Month: August 2022

Mulling The Second Novel In This Six Novel Project

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the moment, all I know about the second novel is it’s very important to the series and it’s about an abducted baby. Otherwise, everything is very much in flux. But given how huge this project is, I have a lot of room to flex my creative vision in the context of a broader universe and canon.

While I plan on using the latter part of August to flesh out the outlines of the five remaining novels, at the moment, I’m focused on the second novel. The second novel shows how the events of the first novel are beginning to change the community I’ve come up with.

It’s fun for me, the writer, because I have a huge, established canon to work with and all I have to do is figure out how to use the already existing characters in new ways. And it’s fun to think about how readers — who hopefully will be fans of the series by this point — will get an update on what their favorite characters are up to.

This six novel project is actual two trilogies, at least in my minds eye. Something similar happen to me when I tried to write a scifi book about First Contact. By the time I decided to work on a thriller instead, I had come up with three trilogies. It must be my nature to be really creatively ambitious.

Anyway, the key to finishing all of this is to not get burnt out and to not get overwhelmed. I have to stay focused and keep my eyes on the prize — writing four novels that so lay out how the community I’ve come up with got so fucked up that it makes total sense to the reader. In fact, it will be something of a treat for people who have been fans of the series from the beginning.

Did I mention I have a huge ego?

But this second novel is very, very important because it gives an important character in the series the motivation to do something that is very, very important to the overall canon. Wish me luck figuring out how to flesh the story out.

It’s slowly beginning to come to me, I think.

Well, I Have A Six Book Saga Covering 25 Years To Develop & Write Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m not getting any younger, so I have to put up or shut at this point. But I’ve come up with a really, really interesting six novel series that, if all goes according to play, would be the setup to a new series of thriller novels about my ultimate heroine who is meant to be an American homage to Lisbeth Salander. At least, that’s the vision.

I have been working on this project for several years now and it suffers from a severe case of mission creep. What started off as an effort on my part to rant in fiction about the Trumplandia Era has turn into something totally different. And, yet, I think if I’m ever going to finish this massive project, I’m going to have to tap into the rage that generated the energy to begin this project several years ago.

And I definitely am beginning to feel that rage against MAGA begin to well up in my psych. I need to remember where all of this coming from so there is some consistency of tone over the six novels. Or, put another way, I have to keep an eye on the prize — the last two novels are meant to be a scathing attack on Trumplandia and modern America in general. They’re going to be something of a soft-touch allegory about why I am so enraged by Trumplandia to begin with. But I don’t want to be preachy. I want to use subtext and also the canon of the universe I’ve created is constructed in such a way that you can enjoy the story for what it is without really thinking about how angry I am about how fucked up America is right now.

At least, that’s the goal.

But taking a little pause from writing is already beginning to pay benefits. I’m feeling the burn out that I’ve been experiencing the last few days begin to drain. I think by the time Sept 1st rolls around, I’m going to be excited to write again.

Living In Oblivion

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really am a nobody at the moment. As such, whenever I see in my Webstats that someone was obviously looking for information about me and came to here because of that interest, it always gives me pause for thought. Why would any one give a shit about me?

Did they notice some stray comment on my part on Twitter and wanted to know more about me?

Anyway, I’m a nobody and it’s quite flattering to me if just one person wants to know something about me. Though, I have to admit, when someone is obviously doing “due diligence” on me I get a little uneasy. It’s like being forced to go on a first date with someone via a double blind.

I always fail any test anyone gives me and, as such, whenever someone does do due diligence on me — usually some Blue Check Liberal that doesn’t want me to know of their interest — I always get the feeling that they come away with the belief I’m just a loudmouth crank that they can’t take seriously.

Oh well.

There Definitely Seems To Be An Air Of Inevitability To A ‘MAGA Uprising’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are an obscene number of AR-15s in the United States at the moment. And the rhetoric on the Right has grown so frothy and detached from reality that it seems as though it’s just a matter of time before some sort of “MAGA Uprising” happens.

I don’t know what form it might take, but it definitely seems inevitable at this point. It will probably happen because Trump is indicted, or he peacefully shuffles off this mortal coil in his sleep. I think the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago was just the first step in the process. It’s going to take another event before the bullets start whizzing around.

Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

  1. Republicans have come to glorify political violence
    Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
  2. Republicans no longer believe in democracy
    It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
  3. Trump 2024
    Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
  4. Steve K Bannon.
    Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
  5. Extreme negative polarization
    We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
  6. A lack of shared values
    As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
  7. A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans
    It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.

It definitely makes you wonder how the American press would react to an outbreak of lingering, widespread political violence across the country. The more I think about it, the more I just don’t see what Barbara F. Walter thinks will happen. That is, some sort of Troubles in the United States. It makes no sense to me, given that the Republican Party is now fascist and autocratic. It seems like if Trump got indicted he would grab the Federal government by the short ones and demand that Red States begin to leave the Union in an effort to end that particular problem for him.

And I still think that we aren’t even going to have a MAGA civil war or revolution or uprising. It’s going to be Blues in 2024 – 2025 that cause a civil war when they leave the Union after the 2024 election is brazenly stolen by Reds.

So, we have a few years to prepare. And if we don’t have a civil war, we’re just going to become an autocracy, probably with DeSantis becoming America’s Putin. Ugh.

It’s Not About The Word Count

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something I see a lot on Twitter from the so-called “writing community” on the service is a lot of preening about how many words someone has written. I don’t think in terms of words written, but rather scene count. Each scene is usually, on average, 1,000 words so I still have some sense of how much I’ve written.

Because I’m not getting any younger and writing these six (!) novels is very existential to me, I’ve decided to pause writing until the end of August. I’m going to shift back to development. I really want to improve my storytelling before I get back to writing.

I’ve been feeling a little burnt out. I’ve been running hot, if you will. I have been so focused on this first novel for so long, and it’s changed so much since I began working on it, that I’ve decided to chill out for a little bit. I keep telling myself I’m going to stop writing about the novels altogether, but I can’t help myself. Sometimes, like now, I want to write something, anything, and the novels continue to dominate the focus of my attention.

So, what I hope to do is, focus on developing characters and to make my storytelling more cohesive and compelling. I’m old enough that I just don’t want to waste my time producing crap. Or, if I’m going to produce crap in the process of writing something better, I want to at least start from the best point in the process than I can.

I keep thinking about Stieg Larsson and how he dropped dead of a heart attack just as he sold three novels. I think about this so much that if I should happen to sell my six novels, I may turn into something of a hypochondriac. I just have to stop screwing around and focusing on just the first novel. I need to begin to bounce around the different novels so I don’t get so wrapped up in just one story.

I also keep thinking to myself that one day my life is going to change in a rather dramatic fashion because of things out of my control and I might find myself pivoting to something like fashion photography because I will be able, at last, to afford the equipment.

My Hot Take On Liz Cheney Losing Her Primary

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I am well known for my abstract hysterics about how bad things are in the United States at the moment as MAGA continues to be ascendant, occasionally, there is a concrete thing I can point to and say — “That’s bad!”

U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) delivers an opening statement during the opening hearing of the U.S. House (Select) Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, on July 27, 2021 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC. During its first hearing the committee, currently made up of seven Democrats and two Republicans, will hear testimony from law enforcement officers about their experiences while defending the Capitol from the pro-Trump mob on January 6. (Photo by Jim Bourg-Pool/Getty Images)

And that’s how I feel about Liz Cheney losing her primary. Even though on policy, I pretty much disagree with her 100%, when it comes to her willing to sacrifice politically in the name of defending democracy I back her just as much. In fact, I’m so desperate for principled leadership and an elected leader who at least believes that the United States IS a democracy that I’m willing to entertain the idea of voting for Cheney. I say this especially in the context of her potentially being a part of a Unity Ticket.

Anyway, the Republican Party is very autocratic and growing ever more so by the moment. It is inevitable that they will gain power again and when they do, I’m not totally sure that they’re going to ever give it up peacefully. And autocracy is so popular, that there’s a decent chance that Trump could win outright in 2024, no cheating required.

He will cheat anyway, of course, because that’s his nature.

We have to prepare for the United States being faced with the deeply existential choice of autocracy or civil war starting in late 2024, early 2025. If Trump is the Republican nominee, this choice is going to be very, very extreme and severe. There won’t be any middle ground.

And, of course, there is the very real possibility that something akin to The Troubles of Northern Ireland might happen in the United States before then. MAGA is already chomping at the bit to murder people like me in cold blood for political reasons — they sure do come to this Website a lot looking for my dystopian hellscape scenarios.

Too bad my nightmare is their dream. What I fear, they want.

Or, to reiterate, we’re past the Event Horizon for civil war or autocracy and we’re in the danger zone of severe political violence erupting at any moment. It could start because Democrats have an upset win in November. It could happen because Trump is indicted. It could be that Trump pulls a Scalia on us and dies peacefully in his sleep. It could happen for you name it. Anything and everything might be the final straw for MAGA and they grab their AR-15s to murder people like me in cold blood. It’s already all they talk about!

Anyway. I’ve already begun to feel the same sense of rage I felt when Trump was president. I hope to channel that rage into six novels and hopefully finish them before I drop dead. But I have to accept the very real possibility that at some point between now and around 2025 I may become a domestic political refugee and will have to find succor somewhere outside of my current abode because all my MAGA neighbors want to murder me for my political views.

We all may be Antifa before it’s over with.

But, back to Cheney. I really respect her principles. And I still believe that if we do have a National Divorce that she could, ironically, become a Blue State America leader. It would be surreal, but when such tectonic historic forces are a play virtually anything is possible.

We may be in for some pretty fucking strange events between now and January 2025.

Three Celebrity Dudes Wearing Skirts Is A Trend, Right?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I have said before, high fashion designers have long wanted men to wear skirts and dresses. And, yet, to date, men have been reluctant to do so. Given that I’ve noticed three celebrity men wearing skirts in public I think we may have a gender bending trend on our hands.

The question is, now, of course, given the context of the our never ending, on going culture wars, what does it all mean? Does this signify that we’re seeing a major gender shift going on? Or is this still, much like how apparently every women in high fashion is dating another woman, something that only celebrities are doing while the Poors aren’t interested?

It’s all very curious. What’s even more curious is Fox News hasn’t taken this up as the latest CTR, “cancel culture” or “woke mob” canard that they can bang into their audience’s minds. Given that the United States is experiencing a lingering gay panic in the context of liberals being “groomers” you would think that high profile men wearing skirts would be something that would play into that.

It will be interesting to see if “dudes wearing skirts” will eventually get wrapped up in the 2022 mid-term political silly season. But if it isn’t that would be great. For once, something different can happen without people freaking out.

How Close Are We To A MAGA Revolution In 2022?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though the United States is primed and ready for some sort of popular MAGA revolt since the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago. Something about the raid seems to have confirmed the worst fears of MAGA and now they are itching to do something about it in response.

Here are some reasons why we may have a civil war over and above the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago.

  1. Republicans have come to glorify political violence
    Something you see a lot these days within the bullshit echo chamber of the MAGA New Right is the belief that because “liberals won’t leave us alone” that they are being “driven” to extremism. There’s a lot of leading not-so-vague talk as to what all this would ultimately mean. But it’s clear that for a number of “thought leaders” within the MAGA New Right that they have accepted that at some point in the future, they’re going to have to resort to violence to get what they want.
  2. Republicans no longer believe in democracy
    It is now clear that like any good fascists, Republicans no longer believe in democracy unless it’s for the specific purpose of gaining and keeping power. This view of the system they’re supposed to a part of leads them do extremely destabilizing things that help push the country to the brink.
  3. Trump 2024
    Just Trump being the 2024 nominee would, in itself, be enough to cause a civil war at some point in late 2024 – early 2025. He just has a special knack for “owning the libs” in such a way that if he stole in 2024 election and said the “quiet part outloud” that Blue States would grow so enraged that it would be they, not Red States, that left the Union and caused a Second Civil War. But Ron DeSantis is polling exceptionally well at the moment, so either Trump politically shivs him at some point, or he co-ops him, making him his VP, opening the door to DeSantis becoming America’s Putin at some point down the road a little bit.
  4. Steve K Bannon.
    Bannon and his toadies are actively working to destroy the framework that we use to administer free and fair elections. So, it’s very easy to imagine a situation where this gambit works in ways that Trump himself is too idiotic to pull off personally and it will be so egregious that, again, Blue States leave the Union and we have a Second American Civil War.
  5. Extreme negative polarization
    We’re in for a bump four or so years, no matter what, because negative polarization, on a systemic level, has reached a critical mass. When one of your political parties is fascist and would rather crash the global economy instead of even appear to work for the good of the nation — you got a problem.
  6. A lack of shared values
    As the big blow up on Twitter in the last 24 hours about a Stephen Colbert song and dance gag about getting vaccinated proves — we can’t even agree on what’s funny. A combination of this and negative polarization is leading to the United States being two nations, one Red, one Blue and when we get around to attempting to elect the next president, the system simply won’t be prepared for the passions it will stir up.
  7. A potentially historic miscalculation on the part of Republicans
    It’s possible that, much like European powers in the lead up to WW1, when the time comes and Republicans have a choice between peacefully transitioning us into autocracy or fucking with us all so we want to take up arms, they will choose the latter not because they have to, but because they want to. It’s possible that by the 2024 — 2025 period, Republicans will see a civil war as their only choice to consolidate power, even if it’s clear that they could get everything they ever wanted within the system they so obviously loath.

But how close are we, really, to any sort of significant political violence in 2022? It’s definitely in the air — the nation is on edge. And, really, all the talk about some sort of “revolt” or “civil war” or even “revolution” by fucking cocksucker MAGA people is more about them wanting to murder liberals with impunity than it does the actual likelihood that it will take place.

We may all be Antifa someday soon.

In other words, MAGA cocksuckers have murdering liberals on the mind, but the idea of going to prison for doing it is holding them back. At least, that seems to be the most logical explanation for why we haven’t had this popular MAGA revolt I keep hearing about.

As such, I would suggest you keep an eye on Trump. While I suppose it’s possible there might be some sort of spontaneous MAGA revolt, it’s far more likely that Trump, feeling the heat, would go transactional and tell the MAGA faithful to start using their AR-15s to murder people like me.

So, I think that’s your answer.

Unless Trump intervenes in some way, it’s highly unlikely that MAGA people are going to randomly take up arms against the state. I suppose it’s possible, but it’s not very probably. But if Trump told MAGA people to actually do specific things, then, yes, we could see MAGA violently burn the country to the ground. The other way it might happen is if — gulp — something happened to Trump physically.

Given how tightly wound the country is at the moment, Trump peacefully shuffling off this mortal coil would be enough to cause the MAGA based to burn our cities to the ground in a rather abrupt manner.

I Still Find The Idea Of A ‘MAGA Revolution’ Dubious

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While there is a certain logic to the idea of a somewhat spontaneous MAGA “revolution,” I still find the practical application of this scenario dubious. I do this for a number of reasons.

One, the United States is very big — 335 million people. And for what the MAGA “revolutionaries” to get what the want, which would be the ability to murder people like me in cold political blood without any criminal consequences would require the Federal government to be overwhelmed.

So, it couldn’t just be one or two lone wolves using their AR-15s to shoot people they didn’t like in some sort of mass-casualty event. It would have to be something that happened a lot and for more than one day. So, what MAGA wants, which is to finally murder dem dar libtards without the risk of going to prison, is very unlikely to happen.

Now, if they could pull off not just a “Day of Rage,” but a few weeks or months of persistent violence, then, yes, the dynamics would change. The tools that the Federal government has to stop an insurrection would be used, rather than the police. It would be ironic if it was Biden, not Trump, that ultimately invoked the Insurrection Act.

But, again, and I can’t say this enough — MAGA having any sort of “revolution” would be extremely dumb. They are getting everything they want peacefully, why run around murdering people? Any sort of revolution would be a massive miscalculation on the part of the MAGA movement and would only cause those sweet, sweet Traditionalist votes to rush towards Democrats.

I say this because, just from my conversations with my Traditionalist relatives, they love, love, love all of MAGA’s vision — but they won’t brook violence. So, as such, while the MAGA New Right might get a quick fix by starting their so-called “revolution” the long term political implications would be their destruction.

I guess the point is — let’s not have a civil war or a revolution, shall we? I have six novels I want to write and I would prefer not to have to do that with bullets whizzing around.

‘When Will The MAGA Revolution Begin In 2022?’ Trump, Once Again, Has America’s Fate In His Tiny, Tiny Hands

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

America, the most powerful and ostensibly stable nation in the world finds itself in a somewhat surreal situation at the moment. It seems — if my Webstats are any indication — that a pretty big subset of the electorate believes that something akin to a “MAGA Revolution” is all but inevitable in the immediate future.

Something about the FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago made concrete the lingering, paranoid fears of the MAGA New Right about why they feel they need to take up arms against the Federal government. Now, obviously, this is bonkers logic for more than one reason — chief amongst them being that the Right is extremely ascendant in the United States and is getting everything it wants peacefully via politics and the courts.

But, as we all know, history loves to be ironic so, if Trump went transactional in a bid to prevent himself from going to jail, yes, the “MAGA Revolution” that so many fucking cocksucker MAGA people seem to believe is going to happen, will, in fact, happen. Yet, as I’ve written before, this is a very complex situation whereby a number of macro trends are all converging at the same time. You can call it The Fourth Turning or the Great Reset.

Whatever you call it, not only have we passed the Even Horizon for the existential choice of autocracy or civil war in 2024 – 2025, we’re also in the danger zone for something that would be marketed as a “MAGA Revolution.” Here’s how it would happen — America is awash in AR-15s. And, as we all tragically know at this point, AR-15s are specifically designed to murder as many people as possible at one time.

So, if Trump went transactional on Truth Social and told his followers to, say, start to kill FBI agents, then, yes, there is a good chance that they would pick up their AR-15s en mass and begin to do just that. But it might not be FBI agents — it could be pretty much anyone that the MAGA New Right perceives as part of the “woke cancel culture mob”….including people like ME.

And, of course, there is the chance that things could spiral out of control at this point without the help of Trump. It could be that a few lone wolves shooting up a lot of liberals somewhere might be enough to start a violent forest fire across the country that the press would call a “MAGA Revolution.” I suppose the whole point is that MAGA really, really wants the laws of war, rather of the criminal justice system to apply when they start murdering people like me for political reasons.

I guess that’s what they mean when they search for “civil war” or “revolution” and come to this site to look at my dystopian hellscape scenarios. They don’t really know what they want in any concrete manner, but in a gauzy, abstract grunt that is there political views they want to know, “When will I get to murder liberals without having to go to jail?”

But let me be clear — MAGA getting what they want when it comes to a “civil war” or “revolution” in 2022 would be so very, very dumb, not to mention very tragic for everyone involved. If they are just patient, they can get everything they want without firing a shot and it would be in the Blues’ court to start a civil war in 2024 – 2025 because either the 2024 election was brazenly stolen or Trump’s incoming second administration’s policies were just so radical that Blue states will decide to bounce.

The point of all of this is while it may seem inevitable to fucking cocksucker MAGA New Right types that we’re going to have a civil war or revolution at any moment….I still have my doubts. I just don’t see it happening unless Trump specifically demands it and even then, the idea that we’ve crossed that particular Rubicon is dubious.

Only time will tell, I suppose.