Tag: woke cancel culture mob

Existential Angst & Daydreaming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Meh. I don’t want to do anything today. And, yet, I can’t just keep this up forever. I have to sit down and both read up on querying and start development on a new novel.

I really have to accept that while I may not make a fool out of myself with the novel I’ve finished, I have to understand what it is. It’s just the pathfinder for another attempt with a better novel to query — probably in about a year.

I still like the novel I’ve finished, even if it apparently sucks. It think it’s a nice, easy and accessible read. What it obviously needs is an editor. But I just can’t afford that right now, so I have to take a swing at querying with what I have.

I continue to feel a little uneasy about what the liberal white women who make up up the majority of literary agents will think of me — especially once they read this blog as part of due diligence. They’re probably going to think I’m nuts.

Anyway. It’s kind of too late now. I have to accept that a third party is probably going to see me as a fucking weirdo. But, as the late Annie Shapiro once quipped about me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

And if that’s the worst someone who knows me can say about me, then I think that’s ok.

July 8: Buckle Down

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I got some preliminary feedback from one of the readers of my novel and it left me excited because it wasn’t just “it sucked.” And the idea that someone would actually finish a novel I’ve written has also gotten me a little excited.

So, today, I hope to sit down and read up on how to query. I think that’s what I need to do so I can focus on getting my head in the right mindspace to do such a thing.

I am under no illusions — I am well aware as to how unlikely it is that I will successfully query this novel. And, yet, that’s not really the point. The point is to see how far I can get with the process so I can get even farther the next go round.

But I am also well aware that I’m not getting any younger. Even if I stick the landing with this novel and it is sold, I could be closer to 60 by the time it hits bookshelves.

Anyway, I guess I’m still looking for beta readers. I still have some slack in my chronology of events before I query.

July 6th: No More Navel Gazing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Today, I’m determined to be productive in some way. I’ve been daydreaming for way, way too long. I’m going to start to move towards querying and I’m going to read / watch TV some and I’m going to, most of all, write, write, write.

All of this come in the context of me knowing my life is probably going to change a pretty dramatic fashion one way or another pretty soon. Elements of Trump’s fucking “Big Beautiful Bill” are directly targeted at me, it seems.

So, as such, I’m going to buckle down and actually get some work done, especially when it comes to querying. My dream is, of course, that I successfully query this novel, it’s a success and I can fucking leave America forever or at least until MAGA is no more (which is essentially forever.)

But that’s very much daydreaming. Even if I got an agent and sold this novel, it would be like winning the lottery just to get that far. But I need some reason, any reason, to find some motivation to do something constructive and productive.

I can’t just daydream for the rest of my life. There is going to come a time when this rather idyllic situation I find myself in will end and I’m going to look back and realize I didn’t use my time as wisely as I should have.

I continue to worry about being “canceled” should I ever have any success. I’m not perfect and I’ve done my fair share of things that might be interpreted poorly under the right circumstances. But as I keep saying, I’d rather love and lose because of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than not do anything.

I Have Got To Get Back Into The Swing Of Things, Creatively

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have drifted for way too long. Time to get some figurative smelling salts and get back to business. I need to read Annie Bot and my books on querying. I need to buy two other books that are my “comp” books for my novel I’m querying right now and I need to throw myself back into very beginning of querying.

My goal is to start all of this before July 4th weekend. That’s the goal, that’s the dream.

I just refuse to keep drifting forever. One of the reasons why I’ve had such trouble getting out of this mental state is my age. I’m old(er) and I just want to drift until the end of my life because I know that I could be nearly 60 before I’m a published author, no matter what.

Anyway. I can’t think like that, right? I need to buckle up and get back to work. I still think something really dramatic is going to happen soon and throw everything out of whack.

What that is, I don’t know.

Now Getting Into The Nitty-Gritty Of Preparing To Query

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If Hollywood is any indication, we’re zooming towards a situation where someone writes a screenplay that steals a creative march on me. That, or I sell this novel and it hits the zeitgeist in just the right way and is a big success.

I keep seeing promos for movies that keep edging closer and closer to the premise of my novel and it’s making me a little nervous.

And, yet, I just have to accept that it’s really possible that my fear is going to come true and everyone will just roll their eyes and say, my novel is “just like that popular movie” even though I wrote my novel first.

That just comes with the territory of being a creative person.

And I do have a new novel idea — a comedy — that I may use to shoehorn myself back into writing on a regular basis. I’ve had some real trouble getting back into the writing groove since my novel is done. It’s kind of like creative post-partum depression.

But my need to create is slowly roaring back. So, as such, I suppose I will get back to writing pretty quick.

Psyching Myself Up To Query

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m definitely in the “now what” phase of things when it comes to this novel. My ability to count on my beta readers is iffy at best and as such I have to just bite the bullet and start the process of preparing to query — even if it means I haven’t had effective beta testing.

But the whole point of this specific novel is just to see how far I can get. It could be that this is going to be a disaster no matter what because I have no idea what I’m doing.

And, yet, at least I will push the edge of my experience with such things a little bit further than I have before. So, the next novel, which I hope to start soon, I will know a little bit more about what is expected of me when it comes to ultimately querying it.

I continue to worry about what literary agents — many who I assume are liberal white women — will think of my social media output. It could be that they will think I’m too big a kook just in general to even consider being my agent. But I am who I am, so, lulz?

Just thinking about querying puts me on edge because it will be me going from the realm of just being a daydreamer who likes to write to actually slamming into the wall known as “The Real World.” People who are normal. People who maybe will take one look at me as part of due diligence and either laugh or run away at what a fucking weirdo I am.

It’s all very possible.

But, if nothing else, it all gives me something to do I suppose.

Approaching The End Of This Draft Of My Scifi Dramedy WIP

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have about two chapters left before I will wrap up this draft of the novel I’ve been working on for about two years now. I’m confident that it’s good enough — another one last pass for “color correction” to at least query without being laughed at.

I continue to have two lingering worries.

One worry is it’s too spicy. Given that GenZ is so prudish the idea of a man who subscribes to a stripper android so they can be together may be too much for them. Hell, it may be too much for a lot of people. And, yet, I continue to believe in this idea. I believe in it enough to at least test the waters of querying.

The other issue I have is it has taken me some time to figure out how to properly use AI in my workflow and I’m a little nervous that maybe a few instances of “AI slop” have slipped past me. So I’m really self-conscious and paranoid about that and in the “color correction” pass I’m going to rewrite scenes as necessary to get rid of it.

I still don’t know if it’s going to be this fall our this January when I query. I just don’t know yet. I think — maybe — it’s going to be January before I can query simply because it may be more a struggle than I’d like to find beta readers. Or, I could grow bold and say “who needs beta readers?” and just go without them so I can meet my September deadline.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Is My Scifi Dramedy WIP Novel’s Comp…Euphoria?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, if nothing else, I suppose this novel might catch the eye of Sydney Sweeney if it actually gets published. There is a lot of spicy content in this novel, but I’d like to think that it’s done in such a matter-of-fact, droll fashion that it won’t turn off too many people.

I hope.

At the same time, there’s a chance that despite the spicy content, some starlet like Sydney Sweeney may be willing to be an android stripper in a Hollywood movie inspired by my novel.

But, I don’t know. It’s one of those things that could go either way. It could be that this novel is just too spicy to even past muster to get published since most literary agents — at least in my imagination — are liberal white women who might blanch at all the spicy content.

Or, at least, that a man is writing it.

That’s why I see this novel as a exploratory novel. I’m going to test the waters of how, exactly, I will go through the querying process. Then the NEXT novel, maybe, the one that has less obvious sex in it, might be the one I get published. But I’m kind of running out of time.

If I don’t hurry up and get something, anything done, I’m going to be in my 60s before I might be able to hold a novel in my hands that actually was found on bookshelves. And all of this is happening in the context of the fucking Singularity rushing towards us.

Ugh.

Gaming Out The Next Stages Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’ve Been Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A part of me is growing really nervous about how spicy this novel I’m working on is. There will be some people who dismiss it out of hand once I describe the premise. In fact, it got a chuckle out of someone just a few days ago and that took me aback.

But it was a young woman, so maybe…that’s not as bad as you might think. And that chuckle only made me feel like hunkering down even more to finish this thing. I know there’s an audience for it, somewhere. I know it’s good enough to at least query.

It being sold is a different issue altogether.

Having said all that, here is what I have to do next:

Finish The Novel
This goes without saying. I’m well into the third act of the novel now. I just need to get it over with. I need to focus and stop drifting towards my goal. I’m really growing nervous that some disaster will strike ASAP that will make it a lot more difficult to finish the novel sooner rather than later. So, I need hurry up!

“Color Correct”
This is where I will just go through and change a few names and maybe rewrite a scene here and there just to make sure they either don’t seem like AI wrote them or they suck. I have done everything in my power to prevent this novel from seeming like “AI slop” but I’m paranoid I may have missed a stray paragraph or sentence here or there so part of color correction will be to re-write such things out of existence.

Beta Readers / Read Annie Bot
This is going to be tough. No one likes me and I have no friends — other than the few stalkers who read this blog religiously, apparently (grin) — so, man, is it going to be tough to figure out how to get someone, anyone to spend the time necessary to finish an roughly 100,000 word novel. (I still don’t know how long this novel is, yet. That’s another thing I have to do. I’m guessing it’s between 80,000 and 100,000 words. But I’ll find out soon enough I guess.) I also need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. I just don’t wanna. I want to play and daydream, not read a novel that is apparently a feminist screed that comes to dramatically different conclusions about sexbots than I do. But, lulz, I gotta do it!

Query
This is the big issue going forward. I have eyeballed September as when I want begin to querying process….but it’s possible that for no other reason than how difficult it is to find beta readers…I’m either going to have to forgo beta readers altogether (or at least in part) or I’m going to have to punt querying to January. I say this in the context of their apparently being two “seasons” for querying — fall and spring.

I’m About To Wrap Up The Latest Draft Of This Scifi Dramedy WIP I’ve Been Working On…Soonish (Maybe)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because I’m so fucking moody, I won’t say I’ll be done with this novel I’m working on anytime soon. It could be two or three weeks before I finally wrap things up and piviot to the “color correction” part of the process.

“Color correction” in this sense is just rewriting scenes here or there that really need it and also some last minute name changes for characters who had placeholders.

I’m also really paranoid about there being any “AI Slop” lodged here or there in the text itself, so I am going to be really aggressive to finesse things so that’s not there to be read. I really don’t want to do all this hard fucking work only to be told “AI wrote it” and it can’t get published.

I have written this damn novel. I have used AI as an “AI first” novelist, however to develop, etc things. But the copy is mine. I recently saw someone on Tik-Tok essentially call people like me literary traitors for having anything to do with AI at all.

Shrug. I know what I’ve done and I know this is a novel good enough to query. But I have another novel that I will write after this one I’m working on that I think maybe the one I actually sell, for no other reason than it’s not as “spicy” as this novel I’m working on.

Even without the spice, any novel I write will have problems selling because of, well me. I’m a fucking kook. I’m old(er). You name it. Liberal white women will find some reason to “cancel” me before it’s all over with, but it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

I am looking forward to seeing literary agents poking around this website in my Webstats in a few months. That will be both fun and unnerving.