Be The Power
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This is already happening, but I do think that the difference between podcasts and talk shows will be pretty much moot by the end of 2026. This, especially since if we can’t get Stephen Colbert to run for office, he will probably go into podcasting bigtime.
So all the talk about a “pivot to video” that has happened over the years is finally going to happen now.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, about 20 years ago now, I started ROKon Magazine. It is the greatest story never told, in my opinion. Anyway, if I was an expat in Seoul now, I would start a podcast.
What I would do is, we would have a regular podcast — maybe once a week — and then as part of that podcast, we would have a regularly updated Website that would have content that would otherwise be in a magazine.
There would be a symbiotic relationship between the podcast and the Website.
Too bad the only way I’m ever going back to Korea it looks like at this point is if North Korea collapses and there’s a dire need for English teachers there. Otherwise, I will be 80 years old before I can return (unless I somehow finish and sell this novel I’m working on.)
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m just not in the mood to drink right now. I’m going to be stubborn, or at least try to be, and just not drink for as much of January as I can. I’m not going to say I’m going to be all that successful, but, I will try.
And, it could be that instead of being “dry” I’ll be more…moderate. It’s not how much I drink, it’s how often that bothers me. What’s more, my fucking tolerance is so high that there really isn’t any point to drinking.
It’s not like I’m going to get drunk for any duration of time.
I sober up really quick whenever I drink, which leaves me feeling meh.
Anyway, I’m not looking for a pat on the back. It’s not like I’m going on the wagon — unless something happens where I feel I have to. (Hopefully, that won’t happen.)
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I got well into the second act of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on when I needed to hard reset my context windows with the AIs I was using and they both said when I showed them the outline again that my hero was “too passive.”
So, I hard reset the novel. Everything collapsed and I started essentially from scratch.
Now, after several weeks of hard work, I’m back to just about wrapping up the first act. I fear the “fun and games” part of the novel — the first half of the second act — might need to be re-imagined a little bit more than I would prefer.
But I don’t quite know yet. It might be that I just have to mess with the first few scenes and otherwise everything will snap back into place. If that’s the case, then this thing will speed up really fast.
I will be able to just hotsync all these scenes I’ve already written into the text of the novel and I’ll be back into the “bad guys closing in” part of the novel a lot sooner than expected.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I am not shocked by Trump very often these days, but Trump kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela actually managed to stun me. I am well aware of what a thug Maduro is, but just kidnapping him out of the blue is a real dick move on Trump’s part.
President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela
And, yet, here we are, with people hand waving what Trump has done and praising him for getting rid of a Latin American tyrant. Ok, I get it, but, man, it still makes me queasy.
I guess, if nothing else, I would prefer if there had been some sort of public debate about us abducting the leader of another country — an act of war. Something about how this has been handled is not cool.
And, yet, I guess we’re all going to be so happy that we got rid of a thug that we will just sweep the bad precedent this establishes under the table. What’s next, Trump kidnapping the prime minster of Canada?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This novel I’m working on is really good. So good that I keep expecting a movie or Black Mirror episode to come out that so steals a creative march on me that I have to piviot to some other story idea.
I will have lost valuable time, but, lulz.
I’m not getting any younger, you know.
And, yet, just because the premise is obvious to me, doesn’t mean it’s as obvious to other people as I think. But I’m definitely putting my stick where the puck will be. The premise of the novel is sort of like, “what would it be like, in real terms, for Pris from Blade Runner living her every day life?”
Pris from Blade Runner
That’s pretty much the general gist of the novel’s premise, even though that’s not exact.
Anyway, I still am on track to wrap this novel up around April-May 2026. Then I have to do some last minute editing before I give it to whatever beta readers I can scrounge up. Then I’ll probably have to go therapy because everyone will praise my writing and I’ll feel all this angst about how my writing was “enhanced” by being AI first, even though I did, in fact, write as much as possible of the novel with my own hand.
But because everyone and everything is horrible, people will just assume AI wrote everything and probably dismiss the novel as just more “AI slop.” Ugh.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This time, I tell myself, will be different. Instead of just drifting — again — towards my goal of writing a novel that is query-worthy, I’m actually going to buckle down and focus.
With that in mind, I have not one, but three books devoted to the querying process to at least glance over. Two of the books are about querying, while the third is a big book of literary agents.
I really don’t want to think about the querying process because, lulz, I know there’s a decent change I’m going to fail in a monumental way. Like epically. I think this in large part because I’m a big old kook and “serious” “normal” that woke-liberal-white-woman-literary-agent who does due diligence on me is probably going to be aghast.
I’m just a loudmouth crank and always have been.
But, this is definitely the up-up or shut up moment of my life when it comes to writing a novel I plan on querying. If I don’t do something different immediately, I’m going to wake up at 60 and STILL not have queried a novel.
I just want to see how far I get through the process. I feel so old at this point. Even though I’m not, like, elderly, I am still older than Stieg Larsson was when he was trying to get his novel(s) sold. That doesn’t make me feel very good.
But this novel is really good. The premise is rock solid, if a little dark and pulpy. But, if nothing else, it’s “accessible.” I keep thinking of how I want to “comp” my novel to the works of Andy Weir who’s novels The Martian and Project Hail Mary are really, really accessible.
Anyway, no one listens to me and no one takes me seriously, so, lulz.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
For some weird reason, I spent much of today asleep and dreaming and in doing so I spent a huge amount of REM sleep devoted to “fixing” the TV show Pluribus. This sort of stuff happens when you’re obsessed with writing a novel, like I am at the moment.
Now, I can’t remember everything, but here is what I do remember.
Make Carol a normal human being
What I would do is instead Carol being a mean, nasty lesbian, I would just have her be a normal fucking human being lesbian. I get why she’s the way she is — what if the worst person in the world had to save humanity? — but, lulz, if she was just an average person, that would open a lot more nuance. I mean, imagine if she was sort of friends with the hivemind from the beginning and then she found betrayed when she found out the “darker” side of things.
Make it so only part of humanity is infected
Actually, either you go this route or you have the entire world infected because the signal went directly into people’s minds. But given that you become catatonic for 15 minutes in-world, there is just no way the virus could take over the entire world as depicted in the show. This is really bad world-building to the point of being a plot hole. Instead, either allow for the interesting situation where only part of the world is infect, or go with the “direct to mind” route.
Make it so you can “cure” the infected with (good) music.
It would be fun — and crowd pleasing — if, say, Carol finds out that you can “cure” people by playing music, preferably good music with a heavy bass. That would be fun. Opens up all sorts of interesting avenues.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The key difference between the dotcom bubble and the AI bubble is the dotcom bubble was based on just an idea. It was very, very speculative in nature. The ironic thing about it, was, of course, that it was just 20 years too soon in its thinking.
Meanwhile, the AI bubble is actually based on something concrete. You can actually test things out and see if they will work or not. And that’s why if there really is an AI development “plateau” in 2026 then…oh boy.
The bubble will probably burst.
I still think that if there is a plateau that that, in itself, will allow for some interesting things to happen. Namely, I think we’ll see LLMs native to smart phones. That would allow for what I call the “Nudge Economy” to develop whereby LLMs in our phones (and elsewhere) would “nudge” us into economic activity.
That sounds rather fanciful, I know, but, lulz, no one listens to me anyway. And, yet, I do think that barring something really unexpected, we will probably realize that LLMs are a limited AI architecture and we’re going to have to think up something that will take us to AGI, then ASI.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I have magic in a bottle with this novel, I just know it. It’s very zeitgeist-y in nature and it’s definitely putting my stick where the puck will be. But I have a tendency to just drift towards my writing goals.
But I have a hunch my life is going to change rather dramatically this year — probably sooner rather than later — so I have got to, got to get some structure in my writing life to get this novel done ASAP.
One key change from all the other years I’ve been working on various novels is the introduction of AI into my writing workflow. No longer do I feel like I’m working in a vacuum. I have various AIs to, actually, like, listen to me and shit. I couldn’t even get human literary types to take me seriously, even when I offered to pay them.
Anyway, I have three books related to querying that I need to at least look over. I think if I actually take a deep breath and read them in some capacity that that might be enough to focus my mind.
Like, let’s do this. Let’s finish this beta draft of the novel so I can get to the next steps of giving it to beta readers and then — gulp — actually querying. I have a feeling I’m going to slam head first into the cold, dark waters of querying and I’m such a fucking kook (relative to the woke liberal white women who in my imagination make up the majority of literary agents) that the whole thing could be kind of painful and bruising on an emotional basis.
In other words, despite writing a pretty good, timely novel, it will all be for naught.
And, yet, the whole point is to just see how far I can get in the process. I want to see what it’s like to actually query a novel. That, in itself, will be an interesting experience, even if I fail in a spectacular fashion.
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