early this morning.

All eyes now look towards the U.S. Military. While the general consensus is that the enlisted will support Trump’s efforts to crush Blues, a question lingers over the officer corp.