by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’ve sort of been experiencing post-partum creative depression when it comes to what I’m going to do next after finishing my first novel. (Actually, it’s my second, but it’s the first novel that I feel is good enough to query.)
I’m hoping writing this out will get me in the right headspace to get back to writing again. I really also, of course, need to bone up on querying. But the last few weeks I’ve just been in a severe funk because I’ve finished a pretty good novel but I couldn’t think of what next to write about.
Thankfully, a new novel idea came to me in a dream. So, the moment I woke up, I rushed to my computer and started talking to Claude and Gemini LLMs about it. After about 20 minutes, I had the basis of a fully-formed novel gamed out.
But, like I said, I’ve really had problems actually doing anything with the novel. Yet I hope I can bootstrap myself back into developing and writing a new novel starting today. I just can’t daydream and be immobilized forever.
The new novel idea comes at the android-human debate from the opposite direction as the last novel. Which is something of a challenge that I like having to work on. I still have a lingering desire to write a trilogy that is an homage to Stieg Larsson’s work…but I just don’t have the time to write a trilogy.
I’m not getting any younger.
Even as it stands, I could be closer to 60 than I would prefer even if everything went right with the novel that I want to query. That really is depressing and discouraging.
But I just can’t change that it took me 20 years to figure out that the only thing I’m reasonably good at is writing fiction. And even that is debatable to a lot of people. (I guess in real terms the only thing I’m natively good at is being a rock DJ or photograph, but neither one of those is a viable option for me right now.)
So, wish me luck.
