Be The Power
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
If nothing else, I know how this novel opens. I have one scene — the first — that is where I want it to be. Everything else is totally fluid to an absurd level. I don’t know how much of all of this is I still have a lot of learning to do about storytelling and how much of it is I’m too much of a perfectionist.
Regardless, I’ve kind of given myself a half-deadline of early next week to kind of get things locked down one way or another.
by Ender
To My Fellow New Lincolnites
I love scenarios. So, let’s game how out Radical Moderates might topple Tyrant Trump when it becomes clear that he’s going full tyrant. This is just for fun. I mean no harm. And, besides, no one takes me seriously or listens to me, anyway. Lulz!
General Strike
If New Lincolnites and Radical Moderates of all political stripes could organize some sort of General Strike that would be the first indication that Tyrant Trump was in trouble. I would appeal to women. I would make it clear to women that Tyrant Trump wanted to ban abortion — and contraception of any sort — and if they just didn’t show up to work then maybe malignant ding-dong Tyrant Trump might sit up and taken notice.
Take Trump Tower
I hate violence, so this is just me spit-balling. But if you could organize the “taking of Trump Tower” that would be way to fucking rattle Tyrant Trump’s cage. Burn the shithole to the ground. Hopefully without anyone getting hurt.
Seize New York City
If you could somehow have a general uprising in New York City to the point that you had something along the lines of a “Free City” that, too, would be a way to hobble Tyrant Trump’s attempts to size control. Again, I don’t want anyone to get hurt! This is just a daydream!
Co-opt The U.S. Military
Our best best to topple ding-dong Tyrant Trump is to co-opt the U.S. Military. Get all the talking heads on TV to beg the U.S. Military to ignore Tyrant Trump’s orders. Given that the U.S. Military on an institutional basis just doesn’t want to get involved….you invoke your secret weapon.
Invoke The 14th Amendment
It is clear that Trump can’t even *be* president because of his involvement in the January 6th Insurrection. So, while you’re crippling the country with a Women’s Strike, you appeal to the U.S. Military by saying, “You’re still acting legally by toppling Trump because he can’t even be POTUS because of the 14th Amendment.”
Demand A Constitutional Convention
Another goal of the General Strike (Women’s Strike) would be a Constitutional Convention. And it would be organized in a way not to give MAGA the ability to fuck things up. (Having the U.S. Military on your side is pretty cool.)
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I kind of have this on the brain because I’m reading about the first 100 days of Nazi rule, but it’s very, very curious that for all their hateful plotting that both Agenda47 and Project 2025 have pretty big hole in their autocratic designs — no SA.
See, it was the Nazi paramilitary group the SA that was crucial to browbeating the 48% of the German population that didn’t support the Nazis. And, yet, as far as I can tell, there is no one central paramilitary arm of MAGA that Tyrant Trump can turn to in early 2025.
It seems as though Tyrant Trump believes that what the Nazis used the SA for he can use the regular old U.S. Military to do. And…I have my doubts on that front. If things get REALLY FUCKING BAD, I could totally see the U.S. Military either slow walking things are turning around and deposing Tyrant Trump outright. (Maybe under the guise of the 14the Amendment?)
It is the lack of an organized national American SA that gives me…hope? If MAGA just assumes that they can rely on the U.S. Military to be their goons, then, well, I think the Good Guys have a fighting chance.
It Looks Like Rain
Lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform
you can tell me the truth
I swear I won’t bite
the clouds are dark
I’m afraid
soon enough if I’m right
that it looks like rain
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
baby
the darkness on the horizon
raises my fears that our love
is about to fade
what is our fate I want to know
is it going to rain
or is that just my fears
becoming a little too dear
’cause it looks like rain
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
baby
(bridge)
it’s dry as dirt
my mouth is parched
no sign of rain
from the sight of my domain
but maybe I’m wrong
and a flood is on its way
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
it looks like rain
baby
Love Never Ends
lyrics by @sheltgarner
please give credit if you produce or perform
don’t know what to say
much to my dismay
lay down next to me
give me a taste
of your sigh
as a caress your thigh
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
into sin
into sin
into sin
lovers come and go
and sometimes they blow
but give me a bow
and I’ll let you know
what it’s all about
no one can compare
when you give me
a bedroom stare
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
into sin
into sin
into sin
(bridge)
I’ll be a saint
sweet as can be
if that will make you cling
keep your distance if you must
’cause we need to keep our
lust in the dust
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
love never ends
when you’re into sin
into sin
into sin
into sin
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I really hate the modern Web sometimes. I hate how boring it is. I hate that I have to use a browser — or an app. What I want is to have the Web replaced by a bunch of LLM that talk to each other.
Or, I don’t know, it would be cool if I had a LLM that knew every quirk of my personality to the point that it could “pre-emptively” answer my questions before I even asked them. Or something like that.
Of course, the dark side to this is everyone would fall in love with their LLM, like in the movie Her. But ignoring that problem, I want to information to come to me via LLM, rather than me have to search it out.
It makes you think about how maybe the major national newspapers might need to invest in LLM. Because it definitely seems as though everything on the Web is about to change in a rather abrupt manner. Almost overnight, it could be that the very notion of using a “browser” will seem quaint.
This will only accelerate as LLMs become a commodity. That seems to be inevitable.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m a storytelling snob. So much so, that it’s now nearly impossible for me to consume anyone else’s story. But, at last, I believe I may — may — have at last stumble upon a beginning to my novel that actually pleases even me.
Now, remember, I’m not nearly as dark as my hero Stieg Larsson. And it can be a real struggle for me to play it straight — I like to plop in some humor every now and again. I just can’t help myself.
Anyway. It is at least possible that things will zoom along at a pretty fast clip now. I’ve had to grit my teeth and break or bend some of the dumb arbitrary rules I’ve been using to write this novel simply so I can actually finish something, anything.
I am embarrassed by how long it’s taken me to get to this point. I now hope to finish the third draft in the February – March timeframe. Then I will have to figure out how to pay a manuscript consultant to help me take the thing to the next level.
The case could be made that my heroine looks kind of like Pom Klementieff.
What’s more all of this will be happening in the context of the United States careening towards autocracy or civil war / revolution starting in late 2024, early 2025 — just as I plan on querying the novel!
But I have hope. I hope that if I can sell this first novel, I will somehow be given the opportunity to not only write the other five planned novels, but also a few scifi novels I want to write. And maybe, if I’m EXTREMELY LUCKY, a few screenplays too.
But I’m old and they shoot writers, don’t they?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I can still remember way back when dinosaurs ruled the earth when a very giddy young woman came up to me DJing at the bar Nori in Seoul and asked for me to play Nellie Furtado’s new track “Maneater.”
“It’s huge in Bangkok right now,” she said.
It’s a great song. In fact, the entire album that Maneater comes off of is kind of the sweetspot of the type of music I love. I love music that has a beat and you can dance to it. As such, when I heard the latest cut from Dua Lipa, “Houdini,” my listening ears perked up.
The track is…really good?
It’s got that same Loose vibe to it. It’s not…quite…there…but it’s so close as to be no big deal. I would have the song go a little harder as a dance track, but beggars can’t be choosers. Houdini is a solid dance pop rock song. It’s not disco and yet is sure to get punk ass Zennials on the dance floor.
Anyway. I hope the rest of the album is as good as this one song.
I will note there is an amusing element to the song’s video. Lipa yet again gives us a little T&A…without actually showing anything. She loves to do shit like that. You go girl.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
As I understand it, The Girl On The Train is about 140,000 words. I’m not suggesting I’m nearly as good a writer as the author of that novel, but at least that gives me hope that the ~100,000 word “sweetspot” for a first time author isn’t an absolute.
I say that because this novel is getting REALLY GOOD, but the first act is a bit long at 50 scenes. Each scene, as a rule of thumb, is on average 1,000 words so that’s about 50,000 words before The Event happens that sparks the rest of the story. But, remember Stieg Larsson did something similar with The Girl Who Played With Fire.
I’m — hoping — that all the spicy scenes in the first 50 scenes involving us seeing our intrepid heroine balancing her life as the owner of a strip club with that of owning an alternative weekly will give the story enough juice that audience will be willing to humor me for 50,000 words. I mean, who doesn’t like imagining T&A in their mind, am I right? Wink.
I find myself needing to actually consume media for once. I’ve grown into such a fucking storytelling snob that it is very, very difficult for me to read or otherwise consume anyone else’s story. But as my own story gets better, I realize maybe I need to be willing to expose myself to other voices.
Or something like that.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Today is has been a good day for the novel. The beginning is a lot stronger than it has been since I started this third draft. It is becoming more and more clear that this novel is very, very ambitious relative to my actual storytelling ability. There was just too much going on at first.
But now I’ve fixed that problem by staggering major developments in the story to the point that things slowly come to a boil at the end of the first act. I’m very pleased. I’ve also realized that I can’t just keep using my ad hoc, arbitrary rules derived from attempting to reverse engineer Stieg Larsson. I have to be willing to do what serves the purposes of telling a good story.
So, things are going pretty well. The story still has some pretty risky elements to it, given that I’m a smelly CIS white male who some people within the “woke cancel culture mob” believe doesn’t have the right to tell any story, much less a story about a “sex worker who solves a mystery.”
But, you know, lulz, slings and arrows and all that.
I hope to methodically write a few thousand words during the course of the day. I can’t keep spinning my wheels forever. Once I establish the first few chapters, things should move really, really, fast.
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