This 5 Novel Project Is Massive


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Between now and New Year’s Day, I’m going to try to just distract myself rather than throwing myself back into writing. They say once you finish a first draft, you need to chill out for about a month so when you start working on the second draft, you come at the project with fresh eyes.

This is not going to stop me, however, from bouncing around the other books in the series while I wait to write again. One thing that is going to both be a serious pain in the ass to keep consistent and yet will also really make for a far more compelling character is the use of a foreign language occasionally in certain scenes.

Me, late 2021, working on five novels.

I hope to use this foreign language so much — and so consistently — that I may have to have a small list of the foreign words used at the very beginning of the novel (along with a map or two) so readers won’t get frustrated or confused as to what the fuck is going on. But the use of this foreign language on an incidental basis is crucial to what happens later on in the series.

In fiction, at least, things can’t just randomly happen. You have to lay out your cause and effect in a very clear manner so when some big event happens, it doesn’t blindside your audience. As such, I’m really going to make it absolutely clear that my Heroine –and her son — have a direct connection to another country and culture so when the time comes it will obviously make sense that such a thing would happen.

The fact that I have gone backwards in time to show the audience exactly how we ended up with such a strange little Southern town in novels set in the modern day has really helped a great deal. I’m also digging very, very deep into my personal history to tell these five stories, to the point that if you read them all you will know an embarrassing amount about me on a personal basis.

But they say you have to bleed onto the page to be successful, so keep the faith.

Am I Too Weird To Sell These Four Novels?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. I have four novels I’m working on. But there is a real possibility that no matter how well I write them, when the time comes to try to sell them I will fail because of, well, me. I could be too weird.

At least, that’s my fear.

Ugh.

My fear is that I could achieve my dream of writing four solid thrillers that will appeal to Stieg Larsson readers…and the moment the gatekeepers do due diligence on me, they will walk away because they’ll think I’m just too bonkers.

This is a very annoying prospect, to say the least.

But, I think some of what I’m sensing — at least from the manuscript consultants who keep blowing me off — is for the time being I’m all talk. (Even though I’ve written a huge amount.)

It could be that when I have “paper” to show people, that they will be willing to look past what a kook I am for on other reason than my art is pretty cool. At least, that’s what I hope will happen. I have to think like that, otherwise, ugh.

So I Broke My Right Ankle


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jesus, this sucks. Due to a very freak set of circumstances, I find myself with a broken right ankle. The only bright side to any of this is it’s not like I broke my arm, hand or wrist.

The current state of my right ankle.

I can still write.

And, for the time being, I’m definitely encouraged to write and read because it’s extremely difficult for me to do much of anything else. Just tonight, I’ve managed to prove to myself that I can, in fact, just listen to music and write because if I don’t I grow very, very bored and frustrated.

As such, for the time being, I’m going to spend ever more of my waking time working on these four novels. Though, I will admit, my current run-in with the medical system has me again thinking about a novel or screenplay I have rolling around my mind that is pandemic relatedly in its theme.

But, for the time being, I’m just going to focus on these four thrillers I’ve been working on while dabbling in the screenplay concept I’ve discovered I work to work on as well.

Anyway, wish me luck.