Tag: writing

A Hot Take On AI & Fiction

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing about the rise of AI and its impact on the arts is there is going to come a point where we’re going to know who who creates for the sake of creation and who doesn’t. It definitely SEEMS as though no part of the creative arts will be spared from the transformative power of AI.

As such, I think as early as 18 months from now, the first popular AI movies, songs, TV shows and…gulp…novels…will begin to appear. It could be even sooner, the way things are going. So, just as I’m in the middle of the querying process, it could be that the whole endeavor will be mooted by AI. And that doesn’t even begin to address the issue of how the fucking Fourth Turning might be happening at just about the same time.

Sometimes, you just can’t win.

I say all of this because I think a lot of creative people are deluding themselves when they think they can’t avoid the implications of AI by removing all their writing from Google Docs, or whatever. AI is careening towards us at an astonishing speed and we all have to manage our expectations. Either you feel compelled to create — despite the dangers of AI — or you don’t.

If you stop creating because of some abstract fear of AI, I believe you maybe weren’t all that creative in the first place.

Things Are Going Well With The Third Draft (So Far)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have figure out a way to really flesh out the characters I’ve come up with while also dramatically improving the world building. I’ve added a number of scenes at the beginning of the novel. And, yet, there is a looming problem in my mind– not a lot goes on in these new scenes.

The idea of doing this, of course, is to lean into the characters I’ve come up with to the point that when something DOES happen, you care enough, are engaged enough that you want to find out what happens to them. I’m just a little nervous that a lot of people won’t be patient and will think the novel is “boring.”

And, yet, if you read The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo the first 135 pages are dull as dirt. It’s a lot of dry exposition that really doesn’t seem to have much point. It’s amazing, in my mind, that the novel became as popular as it did given such a massive obstacle.

But I’m pleased with what I’ve come up with. I’m really struggling to make the additional scenes as thought provoking and provocative, even if, in real terms, not a lot goes on. So, I hope that people are so busy reading these early, though provoking scenes that they excuse the lack of action.

I continue to have no idea what I’m doing, so who knows. It could be I’ve stumbled across a winning formula or it could be that I’m going to ultimately have to cut all these additional scenes at the behest of an editor. But that is a ways down the road.

I therefore just have to be content that things are going as well as they are. I’m kind of an in an idyllic situation when it comes to writing a novel and given that all good things must come to an end, it’s inevitable that that is just what will happen. I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had while it lasts.

I’m Really Struggling With The Specifics Of My Heroine’s Appearance

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I know, in general, my heroine’s phenotype, but when it comes to her hair I’m having a real struggle. There is so much I can do with what she does with her hair that I find myself at a loss as to what I think would be the best option.

I vacillate widely from moment to the next about how she does her hair as the story opens. In this third draft, I’m really taking how I introduce my heroine a lot more seriously. I don’t want to sexualize her in any sort of gratuitous way because if I did anything like that there would be “woke” portions of the audience that would that would pitch a fucking fit.

They would say I’m just another horny CIS white male who is wants to fuck my heroine and is obsessed with boobs. As such, I am really self-conscious about how much I talk about my heroine’s appearance. And, yet, at the same time, I want to give readers a clear understanding in their mind’s eye of…her appearance.

My heroine kind of looks like this in my mind’s eye.

As a CIS white male writing from the POV of a female POC it’s kind of a no win situation. Woke people just want me to drop dead, not try to give them the representation they claim to want in their fiction. Only transgender, undocumented Mexicans can tell the type of stories I want to tell. Forgive me, I’m a bit grumpy and tipsy at the moment.

Anyway, you have to give me credit for at least understanding the sticky wicket I’m wading into. I get it. I’m a CIS white male, a member of the patriarchy and I should just shut up and let women and POC tell stories. But I’m an asshole and have a story to tell.

I’m trying to be as empathetic as possible, all things considered.

I Tend To Overthink Things

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One thing that is looming large in my mind these days is the fact that I’m a CIS white male author with a female POC heroine. I used to say that I was writing this novel for “woke Park Slope moms” but these days I just want to tell a good story for a general audience.

And YET because of how fucked up the world is, I am growing concerned that, by definition, there will be a sizable portion of the audience who will grow angry that a CIS white male is writing from the POV of a female POC. I can see it now. They’ll say, effectively, that I’m misguided or exploitive or engaging in cultural appropriation.

These squeaky wheels will totally ignore if the story is any good or that I may have given what they keep claiming to want in their fiction — representation. They’ll be mad because a CIS WHITE MALE is the one who thought up an interesting, assertive female POC heroine.

I don’t have a ready answer to this prospective complaints. I have my vision and I’m sticking to it. I had no idea how loaded me doing what I want to do was when I starting thinking up this six novel series. I just knew that I wanted to tell an interesting story and I didn’t want to just have a bunch of white people talking. Throw in how I find developing female characters an interesting challenge and, there you go — the pickle I find myself in.

Having said all fo that, I do think I may begin to develop a second novel that is a lot more in line with what I’m “allowed” to write as a CIS white male. I have a few interesting scifi novels rolling around in my head that I will probably white from a first person POV with a male hero. That is about as conservative and marketable as I can get, all things considered.

I’m Please With How The Third Draft Of This Novel Is Shaping Up

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to drift towards my goal like always, I definitely feel pretty good about the current state of the third draft of my first novel. I’ve come up with a unique, interesting protagonist that I feel readers will want to spend 100,000 words worth of time with.

The more I think about it, the more I see my heroine as looking something like a mixture of Olivia Munn and Nicole Scherzinger, only in her early 30s. I am trying so fucking hard to be as empathetic as possible to the female experience to the point that I, in a very self-conscious manner, try to find every opportunity to pass the fucking Bechdel Test — a test I fucking hate.

My dream is that the women in the audience of this novel will be taken aback that a smelly boy of all people managed to write from a female point of view without making a fool out of himself. This is an issue that I really weighs a great deal on me.

And, yet, I know that, by definition, there will be Tik-Tok influencers who will get the “ick” from my novel simply because I’m a man writing from a female POV — no matter how well I may ultimately show my understanding of the concerns of women.

We can’t all be transgender undocumented Mexicans, you know. Some of us are just white CIS men who want to tell a good story to an audience, regardless of what your gender might be. But that’s not how the woke cancel culture mob sees thing.

They seem me as a white CIS-gendered male who drinks too much and occasionally doesn’t follow the media narrative. Excuse me, I’m tipsy and a little annoyed.

Anyway, things are going really well. I *think* I may have figured out the structure of the first chapter of the third draft after about two weeks of struggle.

I’m At A Loss As To What To Think About Google Scraping Google Docs To Train AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is nothing short of panic on Tik-Tok from writers like me who use Google Docs. A number of people have Tik-Tok have urgently suggested that all writers take all of their writing off of Google Docs immediately and use Word instead (or whatever.)

I find this very curious for a number of reasons.

I understand where these writers are coming from, and, yet, I’ve actually looked into the scraping Google is doing and it seems a little too late to worry about such things. Now only is AI everywhere now, but I just don’t know how much my writing is going to make a difference if Google is scraping the entirety of Google Docs to train their LLMs.

Some of the hysterical talk on Tik-Tok seems just that — hysterical doom shit that assumes there’s some way to prevent, completely one’s words from somehow, someway being used to train LLMs.

But I will at amit that I just don’t know. Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe if I just turn to Word I can somehow, magically, prevent anything I write from finding itself in the maw of AI.

At the moment, I’m taking a very measured wait-and-see approach. While I understand that if I keep my writing on Google Docs that it may, in some way, influence Google’s LLMs, it’s not like my, specific writing and ideas are going to magically pop up somewhere and be produced by Google Movies.

Or maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that’s exactly what is going to happen. I just don’t know at the moment.

A New Beginning

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because the second draft of the novel came in at 80,000 words, I have allowed myself 20,000 extra words for the third draft. I am using most of these additional new words to lay out character and world building. That has been one of the major complaints of those few beta readers who have been willing to give me input — too much of the novel was in my mind and not on the page.

It has taken a lot more time than I expected to think up a new beginning for the novel that satisfies me. But, I am beginning to tentatively believe that one may have come to me. It’s been a lot of work, but the beginning I’ve come up with does exactly what I want — gives people some sense of the world I want them to read about as well as the characters who inhabit that world.

I really have to lean into making these scenes as compelling as possible, even though, in real terms, not a lot really happens. It’s all prep work for the main event. I’m worried that the audience will grow impatient, wanting something of note to actually happen.

And, yet, the counter argument is that only by laying the groundwork of the novel can I produce a work that people care enough about to finish. The current beginning is interesting, but apparently a little too jarring for some people who don’t understand what’s going on.

Like I said, now I’m giving them 20,000 new words at the beginning of the novel so they can get settled and get some sense of the characters I hope they like enough to spend 100,000 words with. It definitely will be interesting to see how successful I am in that regard.

The Struggle Is Real When Writing Female Characters As A Male Author

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m extremely paranoid and self-conscious when it comes to writing the female characters in this novel I’m working on. My greatest fear is that I’ll somehow get some element of being a woman wrong and I’ll be held up by some Tik-Toker as yet another example of how men shouldn’t even write female characters at all.

My heroine looks like a younger version of Olivia Munn.

Ugh.

Just in the last few days, I’ve had two notable instances of this situation come up.

One was I have a very specific vision of what my heroine looks like and, as a part of that, I want to convey to the reader some sense of her bosom. Now, some context — Stieg Larsson spent an entire scene going into detail about Lisbeth Salander’s relationship to her breasts, so it’s not like it can’t be done. My fear is that in my quest to give the audience a clear understand on that front, that some of the squeaky wheels reading will think I’m obsessed with boobs. (But, in all honesty, who isn’t?)

I’ve managed to figure out a few ways of indicate what I want to show the audience without wallowing in gratuitous verbiage about breasts.

Meanwhile, the other issue I’ve had to address dealt with periods. I have a really interesting provocative scene that talks about that issue head on, but I’ve kind of been stressed out all day about it because I was afraid that there was some aspect of it all that I just was missing. I finally talked to a woman about the specific plot point I was concerned about and she assured me I had it right.

Anyway, I fear that, by definition, any attempt on my part to write about women will be poo-pooed by some of the more “woke” elements of the audience for no other reason than I’m a “CIS white male.” If I had some other, more exotic background they wouldn’t blink an eye.

But, lulz, slings and arrows and all that.

‘Living In Denial’ — #lyrics To #pop #rock song

Living In Denial
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

the seas are boiling
but at least you’re close to me
things are getting hot
I wish we had somewhere to flee
but I’m afraid that has no
viability
but in the end you’ll be by my side
as we all slowly cook

living in denial
is enough to make one roar
we all know the score
the adults in the room
just want to zoom
’cause they’re
living in denial
living in denial
living in denial

don’t mean to rile you up
but maybe I do
if I think about it
don’t button your shirt
rather loosen your tie
we’ve got a lot to think about
given that we all may die
’cause we’re
living in denial
living in denial
living in denial

(bridge)
when things cool down
and see the return of seasons
maybe we’ll look back and laugh
at how it was all a gas
but I’m afraid Mother Nature
is going to have the last laugh

living in denial
is enough to make one roar
we all know the score
the adults in the room
just want to zoom
’cause they’re
living in denial
living in denial
living in denial

I Have A Lot Of Work Still To Do

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m working on the third draft of this novel, I realize I have a lot of work to do that I didn’t really think about earlier. Not only is there a few characters that I really need to flesh out more, there is a whole ideology that I have to figure out.

And, this doesn’t even address some serious problems with the third act that I need to address. The third act needs to be completely re-worked. Not only do some elements just not make any sense, but I also need to totally rework the climax which is rather hackish.

Thankfully, I have another month built into the timetable that I can use to figure out how I can fix all of this. I really need to game out a number of different structural things about the novel in August before I sit down to really throw myself into writing agian.

But that’s part of the fun. I really want to prove that I am a good-to-great storyteller and all the haters who think I suck can fuck off. My writing and storytelling have improved a great deal in the last few years and I think with some more hard work I can take things to the next level with the third draft.

That’s the dream, at least.

I also have to start reading more books in my genre so I can “comp” them when I begin the querying process. I am well aware of how delusional I’m being to think I can — at my age and background — ever become a traditionally published author in any way. But, lulz, freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.