Tag: writing

Idle Reflections On The State of My Novel for October 9th, 2023

Some thoughts about the state of my novel.

Once More, With Feeling

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, I have YET AGAIN gotten out of the first chapter of this novel. Now, I plan on re-reading AGAIN the second chapter to see if I can make it good enough to be considered part of the third draft.

I continue to not only do all of this in a vacuum, but to have no idea what I’m doing. All I have is just my gut and a few hunches as to what make a good story. It definitely going to be interesting to see if what the reaction of a professional manuscript consultant will be once I save up the money necessary to get them to read over the novel.

At the moment, the story is a mixture of Stieg Larsson’s original Millennium series and Bill Hader’s TV-show “Barry.” I have a pretty clear vision of what I want to do with this story, but it’s a much more difficult struggle than I could have ever imagined.

I still need to think about how to improve my characterizations. I’m getting there, but I need to make things more clear as to motivation. I keep learning — the forgetting, then remembering again — the fact that a passive protagonist is a boring protagonist.

As such, what happens is I come up with what I think is a pretty good plot then I realized — duh — that my heroine is way, way, way too passive and everything gets thrown up in the air while I figure out how to have her push the plot forward by doing whatever she has to do to get what she wants.

Anyway. As I keep saying, but for being 100% extroverted I would go radio silent with this novel. But I just can’t help myself. I sometimes need to vent about how things are going with this novel, over and above my natural extroverted nature.

It Happened *AGAIN*

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Yesterday, I suddenly started thinking about Seoul again out of the blue. I didn’t think anything of it — I think about Seoul all the time to this day. And, yet, today, I checked my Webstats and would you believe someone from Seoul looked specifically at the “ROKon Magazine” tag on this site?

It was all so long ago. I was very curious and dramatic when it happened, but it was a long time ago and nobody cares anymore. I guess? To this day, I wish I could convey what a fucked up, dramatic situation those few months in late 2006 — early 2007 were. And it didn’t stop there. The drama lingered until around my birthday in early 2008.

I still don’t know what to make of what happened in Seoul all those years ago. It was all so curious and mind-bending. It really changed my life and self-perception.

But, if nothing else, it gave me a lot of memories and experience to use as a stepping stone with my first novel that I’m working on. Much of what goes on in this first novel — which is intended to be part of a six-novel project — comes directly from what I know to be true because of what happened to me in the months that ROKon Magazine existed.

Anyway.

Idle Rambling About Alexa Chung & My Novel’s Heroine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The only reason why I even bring any of this up is I’m a bit intoxicated and I want to see if my FBI agent monitoring me for any mention of Alexa Chung swoops in to look at this. Anyway, it is amusing to me that the heroine of my first novel definitely looks — in my mind — like someone in a fuzzy continuum that ranges Olivia Munn to Alexa Chung.

What can I say, I have a thing for brunettes with vaguely Asian looks.

Anyway, the thing about Alexa Chung for me is her personality. While it’s her appearance that catches my attention, its her witty personality that causes me to linger. I’m well aware that she’s rather vacuous all things considered, but, yet she still in interesting enough to make her my celebrity crush.

And, yet, I have to admit that as I grow older, the very idea of having a “celebrity crush” seems rather…quaint. I just don’t care. Any potential interaction with someone like Ms. Chung I want to happen on my own terms after I blow up with my DJ money for having written a break out hit first novel.

So, in essence, I just don’t care anymore one way or the other about Ms. Chung. Live long and prosper. I am WELL AWARE that if any of her “people” became aware of my low-grade infatuation they would freak the fuck out. At the moment, at least, I’m the quintessential nobody.

And, if you really wanted to be honest, I’m the quintessential freaky weirdo nobody. I am who I am. I am — at least in my own mind — rather harmless, but, lulz, everyone is hateful and judgmental.

I Must Improve My Characterizations

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lot — A LOT — of plot, but my characterizations in this novel continue to be wanting. Much to my chagrin, most of my characters remain just “moods” that have traits that come and go for simple expediency sake. That is something I need to change, big time.

That is probably — at the moment at least — the biggest difference between my novel and the stuff that my “teacher’ Stieg Larsson wrote. He was really good at drawing readers in by having really interesting and colorful characters that readers wanted to hang out with.

I’m getting there. My heroine is starting to come unto her own, especially given that I’ve made her have a “Barry”-like sharp dichotomy to her life. The whole thing is really interesting, even if I could see some members of the fucking “woke cancel culture mob” wanting to eat me alive for even doing it in the first place.

But, I get it. I’m a smell CIS white male. I can’t help that I’m not a transgendered undocumented immigrant. I am who I am and I just have to deal with the consequences.

Anyway. Things continue to move forward. I hope to get a lot — A LOT — of writing done on this third draft this weekend.

I Hope To Get A Lot of Writing Done On The Novel This Weekend

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In the name of getting something done before I croak like Stieg Larsson did at my age, I plan on buckling down and write as much as I can this weekend. I often say this and then, lulz, I spend all my time either rearranging scenes or staring out into space.

But here’s hoping this time will be different.

One issue that is now at the forefront of my mind is my heroine’s personal ideology. People seem to really like that Lisbeth Salander had a very clear set of personal ethics and, as such, I want to imbue my heroine with something similar.

But I’m also very lazy and don’t want to do any research. And, yet, I think I’m going to have to just that. I can’t keep screwing around. I need my heroine to have some sharp edges. I need her to have a very clear set of morals and beliefs that the events of the novel challenge.

The most obvious way to do this would be to make her a Christian. But, lulz, even though I was raised in the Church, I’m not a Christian and I just don’t feel like having to look into such things. As such, I’ve given it some thought and I realize there’s another way I can accomplish my goal.

I think I may lean into her being a Third Wave Feminist some. Maybe. And, given what happens in the third act of the novel, I think if I made her a very strict secular humanist that maybe that might be enough to put a really interesting spin on things.

I hope. That’s the goal.

I’ve been using AI some to help with development. Sometimes it helps me lay out scene summaries really well. Other times — lulz. And don’t even try to use AI to help game out a “spicy” scene. It just locks up and says it can’t help you out.

I have rewritten and expanded the first act so much that I am going to have to give the entire rest of the novel some serious thought. I’ve introduced a lot of new, interesting elements to the novel that I am going to need to actually use rather than bring them up and then ignore them.

A Half-Assed Hot Take On ‘The Creator’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I did not finish the movie “The Creator” — I walked out. But I do that all the time, so it’s not that big a deal. But I saw enough of the movie to get some sense of it and why I couldn’t sit through the whole thing.

One issue I didn’t like was what I saw was clearly anti-American. The movie seemed to say, with a wink and a nod, “Look at those ignorant Americans, unwilling to embrace the future that is AI.” I also thought the plot was rather turgid. It seemed like I was watching a B+ TV movie, not “real” Hollywood movie.

But I will say that the premise of the movie was very cool, even if the world building associated with it was piss-poor. They just didn’t give the concept much thought, it seemed to me.

In general, however, “The Creator” hopefully will be “The 13th Floor” to another, much better movie that will be an AI “Matrix.” Or something. Something like that.

I’m Excited And Uneasy About This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The first act of this novel has gone in a rather unexpected direction. I’ve really amped up the “Barry”-like elements of it. But doing so leaves me a little unnerved because the very thing I think could be a really cool marketing hook….is also the very thing that may turn some people off, or cause them to throw the book across the room.

I just don’t know.

I’m doing all of this in a near-vacuum, so it could go either way. If nothing else, the novel is…unique, interesting. One problem I have to fix is the novel isn’t nearly dark enough and I also don’t think the bad guys are clearly defined as people who could potentially hurt our protagonist.

One thing is clear, however, I can’t keep spinning my wheels. I can’t keep tinkering over and over again with the novel’s first few chapters. I really need to buckle down and do whatever I have to do to get into the second act as soon as possible. Given how much I’ve changed the first act, I’m going to have to really re-work the rest of the novel to accommodate the changes.

But I love a challenge and so the key thing remains not allowing myself to just spin my wheels. I have to, have to get into the second act of the novel as soon as possible. I’ve decided to try to give myself until no later than, say March 1st to finish this third draft and the only way I’m ever going to accomplish that goal is to take things a lot more seriously.

And that doesn’t even begin to address any number of things that could happen that might change my rather idyllic situation I find myself in at the moment.

Oct 1st, 2023: Put Up Or Shut Up Time

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If I don’t start to be more proactive with this novel, it’s going to be a year from now and I’m still, STILL be drifting towards my destination. It could be fall 2024, the United States may be about to descend into fucking political violence and chaos and I STILL will not have begun the querying process for my first novel.

So, I’m going to try — TRY — to be a lot more self-conscious about such things starting today. I may try to set some specific metrics for how many scenes I write so I can get past the first few chapters where I’ve been spinning my wheels for way too long. I hoped to start the third draft on September 1st and here I am October 1st not even in the second act.

I got some feed back on the second draft. He pretty much said he didn’t find the novel very believable. As such, I’ve added some more scenes to an already overstuffed first act in an effort to connect the novel closer to reality. To give the audience some more context as to how this unusual situation might have occurred in such a small town.

But he’s the only person who has mentioned that problem. But he is a “normal” person, so I give his comments a lot more credence to some extent because it gives me some sense of what a casual reader of the mystery-thriller genre might think of the novel.

I have also added a number of scenes to the first act of the novel in hopes of slowly seducing the audience into the world I’ve created while also making them fall in love with the cast of characters I’ve come up with. I believe the additional scenes — and there are a number of them — will really hook the reader so they are willing to finish the novel when The Big Event happens.

The novel is structured — to a certain extent — much like Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire. It’s not a one-to-one, but he definitely gave me some guidance as to one way I could plot things out.

I’ve Got To Work Faster On This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My life has been a bit bumpy the last few days. I’ve been feeling out of sorts for a number of different reasons. There is a small chance that I’m slowly getting back to normal and, as such, the fact that I need to buckle down and work on the third draft of my novel is really beginning to loom large in my mind.

All of this is happening as it becomes more and more clear to me that my “hysterical doom shit” about America’s future in 2024 and beyond may not be so far off. Things are growing dark and absolutely no one is going to save us. Even if we “just vote” we aren’t going to save ourselves because there’s a good chance that in an effort to avoid going to prison, Trump may begin to rant that we need a National Divorce and that, unto itself, will spark a civil war.

But I can’t predict the future. I do know, however, that I’m not getting any younger and I’m in full put-up-or-shut-up mode. Things are going really well with this novel, but I need to stop daydreaming so much and buckle down. While I continue to be a somewhat idyllic situation for writing a novel, all good things must come to an end.

At any moment, something could happen that throws my life up in the air and by the time everything is sorted out, I could have lost months of time. Or I could be distracted by new opportunities, what have you. I love this six novel project and I am determined to get the first novel done.

I continue to have a few other novel ideas rolling around in my head, but I’m trying to focus on this mystery-thriller because it’s the one I’m the farthest along with. I keep idly thinking of other stories, but for the time being, I haven’t really given them much effort.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess.