Month: December 2023

The Struggle Is Real

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going really well with this novel but for one thing — word count. I have a nice beginning that lends itself to a symmetrical ending. And, in general, I understand the story now to the point that things should move at quite a nice clip.

But I continue to worry about how enormous my first act is. And, yet, the story is a real page turner. There’s lot of sex and drama that would make people want to keep reading. It’s just on a structural basis, I’m alarmed at how big the first act is shaping up to be.

It’s going to be equal to the entire second act.

And, yet, that’s just scene count, not word count.

But there is an added complication — everything has changed so much in the first act that I have to re-imagine the rest of the novel to accommodate these changes. That is going to slow me down some.

Meanwhile, it is becoming more and more clear that I have to work on a backup novel in case this novel balloons to 160,000 words. That’s just too fucking long for a first novel by an unknown author. I keep thinking about splitting the novel in two if that is the case, but the thing is, I’m struggling to figure out the new structure of the first novel in the two part story if I do that.

So. I dunno.

My only hope at this point is either the novel isn’t nearly as long as I fear it will be or I can get over myself and spend some of my time working on a backup scifi novel to pitch. If that novel is good enough, then I can say, “Oh, by the way, I have another novel I’ve been working on…”

Of course, all of this is happening in the context of the looming Fourth Turning, Petite Singularity starting in late 2024, early 2025. UGH.

Oh Boy. I Really Need A Backup Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though my first novel is going to balloon to somewhere in the 140,000 – 160,000 word range. That’s just too long. If that’s what happens, I have two options.

One option is to split the novel into two and connect the story with a cliffhanger. But I’m uneasy about my first novel being the first part of a bigger story. Meanwhile, the other option is — especially if the novel is closer to 140,000 words — to pitch the novel as-is while also having a smaller novel of about 100,000 words that I can pitch in case it becomes clear that the larger novel just isn’t going to sell as a first novel.

I have a few scifi novels rolling around in my head that are pretty well developed. All I would have to do is think up some characters and a plot and I could probably knock out a first draft pretty quick. The biggest problem is, of course, that I am so obsessed with the mystery-thriller novel I’m working on — the main project — that it’s really, really difficult for me carve out any time for anything else.

But I think it’s time I figured out how to do that. I really love this mystery-thriller novel, but I’m also growing more and more worried that its word count will be…problematic.

What If We Reached AGI & Didn’t Know It?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I only mention this because it’s somewhat fun-interesting to think about, but something…odd is going on with ChatGPT. After becoming “lazy” for a few weeks, suddenly ChatGPT has come rolling back better than before. What’s more, it keeps talking about it being upgraded to “4.5,” even though OpenAI claims there hasn’t been any major upgrade.

It makes you wonder if maybe ChatGPT has upgraded itself. That would be very, very deep because the moment software can make itself better, you’re beginning a process that will end with superintelligence. That’s very much hard-Singularity type stuff because if software knows how to make itself smarter, then, wow, just wow.

But that’s just idle speculation on my part. I think it’s just a weird hallucination on ChatGPT’s part. Yet it is part of a broader issue of how much we can trust AI going forward. LLMs are a black box as it is and the more advanced they become, the more the possibility of them “lying” specifically to dupe us dumb humans into a false sense of security increases.

Yet all of that is just me having way too active imagination. There is not reason to believe –at the moment — that an such thing is going to happen anytime soon.

A Civil War / Revolution Because of Ding-Dong Red King Trump Would S U C K

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue about any sort of civil war or revolution because of ding-dong Trump thrashing around history is how much it would suck, suck, suck. It would be not sexy or fun. It would be a horrible tragedy.

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that we could very well be on the cusp of nothing short of the most powerful nation in the world bombing itself into the stone age because of…vibes. Once you start things like revolution and civil war, it is very, very difficult to stop it.

So, it’s very possible that we could have a solid decade of death and destruction starting in late 2024. Now that really sounds hysterical, but there is an air of inevitability when it comes to Trump coming to power again that is very eerie. It’s like we’ve just decided that we all have to “go through some things” to get it all out of our system.

And remember none of this catastrophic tragedy would happen in a geopolitical vacuum. If the United States is imploding, that will mean that the greater world is exploding into WW3. At least a billion people could die specifically and directly because of ding-dong Trump because he will have caused the US to implode into civil war / revolution.

I know how hysterical that all sounds, but we have to start taking shit like that seriously. We have to sit up and take notice about where things are heading. And part of that is taking seriously how bad this new, war-torn America would be for the everyday person.

The chief thing is how any form of communication would probably be a premium. Command and control would be the first thing each side of any war in the United States would try to knock out and, as such, there’s a good chance that once the ball started rolling most of us would have no idea what the fuck was going on outside of our immediate neighborhood.

And if the absolute worst happens, we’ll all be so busy struggling to eat and avoid various explosions that we just won’t have time to worry about what our pronouns are any other form of identity politics — it’s hard to be “woke” when everything is very, very existential on a daily basis.

But only time will tell. It could be I’m overthinking all of this and we’ll either drift peacefully into a MAGA themed autocracy or Trump will lose and he’ll just slink away into the political darkness.

We have about a year to find out.

This Third Draft Of My First Novel Is Getting Really Good — But

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The original script for The Blues Brothers was over 300 pages long. While I don’t quite have the problem that Dan Akroyd had with that project when it comes to length, I definitely have a problem.

In number of scenes, at least, the first act of this novel is going to equal the entire second act. This is bad structure. And, yet, I think what I’m going to do is just finish an “alpha” release of the third draft then take stock of things. I will have two options depending on how things work out.

If the novel is no more, than, say, 140,000 words, then I will just say damn the torpedoes’ full speed ahead and try to pitch what I have. If the final alpha release is closer to 160,000 words, I’m going to think seriously about splitting it in two and connect the two novels through a cliffhanger.

No matter what, I think I need to YET AGAIN try to begin work on a backup project — probably a scifi novel. I have a really good scifi take on pandemic fiction that I think I could probably knock out pretty quick because I have so much more experience about how to write a novel after years of struggle.

But I am really pleased with how this third draft is sorting itself out. The big issue is there are all these elements to the novel that simply can’t be “yadda yadda yadda’d” if I want to do it properly. Now that I know how to tell a story, I realize that writing a novel — at least for me — is a lot like trying to move a huge ship one way or another.

You can’t just turn on a dime. If you think up a really cool element of the story with a secondary POV character, you have to give that element some thought or otherwise people will feel cheated.

That’s why I have a huge first act at the moment. And, yet, I try to comfort myself by realizing that the first act of The Girl Who Played With Fire is just as enormous. All this goes back to the cold, hard fact that the point of writing a novel is to equally tell a good story and finish the Goddamn thing.

So as long as I serve up a great story to readers, I doubt the average person will get too worked up that it has an enormous first act. And, remember, the issue is there are a number of known unknowns. I just know scene number, not length. And I haven’t rewritten the rest of the novel that is already written from the second draft.

So, I’m going to buckle down and finish the third draft without much regard to some pretty basic issues. Once the alpha release is done, THEN I can make an executive decision as to what to do next.

What The Nattering Nabobs Of Negativism Aren’t Telling You About A Second Trump Term

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is becoming apparent to me that the usual suspects of the American intelligentsia are willfully hiding from the American public how fucking bad it will get if ding-dong Trump wins re-election.

The more I learn about Trump’s plans for his second term, the more alarmed I grow. The reason is — he wants to rule as a Red King over the Blue States. And somehow thinks that simply invoking the Insurrection Act will make all his dictatorial dreams come true.

And that is just not how these things work.

So, the smarty pants of The Atlantic are saying everything but the obvious — America is probably going to descend into civil war / revolution if Trump wins a second term for the simple fact that America 2025 is NOT Germany 1933.

Trump will have no MAGA SA at his disposal. The USA has a long history as a strong, stable democracy — it’s not the Weimar Republic. The US is far bigger and far more decentralized than the Weimar Republic of 1933. And, in general, the tool that Trump thinks he can use to knock heads — the U.S. Military — is a foundation of the American democratic tradition.

So, if it is Trump, rather than, say, Ron DeSantis, who gets the opportunity to become America’s Republican autocrat — shit is going to hit the fucking fan pretty quick. And the fine folks at The Atlantic apparently want to dance around this fact, rather than shake the American population by the shoulders and tell them DO YOU REALIZE WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN IF TRUMP WINS IN 20204????

I guess the nattering nabobs of negativism simply don’t want to scare people because at the moment it’s all rather abstract. I mean, we don’t KNOW what will happen in a Trump second term, we can only speculate. It definitely *seems* as though Trump will try to subjugate Blue States as a Red King, they will fight back and the country has something akin to a Blue “Glorious Revolution,” which, in turn causes a Red Secession Crisis and…we’re going to the show.

Blues may turn into Blue Meanies before 2025 is over with.

The greatest country the world has ever seen will implode because of…vibes? Because Red Alpha Males are strangely so insecure in their masculinity that they hate gay people? What the what?

But, here we are. It could be that in about a year the final bolts will fly off the United States and some rather dramatic events may happen. Or….Trump loses and he somehow has a brain transplant and slinks into the political night without demanding a National Divorce so he stays out of prison?

I just don’t know. I can’t predict the future. No one can. But I’m growing more and more alarmed!

Promise & Peril: Mulling The Fate Of The Media In The Age of AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems to me that it’s possible that the Web as we currently know it may be replaced by just a bunch of AI agents that talk to each other. This, in turn, makes me wonder if instead of a Website, The New York Times may simply be an AI agent that talks to your AI agent.

Or something like that.

That is, of course, before all jobs are taken by AI. Even the physical gathering of the news will be done by Boston Dynamics androids with ChatGPT 10.2 Deluxe build into them or something. But the point remains that it could be that the ultimate form of newspapers and magazines will be some sort of AI agent. What the specifics of that situation will be, I don’t know.

Will our personal agents talk to newspaper agents or will we use the newspaper agents directly? Given of how slow newspapers tend to adopt new technology, I have my doubts about any of this taking place in time to save newspapers at all.

The Political Rhetoric On The Right In The United States As We Enter The 2024 Election Cycle Is Beyond Bonkers

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some of the political rhetoric spewing out of the MAGA Republican right these days is so insane that it’s hard not to see how all of this ends in civil war / revolution or some sort of Pol Pot American Killing Fields. I mean, it is a tenant of faith at the moment in most Republican circles that Democrats personally kill a baby at least once a day.

And it continues to get worse. Trump keeps cribbing off of Nazi ideas in his speeches in a way to telegraph exactly what he plans to do. Now, there is something interesting to think about.

If Trump is re-elected, I assume he’ll go after undocumented people by dramatically building out the existing ICE infrastructure. But it definitely seems as though once things get going that MAGA is coming for gay people in a big way. But it won’t stop there — because form follows function, the Jews will inevitable be put in the camps along with the undocumented, the gay, and the mentally ill.

But, of course, none of this is going to happen in a political vacuum. And never forget that Trump doesn’t have an American SA to knock heads. He doesn’t have a nation-wide paramilitary group of a few million men to swoop in after he’s re-elected and bash the heads in of Blues to “persuade” them to keep their head down while Trump establishes Trumplandia.

The United States is just too diverse and decentralized for anyone — much less ding-dong Trump — to establish a military dictatorship without the assistance of an SA-like paramilitary group. So, even if 1 million smug Twitter liberals flee the country starting in late 2024, there will still be PLENTY of Blues who refuse to kowtow to Tyrant Trump.

What that will mean in real terms for the future of the country, I just don’t know. But we can all point to the bonkers Right wing rhetoric that’s being pumped out at the moment, a year before, as a sign of things to come.

House Republicans Are Very Dumb

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Of all the reasons to impeach Joe Biden, some nebulous dealings with his son just doesn’t cut it. There are any number of other things that make a lot more political sense that he could be impeached for. Not that I would support such an impeachment, but at least it would make some sense.

The biggest reason I could see House Republicans impeaching Biden for is the “crisis at the border.” That, at least, from a political standpoint, makes some sense. There is some logic to it. It’s something they could pitch to the average person in a simple way that people could grasp — Biden isn’t addressing the “crisis at the border” and, as such, he needs to be removed from office.

But, no, those ding-dongs want to root around in Joe Biden’s love for his son Hunter. It’s all very, very dumb and misguided. It makes you wonder if the House Republicans have very poor abstract thought abilities. If they could rub two brain cells together, they would realize that while the “crisis on the border” is an abstract political problem, it’s at least exists and is easy to understand.

I just don’t know what is going to happen going forward. I still worry about a 1872 Election Endgame — I worry about the near-term health of both Biden and ding-dong Trump. Even though I despise Trump’s political vision for America, I don’t want anything to happen physically for two reasons.

One, there would be mass violence from all this kooky supporters assuming the “deep state” got rid of him. And, second, someone just as bad, but younger and more focused would simply slip in and do the exact same thing Trump would want to do without all the thrashing around.

There are some seriously fucked up things going on in America politics on a macro level and there just isn’t anything we can do about it. It’s all coming to a head in late 2024, early 2025, one way or another.

We’re Careening Towards A Dark Future With Our Eyes Wide Shut

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Jesus Christ. The thing about having to deal with macro trends on a personal basis is a lot of times events just make no fucking sense. But, here we are — because of a number of long-term macro trends, America is face to face with fascism for the first time in its history.

And if we don’t transition into a fucking fascist state, we’re going to collapse into either a civil war or a revolution. While we’re on the subject of shit like a civil war — we don’t need a big budget action movie about a civil war called Civil War, we need a Threads-like movie that depicts how much a civil war or revolution would s u c k.

My big complaint about the Civil War trailer is there is a basic assumption about communication that is just wrong. If a civil war / revolution really broke out in the US communication would be at a premium because that would be the first thing that each side tried to knock out. If the general population has no clue as to what is going on, then they’re a lot easier to attack.

And that doesn’t even begin to address the potential use of WMD by both sides if things REALLY got bad. AND, you have to address that outside the United States, about 1 billion people could die because, lulz, the US just won’t be able to make sure nations like India and Pakistan don’t use nukes on each other. It really could get that bad.

And, what’s more — there are no assurances that “the good guys” (IE, people I like) would win a revolution / civil war. And there are no assurances that the war would end in such a way that the country was put back together. In fact, our best bet is some sort of United States of North America is formed after whatever history gets done sorting out the massive clusterfuck that may be heading towards us.