by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
In a move that I *hope* Emily Ratajkowski won’t think is creepy, I’m using her as my muse and pretty much basing the female romantic lead of this novel on her. She’s long been a celebrity crush of my mine and as I was developing this novel, I realized I knew enough about her details of her life that I could scramble things around a little bit and use her as the basis of my female romantic lead.
Emrata
After a bit of spinning in place the last few days, things are again beginning to move forward at a nice little clip.
My dream is that this novel will evoke the same vibe as The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind meets, say, Ex Machina with a dabble of Annie Hall. I hope. That’s the dream.
I still seem to be on course to wrapping this baby up by the end of the year. Maybe. It’s possible. Not probable. If I do, however, then I can use the first part of 2026 to sort of sort things out with beta readers and such.
As I’ve said before, if I was 25 years younger, I would be in LA right now, writing this thing as a screenplay. I love movies and as an adult, I’ve found that watching movies has inspired me more than any novels I’ve read.
I kind of hate that about myself. I used to read fiction like crazy when I was a kid, but something happened once I got older. And I know they say if you have time to write you have time to read.
It’s just…a real struggle.
But, if I was to compare the vibe of this novel, it would be with The Martian or Project Hail Mary. Those are two really influential novels for me.
