Tag: Five Eyes

Outline Struggles #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy.

It’s taken about two years, but I finally come up with method of development that works for me — I have an outline that I obsessively update as my July 4th weekend deadline approaches.

The main thing is balance character, plot and, like, uhhh, an investigation? If I can have those three things in equal measure, I’m going to be ok. I have no idea what I’m doing with the police procedural aspect of the story, but I can learn. I can, read, after all.

I talked to an FBI PR guy recently and he helped a huge amount. I’m probably going to give him a shoutout in the Author’s Note. He didn’t like it much when I asked about The Company, though. But that’s a crucial (in a sense) aspect of the story I’m developing. I like flipping the script and it seems it would be fun if, in a James Bond kind of way, The Company and its affiliate spooky eyes were “the Good Guys,” given how much fucking Trump rants about them.

Anyway.

I can feel myself itching to get back to writing. But I have some slack still in my development timeline, so I can hopefully with a rather clear head go through the outline and get myself where I need to be before my deadline.

‘Wind Of Change’ & The Novel I’m Developing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really liked Crooked Media’s podcast “Wind of Change.” But I must confess, I didn’t listen to the last episode because I was so engaged by the mystery that I didn’t want to be let down by finding out a downer truth. (If it was a downer.)

But listening to that podcast has, however influenced the novel I’m developing in the sense that it confirmed my general belief that spooky stuff is a far more human endeavor than you might think. The surreal scenario I’ve come up with for why spooks might be interested in my Heroine isn’t all that surreal, afterall.

Or, put another way, I’m within shouting distance of there being little, if any suspension of disbelief about what happened and why. I first came up with the spooky angle to this concept out of laziness — I had a problem I couldn’t solve without some high tech gadgets.

The rest took care of itself because it helped with the over-arching motive of my heroine.

But I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m doing.

I’m just trying my best, working in a vacuum and seeing how things work out.