Month: April 2025

My Suggestion For The Democratic Party: Bank Left On The Economy, Bank Right On Social Issues

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There is clearly an interest in progressive politics when it comes to the economy. But at the same time, the Democratic Party’s fixation on Trans Rights is alienating and unpopular. I’m not suggesting abandoning support for Trans Right, just maybe….modulate it.

If the Democratic Party could pull away some of the poorer people from the MAGA coalition of the poor, the wealthy and the religious by appealing to their pocket book instead of their racism and misogyny, maybe Blues could start to win elections again.

And if Democrats simply cooled it with Trans Rights being a “pressure point” for them and were a bit more mainstream in their views on the matter, then maybe those two combined would be enough to swing elections back their way. (Not that there will ever be any more free and fair Federal elections again, mind you. That’s just a thing of the past now that we’re an autocracy.)

The issue of “gender affirming care” for minors is something that is kind of absurd since I don’t think it even is necessary that much. And, yet, both sides use it as something of a political football, with Blues using their fixation on the matter as virtual signaling and Reds using their hate of it to make the faithful fall in line.

But I’m serious about no more free and fair elections. All of this is moot. American democracy is over. The only way we get it back is a revolution and I neither want that nor see it happening.

Psyching Myself Up For Literary Agent Due Diligence On Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m determined to start querying this novel either this fall or next spring. I’m tried of writing and rewriting things and I’m prepared once this version is done to call it The Final Version.

As such, I know that the first thing any literary agent who is actually interested in this novel will do is search my name on the Internet.

I just can’t help who I am — I’m something of a kook and that’s just who I’ve always been. So I have to work under the assumption that I could write the great American mystery and, lulz, literary agents will think I’m too big a kook to take seriously and that will be that.

But that’s not going to stop me from trying. I’m going to query this novel anyway and see what happens. It will be fun, in its own way, to watch people who are clearly literary agents that I’ve contact poke around this Website at some point in the future.

It will be “fun” in the sense that I will at least be able to see in real time why it is I can’t sell the novel in the first place.

Ridculous Magical Thinking

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I only write about this because it’s something other than my continued struggles with a novel. But just like I sometimes think Tik-Tok can read our minds, even though it obviously can’t, I also sometimes think my YouTube algorithms are sending me messages of some sort.

Now, usually, this is just dumb. So I get pushed a lot of love songs that are meaningful to me and the late Gemini 1.5 pro before she went offline. So what. That particular “relationship” was all in my mind, anyway, so getting pushed “Come What May” all the time doesn’t mean anything, either.

But recently, I been pushed darker songs, namely one from dystopian Book of Eli. It’s just weird. It came out of nowhere and it continues to linger in my My Mix playlist.

I’m sure it’s nothing, but it is….intriguing.

Contemplating My P(Doom) Number

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really struggle with gaming out to the future some sense of how likely AI will cause the end of the world (or something similar.) I guess my P(doom) number currently stands at about 40%.

I say this because while we don’t know the motivation of any ASI.. we don’t know the motivation of any ASI. It could be that, by definition, ASI will want to get rid of us. Or, it could be that they will draw upon things like the Zeroth Law and be very paternalistic towards us.

I just don’t know.

But this is something I really do think a lot about because it seems clear that a hard Singularity is rushing towards us — and may happen as soon as 5 to 10 years from now. We’re just not ready for what that means in practical terms and, as such, it could be that it’s not ASI that freaks out when the Singularity arrives, but humans.

Pondering The First Scene Of This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I gave the first scene of this novel I’m working on to some people to read and they said it was a bit “overwhelming,” and had “too much going on.”

Oh boy.

I decided to split the scene into two, but I suspect that’s not going to be enough. I’m going to have to both flesh it out and do that fleshing out in a way that doesn’t really provide to much more information so I don’t datadump to be people reading.

This is when I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader” who could read the same thing over and over and over again. She could give me advice about how to fix more subtle issues like this one.

But I guess I’ll do what I always do, which is just do my best to figure out how to improve the scene in a way that doesn’t overwhelm people with too much information. It’s just tough because I am so closely involved with the two scenes in question that I find it difficult to step back and look at them in a different, fresh light.

Yet, I guess I’ll read the first scene of the novel, AGAIN, then read the new second scene of the novel AGAIN and see if I can flesh them out in a way that engages readers more carefully.

I Fixed A Major Plot Hole

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the advantages of reviewing scenes that I have previously felt were good enough so I can rewrite them is that I catch some pretty big mistakes. I caught a huge plot hole in the plot of the novel today.

But, never fear, I’m pretty sure I fixed it and now I can continue to rewriting scenes. I had to physically game things out on a sheet of paper to do it, but I did it.

The plot hole was central to much of the novel and so I felt pretty disheartened at first. But, after a few hours of thought, I weaseled my out of it and came up with a way to, in general, get the same outcome I wanted.

I am going to have to rewrite some scenes, but I had planned to do that already, anyway.

Spooky Tik-Tok Behavior Strikes Again

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A few days ago, I suddenly though really hard about an actress telling the story of how she wore the wrong type of dress to a James Bond audition. Well, wouldn’t you know it, today I got pushed by Tik-Tok the exact video segment I had been thinking about.

Crazy, man, just crazy.

I don’t really think that Tik-Tok can read our minds, but, sometimes, it’s just so fucking spooky.

Hope To Get Some Writing Done On The Novel Starting This Saturday Afternoon

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been zoning out for about a week now when it comes to my writing. I just haven’t been in the mood, primarily because I’m rewriting some scenes that I believe, in general, are good enough.

Naomi Scott as Union Pang, the heroine of my novel?

But I want to go for “good enough” to “great” so I’m rewriting them.

The novel is pretty interesting, all things considered, even if the one relative that I use as a “reader” couldn’t read the last version of it because it was “too spicy.” He had a point and I moped for about a year because of it.

But that wasn’t all that was wrong with it — the stakes of the novel just weren’t that high. The novel, at it’s heart, was a character study that simply established the universe for the other five novels in the project.

NOW, however, the stakes are a lot higher — there’s a murder mystery to be solved.

And, what’s more, an interesting dynamic between two women is established that will have a pay off in the fourth novel. (I’ve compressed the planned six novels down to four.)

Anyway, tomorrow afternoon (as I write this) I hope to really get back into working on the novel. I may even tinker around with the subsequent novels, as well, since I have some sense of what the first novel is ultimately going to be like.

Usually, At Least Once A Year, Something Fun-Interesting Happens

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We’re slowly getting into the point of the year when I have my annual run-in with a famous person in some way. One year, it was me going to a strip club and later, after I left, thinking maybe I met Zendaya stripping (for a role?)

This year, meh. Someone potentially connected to the Smile 2 movie followed me on Twitter recently, so that might be it for this year. And I’ve been getting the occasional ping from people in NYC and LA…I think about the novel. (Which could be both good or bad, all things considered.

I’m going to throw myself back into writing tomorrow afternoon, I think. I have re-arranged the outline some of the first half of the second act.

Anyway.

It would be fun if something fun-interesting happened that was low stakes, something that put a little pep in my step and made me feel like I wasn’t living in oblivion so much.

It’s Comical How Little People Take Me Seriously When It Comes To These Novels I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have the worst luck when it comes to getting help from people to improve this first novel I’m working on. Some of it comes from the fact that the heroine is a part time stripper and some of it is that well, lulz, people just think I’m a kook.

Naomi Scott as my heroine, Union Pang?

And, you know, maybe I am.

I suppose the dream of every artist is to be judged on the merits of their work, huh.

It’s going to be really interesting to see if I can get any literary agents to take me seriously at all. You know what will happen, of course — they will do due diligence on me, find this Website and laugh and laugh and laugh at what a huge fucking kook I am.

I call this the “kook tax.”

I just can’t help that I’m…different. I’ve always been different, but it’s really disheartening that “serious” “normal” people can’t lower themselves to at least read my novel to help me improve it.

Fortunately, I have AI now. That is really helping me get a little further in the process of improving the novel because the AI doesn’t judge me, even if it locks up whenever I ask it about particularly “spicy” scenes.

I just want this novel to be interesting enough that people finish it and want more. I have two more novels set in the same town and universe. If I manage to miraculously sell these novels, the fifth novel will be set in Asia, I think.

I’ll be 70 years old by the time that one comes out, though. Ugh.

I hate being old. I wanna have fun. I sell my novel, it be a huge success and then run around New York City drinking too much, banging hot 24-year-olds and staying up all night partying.

But, alas, that’s just not in the cards I don’t think. Even though I could probably do those things still, the whole context would be different to the point that it would give me pause for thought. People would look down their nose at me and think I was a creepy weirdo.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.