Month: July 2020

The Durham Investigation, My #Novel & The Need To Do Political Triage


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As suspected, if you want to get the attention of fucking MAGA cocksucking fascists, put the “Durham Investigation” in the title of a Webpost. So, with that in mind, I’d like to tell any MAGA person reading this to please fuck off and eat shit you fucking racist, misogynistic piece of shit.

Anyway, I could spend all day simply putting the “Durham Investigation” in the title of Web posts and screaming at MAGA people or, I could be productive and work on my novel. In the interest of not coming off like a lunatic, I’m going to work on my novel.

But the Durham Investigation pretty much sums up why we live in a fascist state now. There are people who actually WANT the entire Obama Administrator to be frogwalked to Gitmo because they’re fucking racist, misogynistic fucktards. The Durham Investigation is one of about a dozen ways Trump is going to steal the election in a rather brazen, bold way. If he doesn’t indict Biden himself, he’ll indict Hunter Biden. If he doesn’t do that, he’ll use his Little Green Men to prevent any necessary recounts. The list goes on.

And the fucking dipshit shitheads who coo at this point about America is a “constitutional republic” not a democracy can go to hell. Since 1800 we’ve had the peaceful transition of power under that constitution and suddenly you think being a “constitutional republic” is a catch-all that lets you own the moment. What you’re really saying is you don’t believe in democracy now that Trump is in power and you WANT the very thing everyone else is afraid of — a fascist “managed democracy” like they have in Russia.

It’s this kind of thing that makes one realize people who ACTUALLY love America when it was “great” need to stop worrying about what fucking fascists think. The entire system has collapsed because of the ineffectual “resistance” on the part of the center-Left in the United States and so we move to triage –what can we save?

I doubt very much.

You’re not going to change any MAGA fascists mind. You need to start thinking about either leaving the country or doing something in the real world to at least, I don’t know, make the world a better place? I’m working on a novel that pretty much is just me using all the powerless frustration I feel about the rise of fascism in the United States to tell a great yarn.

But I’m assuming I’m going to die in an ICE camp at this point.

First Draft Delusions #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I often say, writing a novel as first time novel writer is a lot like being an explorer. At some point, you find yourself in the metaphorical middle of the Atlantic Ocean, having no reason to believe you’ll ever find land other than your gut telling you so.

So here I am.

I’m methodically making my way through my first serious attempt at a first draft and I have no idea if anything will come of all this hard work. There are many, many variables for me to weigh in my mind, least of which is what exactly the world is going to look like when I try to sell this thing.

The point of this novel is to give myself the opportunity to rant for about 165,000 words about how angry the Trump Era makes me. But, as I keep saying, the whole thing is so diffused that hopefully you won’t see it as preachy. If you do, then I’ve failed. I don’t want to preach at you, I want to tell you a great yarn and along the way maybe make you think.

And I go out of my way to rant about the stupid things I feel are happening within the center-Left as well as fucking insane things happening within the center-Right. In fact, in a way, the center-Left is far more frustrating because they are so busy scoring points on Twitter that they completely ignore how to engage the average person who is “too busy for politics” because they’re raising their kids and paying their mortgage.

But, like I said, I’m extremely delusional right now. The only way I’m going to get this novel done is to allow myself to be completely delusional to the extent that I actually think I have a shot at selling this novel.

One thing I really have to do is read, read, read. I’m basing much of my heroine’s personality on the late Annie Shapiro. Ms. Shapiro was, in short, something of a kook and it’s going to take some time for me to get beyond simply my romanticized version of her beliefs that I have in my mind (and heart.)

I am, however, in fact working on the first draft. It’s going pretty well. I’m giving myself a pretty tight deadline so I need to hurry up. The absolute latest I’m giving myself to finish the first draft is Thanksgiving 2020. But I hope to wrap things up a lot closer to maybe September.

America As Fascist State



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of MAGA’s favorite talking points these days is that United States is “a constitutional republic not a democracy.” They can get quite snotty about it, in fact.

Laying aside why they wouldn’t WANT to live in a democracy, this is their way of establishing the groundwork for why it’s “totally cool and totally legal” that Trump brazenly, in an astonishing fashion, steals the election in the fall. When it happens, they can shout at the top of their lungs that we rubes are fools for being enraged that American democracy is dead. “Buht America’s a constitutional republic,” they’ll crow.

As usual, this is MAGA tactically owning the moment in the short term to deflect what fucking fascists they are. Them being soooooo absolute about this conflation of terminology either gets you upset and the conversation devolves into screaming or you waste way too much time trying to explain something with, until recently, was simply assumed — there are “norms” that we all follow that make sure the while, yes, we are a “constitutional republic” we all agree that there should be free and fair elections and it’s like a bloodthirsty fight simply to get the ruling party to accept defeat in an election.

But that’s just the beginning of the clusterfuckery.

The issue of Trump’s goons snatching people off the streets of Portland to make campaign videos for the Trump campaign is another, more important issue. In general, I’ve come to believe that you can pretty much figure out if someone is a fascist by their response to this Authoritarian turn for the worse. The further they are away from “Oh my GOD, what’s happening?” they are, the more, well, fascist they are. If they’re quibbling about stupid shit how the people snatched are let go after a little while or that these Little Green Men have “police” on them, then, well, you’re talking to a fascist.

Everyone involved would be better off if MAGA simply embraced their fascism. Then we’d all be on the same page. Of course, I guess, in a sense, they will at some point down the road when MAGA pivots from any argument at all about Trump to whispering in harsh tones that people like me “should shut up if you know what’s good for you.” The implication being, of course, that Little Green Men will come for YOU now.

I would prefer if I was able to finish and sell my novel before Trump finally comes after people like me for good.

‘Little Green Men’ — #Lyrics to a Pop-Rock Song


The point of these lyrics — even though I know nothing about music — is my delusional hope that maybe someone who DOES know something about music my use them as the basis of an actual song. Wake up, people, we need protest songs, stat.

Little Green Men
lyrics by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform

we’re coming to your city, yeah
coming to snatch you off the street
put you in a van before you can flee
gunna break your head wide open
even if you’re a mom
your freedom will be gone, gone, gone

Little Green Men
Little Green Men
coming for yah
coming for yah
with a roar
from Russia with love
from Russia with love
love, love, love

your freedoms don’t mean nuthing now
all that matters is that we’re great
don’t worry one bit will let you go
but not before we have a row
gunna remind you who’s in charge
when people take notice, it’ll be too late

keep your mouth shut and you’ll be fine
we’ll let you go after awhile
but if you won’t shut up
we’ll take you to a camp
you little scamp

(bridge)
freedom’s not free as you can see
you gave it all up for a moron
who rules you as a king
just smile and take it
that’s the key

Little Green Men
Little Green Men
coming for yah
coming for yah
with a roar
from Russia with love
from Russia with love
love, love, love

‘Being Paranoid’ #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have talked to a number of people about the conceit of the novel I’m working on and every once in a while something will pop up in my Webstats that will make me nervous. I mean, why did someone from “Wholesale Internet” look at the “Writing about Writing” tag for eight seconds? And they apparently got it via an email, because there was no referring link.

In large part because I have an extremely over-reactive imagination to begin with, I always automatically assume this means someone is actively working to screw me over. That someone knows the basic conceit of the novel and is going to “steal” the idea from me.

I have no ready answer to that paranoia.

I do know that, at least as far as I’m concerned, you could know the conceit of the novel and you would still have a lot of work ahead of you. I guess — maybe? — you could write a quickie screenplay — but that’s so far down the rabbit hole that, again, there’s not much I can do about it.

I think in large part my paranoia about these types of worse-case scenarios come from what happened with Annie Shapiro and ROKon Magazine. She really did “steal” my idea and so I automatically assume that is going to happen to me again.

If the worst does happen, I have a scifi concept I can pivot to pretty easily. And its development would go very rapidly because of all the hard work I’ve put into this novel.

But, in the end, you can’t lockup out of what MIGHT happen. You have to wait until something actually happens and then go from there.

IP Issues



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about IP is a lot boils down to the willingness of IP holders to sue. You could be totally in the clear under any normal consideration of the issue, but, lulz, you get sued anyway. So, the issue of IP really weighs heavily on my mind because I feel as though I should be in the clear for a number of reasons, but that still doesn’t mean I won’t piss someone off.

What makes the issue so fuzzy is there are things I just don’t know about IP. I came up with my “gray zone” idea completely independent of what might be the source of contention, but there are many factors to consider. I’m fully prepared to simply eliminate the issue altogether by changing what I have to change, but I’m really in love with the idea I’ve come up with and I’m going to wait as long as possible for doing it. If someone says I have to, then I will. Until then, we’ll have to see.

All that is so much farther down the process than I am now, that I really need to chill out. The key issue is to just finish the first draft and see what happens.

America As Trumplandia: Living In A Fascist State


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the talking points of fucking cocksucker MAGA shitheads whenever people like me begin ranting about how Trump is a threat to democracy is that the United States is really a “constitutional republic.” This helps them “own the moment” because instead of talk about people being snatched off the street in Portland, suddenly you’re fighting over what it means to be American and the exact meaning of “democracy” and “constitutional republic.”

If you really wanted to get technical about it, Russia is a “constitutional republic,” and people getting pushed out of windows there.

It’s when you have to fight over such stupid shit that it one should take a deep breath and realize that if you’re arguing with a MAGA person, you’re arguing with a fascist. Because of a number of demographic, social and economic macro problems in the United States, we are now a fascist state.

What this means in practical terms is while in “the before times” Biden would likely win in a landslide in the fall, that’s simply not going to happen this time. MAGA fascists, when Trump uses all the levers of power at his disposal to steal the election in a rather brazen fashion, will snort and say, “but we’re a constitutional republic.”

There comes a point when you have to realize that MAGA shitheads WANT the very things you’re afraid will happen. They wants a “managed democracy” like there is in Russia. That’s what they want. It’s not like you can in any way make them care about traditional American democracy values because, well, they don’t believe in them.

All the MAGA people I talk to in my life are so absolute in their abstract fears about what progressives MIGHT do, that they won’t answer you when you asked them direct questions about our decent into tyranny. The great irony is Trump is his own worst enemy, so the only way we’re ever getting him out of office — ever — is he, himself somehow screws things up so badly that he leaves.

That could be because he finally loses his mind, or, I don’t know, raises taxes.

The point of all of this is — there’s no one to save us. The only way fascists are gotten rid of is if they lose a war. So it definitely seems we have 20 to 40 years of fascist rule ahead of us until the demographics of the Graying of America crosses that of the Browning of America.

Of The Durham Investigation


by Shelt Garner
@Sheltgarner

Now, I know how the world works, so if you’ve stumbled across the post because you’re some fucking Qanon shithead fucktard, please eat shit.

The current lingering “Durham Investigation” is only one of a host of ways the Trump Administration is going to steal the election in the fall. The Durham Investigation is looking into the origins of the investigation into Trump and Russia and given the overheated rhetoric it generates on the Right, it definitely seems as though they expect the entire Obama Administration to be frogwalked to Gitmo.

There is so much agitation about this, that I’ve come to believe that’s pretty much what’s going to happen. At some point between now and, say, mid-October, there will be bullshit criminal referrals for Joe Biden and President Obama. While Biden being charged is an obvious “duh,” Obama being charged would have a more subtle point to it: Trump would want to show what would happen if HE got charged in a sort of, “Well, if you think Obama being charged was bad, just wait until you try to charge ME.”

This is yet another concrete sign that the United States is now a fascist state. The sooner people like me acknowledge and accept it, the better. What this means in practical terms is Trump is never, ever leaving office for any reason and we need to begin making plans for what we’re going to do in Trump’s ill-gotten second term when people start getting pushed out of windows.

All I got is a novel I’m working on. Hopefully, I have a window of opportunity before freedom of speech is finally squelched for good.

Still In The Delusional Stage Of Development & #Writing


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The point right now is to simply finish a solid first draft. As such, I need to allow myself to be delusional. When I get to the second draft, I can start to think rationally again, but for the time being I am allowing myself to wallow in willful delusion.

There are some issues — especially with names — that I don’t have any ready answers for. I know what I want to do, and, yet, I’m really paranoid about any possible IP issues. But it’s one of those things were it could go either way. You could make a strong argument for me to be in the clear, and yet, you could also make a reasonable argument that maybe not so much.

It’s very frustrating.

All I can say is nothing you do is going to be perfect. There’s always going to be a problem — or a perceived problem — with whatever you do, no matter how hard you try to avoid them. I can’t know everything, read everything and watch everything.

Though I will take solace in the fact that when it came to the key character name issue that might pop up, no one said anything about it when they read Part 1. That’s a good indication that I may, in fact, be a bit too paranoid about that issue.

So, as I said, I’m allowing myself to be delusional. I’m not going to worry about “real world” issues like IP or how derivative the story may seem and worry more about not having my heroine come across as a sexxy slutty assassin designed specifically for me to want to fuck. If anything, I see my heroine as something of a willful child.

One thing that is definitely hitting home in this first draft is how difficult it is for me to be dark and serious. It’s just not my personality. But I’m going to try harder in the second draft, I guess.

Moving From The Abstract Of Development To Writing Is Jarring


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I keep saying, I have to plot everything out beforehand when I get ready to actually start writing. The one big thing I’ve noticed is how jarring moving from the abstract of development to actually writing the novel is.

And this happens in the context of trying to make sure I get as close to the 90,000-100,000 word count sweet spot as I can. (The issue of word count is something that weighs heavily on my mind. I really want to just write the story the way I want to, but the cold hard truth is every word beyond that sweet spot ups the ante on how well this novel is written.)

Anyway, I’m moving along quite quickly with the first draft of the novel. I still need to do a lot more reading, however. There’s a lot of nuance that I’m discovering I need as I start to write. But I think I’ve finally accepted that the first draft simply isn’t going to be perfect. In fact, it’s going to be really, really bad.

I have to give myself the right to “fail” with the first draft.

Regardless, today I continue to flesh out the scene summary for another chapter.