Things Are Beginning To Lurch Forward With My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There has been a subtle change in the momentum of this first novel in just the last few days. Things are beginning to speed up. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel with this first novel and soon, after about a month, I’m going to sit down and rewrite the whole thing to produce the Beta Draft.

I’m so excited. And I just can’t hide it.

Things should go a lot faster now because when I write the second draft, I can simply go through the outline for the first draft (with a few modifications) and, as such, I won’t spend so much fucking time moving scenes around so there is an ebb and flow to the scenes.

I have really, really arbitrary rules about some structural elements of the novel and I think that is a representation of “first baby syndrome.” Once I begin work on the SECOND novel, I think I won’t be so tense and strict in my weird arbitrary rules.

At least I hope not.

I’m generally not one for rules, but I was trained as a journalist and it was comforting to have a very strict structure to follow when writing a story. It’s the same way with how I structure novels. I have these rules that I follow so I don’t end up with a 1,000 page mess that goes nowhere.

In that respect, I’m a very strict, very extensive “plotter.” I like to have absolute control over my not just the plot but my characters because I know the story so well that I don’t have any wiggle room, no risk that I’ll go off on some dumb, boring tangent that nobody wants to read.

Anyway, I’m pretty pumped about how things are going. I hope to push myself harder so I can wrap up this first draft in a few weeks. That will be pretty cool.

On The Issue Of Dialogue

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For this first draft of my first novel, I’ve lulzed worrying about the finer points of dialogue. I just go with my gut and write something, anything to so I can wrap up a solid first draft.

My literary hero.

But once I finally get around to the second draft, I’m really going to be a lot more careful about the technical elements of dialogue in the sense that I need to make all the characters sound different as well as make what and how they talk engaging.

I have a number of books that I’ve been reading on the subject, but, to date, I really haven’t found them all that helpful. Pretty much all they say is, “Nobody knows nothing — just study people and play it by ear.”

But there are things you can do, I suppose, to improve your dialogue. And, as part of the general process of taking things to the next level between the first and second draft, I’m going to be a lot more careful about the dialogue I write.

I have the basic framework of a really, really good pop novel. I just need to put on my big boy pants and take things a lot more seriously going forward once I start working on the second draft early next year (at least, according the way things are going at the moment.)

Anyway. Wish me luck.

Is America Set To Become The Fourth Reich Beginning In 2024 – 2025?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I can not predict the future. In fact, I’m almost always, always wrong. But I am growing more and more alarmed by the demostrable instability in the United States as we careen into the 2024 presidential campaign.

The idea that malignant ding-dong Trump is warming to the siren call of antisemitism in the guise of incel MAGA superfan Nick Fuentes is definitely a “Not great, Bob” moment in modern American politics. That Trump — who has a Jewish daughter he loves so bad that he apparently wants to marry her if he could — would listen to an antisemite like Fuentes is both alarming and perplexing.

It’s a real head scratcher, that.

But it does align with my personal belief that we all way, way overestimate Trump’s abstract cognitive abilities. He is nothing more than a malignant Chancy Gardner from Being There. That’s it — he’s dumb, lazy and pretty much what you see is what you get.

His political acumen is nothing more than a grunt. All of this hidden, of course, because he doesn’t have to do anything but play himself and the bonkers racist misogynistic white Christian hordes will continue to support him because he’s nothing more than a vessel, an avatar for their rage against the browning of America.

He’s not a Great Man of history because he just rides the wave of history, he doesn’t direct it like, say, someone like Hitler might. If Trump was a Great Man, he would be cruising into his third term at the moment, consolidating power ever more tightly along the way.

But, as it is, Trump is kind of limping along, listening to antisemites and ranting about how the “woke cancel culture mob” is out to get him and all other God fearing people. Ugh.

I simply can not figure out if Trump’s historical and political purpose is to simply be a transitional figure that guides America in to fascist autocracy or if he’s supposed to be the reason, unto himself, that we have a Second American Civil War.

It really could go either way.

At the moment, I still lean towards the peaceful establishment of an American Fourth Reich. There will be a lot of grumbling on Twitter — if it still exists at that point — about various Blue states leaving the Union…but in the end, Blue states just don’t have it in them. They’ll bend a knee to autocratic, antisemitic MAGA fascism and at least 1 million wealthy liberals will “vote with their feet” the moment we realize after Election Day 2024 what’s about to happen.

I say this believing that the CONDITIONS exist for a full-fledged National Divorce and, as such, Second American Civil War. That would, of course, prompt a Third World War and the DPRK probably lobing a few H-bombs in the direction of the United States as well.

I know — I KNOW — that sounds hysterical at the moment, but I’m just using existing trends and extrapolating them to their logical conclusion around 2024 – 2025.

Anyway, I suppose something could happen to at least punt all this down the road a little bit, maybe yet another POTUS election cycle. I have a novel I’d like to sell and see on the shelves, so I definitely have a vested interest in their NOT being a 2ACW.

I’m Growing Alarmed By The Conspicuous Rise of Autocratic Antisemitic MAGA Fascism In America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about all the alarming shit going on in the United States right now is it’s happening in broad daylight. We are all being very naïve if we think that it Can’t Happen Here.

Because it can.

After a final death rattle, it’s very possible that at some point after 2024, when we have our next Republican president, the United States is going to transition into an MAGA fascist autocratic state. What’s worse, there’s a real chance that we won’t settle somewhere around Turkey or Hungary but rather go further down the fascist spectrum to Russia or Nazi Germany.

And here’s where things really get dark.

Given the size and diversity of America’ population, if things really got bad, the size of the number of people that our new fascist overlords would go after is awe inspiring. We’re talking at least 40 million people might be at risk of “elimination” by the MAGA fascists if they really decided to get into it.

Throw in that WW3 would likely happen and maybe a few DPRK H-bombs being lobbed our way and it would be a massive clusterfuck. Or, put another way, once the process of Nazification of America began, who knows where it would end or how many people would die?

All of this is happening in a very conspicuous manner. We’re watching the rise of fascist MAGA antisemitism right before our eyes — as the growing coterie of antisemites who seem to hang out with Trump at the moment.

There are no easy answers. I can’t predict the future. But I would suggest you start to figure out what you believe in and what you are willing to risk your life and scared honor for in the real world. No more just getting mad on Twitter. We all may face astonishing trials and tribulations in the real world once the United States turns into a fascist MAGA state.

The other option being, of course, a civil war, which isn’t so great either.

This Novel Project Has A Dollop Of Speculative Fiction To It

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the reasons why I’m feel pretty good about this novel series is I’ve finally — finally got it through my thick skull that your protagonist can not, should not be in any way passive. As such, I’ve figured out a way that a novel scifi / speculative fiction element of this project can be a real integral part of the plot because we see its use through the eyes of our Amerasian heroine.

Even though I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend to be a “reader” to tell me I’m full of shit in this regard, I do think the speculative fiction part of the story makes it a bit more interesting, a bit more spicy than it might be otherwise. This particular plot point is found in another series of novels, but it’s used in a magical mystery way, while my use of the trope is set very much in speculative fiction.

I hope there isn’t too much comparison between the two uses of this little bit of scifi / fantasy. I suppose it’s inevitable that it will be. But there’s nothing new under the sun as they say. But anyway, as I’ve said before, the framework, at least, is there for a pretty good pop novel.

A lot of what happens next is out of my hands. I need a lot of luck. I need to strike the zeitgeist in just the right way in about a year. The idea that anyone with a traditional career would take my little dream seriously is kind of deep. It would be one of the greatest — if not THE greatest — event of my life to date if I managed to get an actual normal person to take my novel seriously enough that they would be my literary agent.

I’m still concerned that, of course, if they do due diligence on me they’re going to think I’m completely bonkers. Which, maybe I am. But I make no apologies for who I am. I’m an eccentric. I get drunk and rant on this blog — and on Twitter — sometimes.

But as the late Annie Shapiro said of me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

‘Closing Time:’ The Struggle With The Third Act & Mulling Querying In Fall 2023

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’ve finally nailed down a solid outline of the first draft of my first novel. I’ve completed writing everything but the third act. My biggest lingering problem at the moment is what to do after the climax of the story.

I need to wrap everything up while also leaving people wanting more. I just remember when I read IT by Stephen King that I felt the ending seemed rushed and I want to avoid that. And, yet, I’m only willing to give myself two chapters after the climax.

Anything more than that and the story is going to not only drag but also, well, be even longer than it already is. I’m going to come in at about 140,000 words it seems, which is 40,000 too many.

But the second draft I’m going to go through and slice and rework as much of the outline as I can to whittle down that word count to something a lot closer to the sweat spot of 100,000 words. If I can get the second draft down to something around 100,000 words I’m going to be very pleased.

At the moment, at least, there don’t seem to be any existential problems that I might face in the transition from first draft to second draft. Really, the biggest issue I see at the moment is how I’m going to afford to get an editor to look over the second draft so I can make it more professional before I query in fall 2023.

I’m still smarting at how much delay there will be between when I start querying and when the damn novel might actually hit shelves. It could be fucking years and I’m not getting any younger.

But that’s the path I chose when I decided to go through the gatekeepers to get published in a traditional manner.

I’m pretty stoked at what I’ve come up with, though. The framework is there for a really solid pop novel. A lot now is going to depend on luck, the beta reader process and any editor I might be able to wrangle at some point to look at the novel before I query.

Lurching into the querying process is both exhilarating and very alarming. It’s going to be a lot of stress but it’s better to burn out than fade away as they say.

Taking The Prospect of ‘Speaker Trump’ Seriously

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You hear a lot of chatter about this or that thing on Twitter a lot of times, so the idea that the “votes aren’t there” for Kevin McCarthy to become Speaker should probably be taken with a grain of salt. As I’ve written before, I think in the end, there might be a bit of a kerfuffle but ultimately McCarthy becomes speaker and proceeds to impeach a lot of people inside the Biden Administration.

But let’s waste some time and really think about the prospect of Trump becoming Speaker of the House.

The first thing to remember is just because a bunch of people fear Trump might do it, doesn’t mean he has the abstract cognitive ability to actually do such a thing. Trump is dumb and simple. His political instincts are extremely simple. They’re a grunt generated by whatever out of the bowels of the Far Right.

So, while yes, it would make a light of nightmarish sense for Trump to swoop in and become Speaker if McCarthy can’t summon the votes at the required time….I really have a lot of doubts he would do it. Or even that his poor peabrain could even comprehend the strategy necessary to pull it off.

Now, let’s get to the issue of if Trump could actually BE Speaker. Apparently, the idea of a non-member being Speaker of the House is one of those things where because the Constitution doesn’t say it can’t happen…it could very well happen. There is no specific exclusion as to someone who isn’t a House member being speaker.

The more ominous interpretation of this situation is when shit like Trump becoming Speaker happens…it’s a death rattle for the traditional norms associated with our Constitutional (Democratic) Republic. Trump fucking with the Constitution by doing something that isn’t expressly forbidden is very much something a far more astute autocrat might attempt.

But Trump, like I said, is a moron with a peabrain so…the idea that Trump could do even such a basic autocratic play is very, very debatable.

So, what if Trump did become Speaker, if only for 100 days as Steve Bannon has suggested. Then what?

Well, it would be a complete and total shitshow, not seen since the worst days of Trumplandia. I could see Trump having one specific purpose for being Speaker — impeaching Biden and Harris. I could further see him — if he somehow could manage the mental energy to think like this — ranting about how Texas and other Red States should leave the Union if the Senate didn’t impeach Biden and Harris so he could become POTUS again early.

Such a scenario is both hysterical, fantastical AND possible. It’s easy to imagine Trump using secession of Red States as just a one-off rhetorical flourish and before you know it Texas has one foot out the Union.

I just don’t see any of this happening. It might be interesting in the House for a few hours as McCarthy struggles to get the 218 votes he needs…but he’ll ultimately get them. God help us all if he doesn’t a Trump manages to become Speaker.

Here are some of the people who might get impeached by the Republican House, no matter who is Speaker.

President Biden
It’s pretty clear to me that a Republican House will be so full of spite and rage and bloodlust for revenge that it’s very possible they may accidently on purpose impeach Biden for no apparent reason in the early days of 2023. It will be so transparent as to what is going on that House Republicans are going to do severe political damage to themselves. But it won’t matter — that political damage would only matter if we were a functioning democracy. But we’re no longer a functioning democracy, we’re in between autocracy and democracy — in other words, an “anocracy.”

There are at least two reasons why Biden will be impeached. One is, of course, his wastrel son Hunter Biden. The other is the “border crisis.” The big issue is will these be two seperate impeachments so Democrats will not longer have Trump being impeached twice as a talking point, or if these two issues will be fused together into one event.

At the moment, I honestly don’t know. There’s always a chance that MAGA Republicans will impeach Biden THREE times, for two reasons. They both scream at the top of their lungs that Biden is the only president to be impeached three times and at the same time they can, expo facto say it’s no big deal that Trump was impeached twice.

Veep Harris
I have no idea why House Republicans will impeach Harris, but they’ll think of something. Just the idea that they could somehow impeach and convict Biden and Harris in quick succession is enough to give them all a boner and they have no self control so they’re going to do it at some point between 2023 and 2025.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas
As I understand it, there’s already a move afoot by House Republicans to hit the ground running impeaching Mayorkas for his handling of the “border crisis.” So, there’s every reason to believe that he’s going to be impeached at some point between 2023 and 2025.

HHS Secretary Becerra 
This is a bit more speculative, but I could see that once the impeachment counter-revolution gets going that House Republicans will set their sights on Becerra for something connected to “gender affirming” care of minors. That seems like just the type of culture war edge issue that MAGA House Republicans would want to wallow in for a few months to prove a point. I could also see a potential impeachment article surrounding the Biden Administration’s handling of COVID — even though it was Trump who fucked that particular situation up. Who cares about facts when you have lies?

Education Secretary Cardona
This is also rather speculative, but once the monster of impeachment is unleashed, House Republicans may go after Cordona on the nebulous charge of encouraging “critical race theory” in schools — even if this is total bullshit. They just want to be able to hold hearings where they rant about CRT for hours on end. It will juice the base while “owning” the libs.

FBI Director Wray
If this happens, it will be a prime example of how wrapped up in their own bullshit MAGA House Republicans will be once they have power. Wray is ON THEIR SIDE and they will still come after him because something something Deep State.

Attorney General Garland
This is obvious — MAGA Republicans are so blinded by their anger over the Mar-a-Lago raid that they want to impeach Garland for approving it, despite it being totally justified given what Trump did.

There could be a few Federal judges that spark MAGA ire that will be impeached as well.

‘Event Horizon:’ My Dream of Publishing My First Novel The Traditional Method in The Context of a Potential Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m just about to leave the delusional phase of developing and writing a novel and am about to start thinking a lot more clear eyes about getting published traditionally, I’m having to face a lot of cold hard facts. One of those cold, hard facts is for all of my talk about how I think we MIGHT have a civil war, I’m living my life as if we’re probably going to slip into autocracy.

If I honestly thought we were having a civil war in late 2024, early 2025, I probably would be working towards something other than selling my first novel. I say this because even if I stick the landing and sell my first novel in, say, 2024, usually a novel’s post-production is a year….which would cause my novel to be coming out just about when we’re all going to be trying to avoid dying in a civil war.

So, for all my hysterical doom and gloom about a civil war, I don’t really think one is going to happen. I really want to go full speed ahead with this novel and so I have to wilfully ignore all the signs that the United States may collapse into anarchy before the damn thing can hit bookshelves.

I can’t predict the future and all my attempts to predict the future are just my gut reaction to macro trends. At the moment, we’re still too far out for me to be able to game out if we’re going to have a civil war, transition peacefully into an autocracy or live under a military junta. I just don’t know.

All I do know is we can’t keep punting our problems down the road. I suppose, if I’m lucky, that might be want happens. I stick the landing with this first novel, I sell it and it comes out at some point 2025….all while we magically punt the existential crisis we face down the road four more years.

That’s the best case scenario relative to me and these six novels I’m working on. I’m not getting any younger, though, which sucks. I’ll be in my mid-50s, probably, before I really get to enjoy the fruits of all my hard work if things really go as well as I hope. All my peers will be checking their watches, thinking about retirement and I’ll be like, “Let’s rock n roll!”

A Novel Project Milestone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just today, I reached a milestone — a very viable and complete outline of a first draft of my first novel. It’s probably going to be in the 130,000 – 140,000 word range, but still. It’s at least something that’s strong enough that I can turn around and rewrite it so I can start entertaining Beta Readers in late spring 2023. This is happening in the context of having finished the writing of all but the third act of this first draft.

Obviously a huge amount could still go wrong. Or the context could change. But I’m feeling pretty good at the moment, at least. There is rhythm, and ebb and a flow to this first draft and I can really build on. I need to do a massive amount of reading, of course, if I’m going to take this thing to the next level.

I really need to flesh out some of my characters, if nothing else.

And given that this first draft is going to be too long, I’m going to have to think about how to pare back the word count some. I’m going to try — try — to get it down to as close to 100,000 words as possible for the second draft. I really don’t want to have to pay an editor to do that type of dirty work for me.

Though, to be fair, I continue to do all of this in a vacuum and I continue to flail around, not knowing exactly what the fuck I’m doing. But that’s getting better. The learning curve isn’t as bad as it has been over the years.

I can now turn my attention (some) to the other novels in the series. Though I think I may have to pay someone to talk to me about how to flesh out the second novel. It’s got a great conceit — an abducted baby — but, well, that’s pretty much all I got. But I do have a lot of established characters and an extensive canon to work with to do just that.

But it’s times like these when I sigh a huge sigh of relief. I don’t feel like I’m drifting through space, without any frame of reference with this novel project. Now I feel centered — I can now sit down and finish writing third act, which, would also mean I had finished the first draft.

Then I do a lot of reading, daydreaming and development on the other novels in the series — and begin writing the second draft so I can begin the Beta Reader process in around April – May.

That, at least, is the dream, the goal at the moment.

Mr. Smith Goes To Trumplandia

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The amount of liberal adoration that Bob Mueller got during his ill-fated investigation into Trump is embarrassing in hindsight. We were all so wrapped up in the post Watergate narrative that was solidified by Whitewater and Ken Starr that we were completely and totally oblivious to what was really going on.

Special Counsel Jack Smith

In a sense, the Mueller investigation was the best thing that could have happened to Trump because liberals were able to channel their alarm over Trumplandia into the idea that at any moment it would be “Mueller Time.”

It wasn’t until that was all over that we had to sit up and take notice as to how fucked we are. Trump was and is totally and completely above the law. He is so above the law that now that we have ANOTHER Special Counsel, we all in something of a clusterfuck.

The reason is — if Jack Smith is who we thought Bob Mueller was and indicts Trump, the “fun” has just begun. Any criminal accountability for Trump will only make the MAGA base cling to him tighter. Trump wins the nomination and, if need be, steals the 2024 election in such a brazen manner that he forces Blue States to decide, on an existential basis, if they’re going to be a knee to autocratic fascist MAGA or not.

So, in a sense, all paths in Jack Smith’s Choose Your Own Adventure future leads to Trump pretty much single-handedly either transitioning the United States into a Russia-style autocracy or causing a civil war. It’s a very damned-if-you-d0-damned-if-you-don’t situation. I suppose you could say that if Smith slow walks any indictment of Trump then there’s a chance that DeSantis might at least cause our transition into autocratic MAGA fascism to be peaceful.

That’s a very “Not great Bob,” situation all around.

I suppose the point is — as long is Trump is around, America is fucked. Or, put another way, as long as he’s around the risk of civil war is greater than it might be otherwise. We’re still fucked – and might still have a civil war with or without Trump — but even though he’s not a Great Man, he is still able to cause a lot problems. He is a chaos agent caused by the browning of America combined with GenZ’s changing views on gender and accountability. Throw in the Soft Singularity of social media….and, oh boy. Man, are we fucked.

There are just no simple answers as to what to do about Trump. Barring aliens landing on the White House front lawn, Republicans are going to win the 2024 election and we will face the choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta. We can’t just keep punting all of our problems down the road anymore. Things are going to come to a head in 2024 – 2025 one way or another.

So, in a sense, I think Smith should just go ahead and indict Trump and let the chips fall where they may. At least he would go down fighting. It’s better to metaphorically die on your feet than live on your knees a slave.