Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

Update On My Scifi Dramedy WIP Novel For March 17th, 2026

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m officially in the last chapter of this draft of the novel. I have just a few more scenes before I finish this draft and can piviot to editing it on a macro basis by going through and reading it all the way through.

You’re SUPPOSED to pause for a month when doing such things, but I just don’t have the time. My life is on the cusp of being pretty turbulent for a variety of reasons out of my control and as such, lulz, I need to hurry up.

And so, I am going to hopefully wrap this draft up then get down to work to reading the entire novel. I don’t quite know what I will do once I finish that. I guess I will do some structural work before I go through and edit each individual scene.

In the past, I’ve had some trouble reading scene of the novel without breezing through them. But I do need to actually sit down and read the scenes carefully to understand how to make them better.

I continue to worry about what is going to happen on the due diligence front when I actually start to query. I’m such a kook — and always have been — that I’m nervous that that, in itself, will doom any chances I have to ever get published.

But I can’t think like that. I need to have hope in myself.

Update On My Scifi Dramedy WIP Novel For March 16th, 2026

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m just about to wrap up writing the latest draft of the novel. I’ve finished the expanded scene summaries for the last few scenes and now I just have to write the scenes out.

I even know how the novel ends, at the moment at least.

One big structural issue is this novel is kind of janky when it comes to tone. It doesn’t always live up to being a “dramedy.” Don’t quite know what I’m going to do about that particular problem.

But I am well on my way to reading the novel all the way through and editing it on a macro basis. I may endup reading the novel all the way through several times for several different reasons.

I still — STILL — need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. But I don’t wanna. I’m afraid my own writing will suck so bad in comparison that I will feel bad and get discouraged on my own writing.

And, yet, I absolutely have to read the damn thing.

But I am, in general, pleased with where things stand. I hope to wrap up this draft of the novel in a few weeks, maybe? If I’m lucky? I’m so erratic when it comes to writing that sometimes I think I have everything sorted out, only to spend two weeks staring out into space, doing nothing.

Just About In The Next Stage Of My Scifi Dramedy WIP

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a few more scenes to write with this scifi dramedy I’m working on before I take things to the next level: reading it all the way through.

Once THAT is done, then I will get more into the nitty-gritty of “color correction” so there is some consistency of tone to it all.

I’m hoping to do something different than previous times I’ve gotten to this point when things seemed to fall apart for various reasons. I really need to keep this draft to myself as long as possible before giving it to anyone to read.

It definitely looks as though I’m on track to start querying no later than Sept 1st. I might actually wrap things up a few months before then — maybe — but as I understand it, there are two “seasons” for querying: spring and fall. So, once everyone is done with their summer vacations, I suppose I can start to query.

Now, obviously, I have to prepare myself for a catastrophic disaster, failure. In the sense that any number of things could go wrong, from be being simply too old, to me being to big of a kook, to the novel just sucking no matter what to…the list goes on.

But at least I will have tried. At least I will have experience something interesting and cool.

One thing I will need to do is start work on a new novel while I query. And, yet, I also know I’m getting up their in age and while it will be a distraction to write a new novel, I have to accept that if I don’t sell this first novel that the next novel is probably just for fun no matter what.

I just will be too fucking old to be a first-time traditionally published author.

Hollywood Is Cooked (And Broadway Is the Future)

Hollywood as we know it is over. Not dying — over. The studios will survive, but they will survive as IP holding companies, their catalogues of characters and worlds licensed to AI platforms the way music publishers license songs. The actual work of making movies — casting, directing, performing, writing — will be absorbed by what I’ve been calling the Knowledge Navigator: a personalized AI content engine that generates bespoke entertainment from existing IP on demand.

Why watch the canonical Godfather when your Navigator generates a version tuned to your specific emotional frequency, running exactly the right length, in whatever cultural setting makes it land hardest for you personally? The IP is the asset. The humans who made it are a sunk cost.

This is not distant. The studios already know it. The smart ones are positioning their catalogues accordingly.

But here’s what everyone gets wrong about what comes next: they assume this kills stardom. It doesn’t. It relocates it.

Tom Hanks will still exist. He’ll just be on Broadway.

Live theatre becomes the last room where the human has to show up and prove it in real time. No AI on that stage. No algorithm smoothing the rough edges. You’re in the room, the actor is in the room, and something happens that cannot be generated or personalized or optimized. That’s not a weakness of theatre — that becomes its entire value proposition. The certificate of authenticity in an ocean of bespoke content.

Broadway becomes the star-making machine. Hollywood — Neo-Hollywood — becomes the scanning facility.

Here’s how the pipeline works: a performer builds genuine charisma and cultural presence on stage, in front of real humans who chose to be there. They become famous the old way — earned, embodied, real. Then the AI companies come with their contracts. Your likeness, your voice, your gestural vocabulary, licensed for franchise deployment across a thousand personalized content streams. Your digital twin carries the IP. You go back to doing eight shows a week.

It inverts the entire 20th century model. Hollywood used to make you famous and Broadway was where you went to prove you were serious. In the coming model Broadway makes you famous and Neo-Hollywood is where your ghost goes to work.

The stars who survive this transition will share certain qualities. Warmth. Specificity. The kind of presence that reads from the back row. The thing that cannot be faked in a room. Tom Hanks has always had it. So has Meryl Streep. So does Denzel. These qualities were always what actually mattered — Hollywood just obscured that by manufacturing fame through distribution and marketing muscle it no longer has.

Tonight we’re watching the Oscars. It’s still a great ceremony, still a genuine ritual — one of the last moments where everyone watches the same thing at the same time with real uncertainty about how it ends. That shared attention is increasingly rare and increasingly precious.

Enjoy it. It’s not going to look like this much longer.

The theatre, though — the theatre is just getting started.

I Need To Hurry Up With This Novel So I Can Sell It And Get The Fuck Out Of The USA

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though the SAVE Act is going to pass sooner rather than later. And when that happens, the US will become a “managed democracy” like they have in Hungary, Russia or Turkey.

That will be it.

Now, obviously, to even get a literary agent will be like winning the lottery, but a guy needs dreams. And if I happened to make any amount of money with this novel, I would probably seriously consider leaving the USA and never look back.

The USA is going to grow poorer (for the average person), more inward looking and just darker in general once the SAVE Act passes and no one can vote anymore. It’s just fucking sad.

Anyway. Good luck, folks.

Update On My Scifi Dramedy WIP For March 15th, 2026

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The movie that is the closest “comp” to my novel is the horror-thriller movie Companion. But I continue to be intrigued about how there hasn’t been a direct competitor to my novel that deals with the practical elements of actual romance with an android.

Everyone is so busy thinking of the absolute worst case scenario that no one — but me so far — has wondered about a more nuanced romantic scenario.

Anyway, I continue to edge closer and closer to wrapping this draft of the novel up. I’m, at the moment at least, breezing through the third act. Then, I’m going to take a deep, deep breath and do “open heart surgery” on some of the structure of the novel. And THEN, I’m going to going to “color correct” the novel’s content on a more nuance basis.

I still am weighing leaning into having AI being my editor and having it “gently” the novel to give it some consistency as well as query-level content. My only fear, of course, is because everyone is hateful that they will just roll their eyes and say “AI wrote the novel,” when that will not be the case at all.

Anyway. I’m growing more and more uneasy about what happens when I get to the querying process. I’m really nervous about due diligence on the part of mostly liberal white women who make up literary agents (in my imagination.) I’m a kook and always have been and I’m afraid they will “cancel” me even before given me any sort of chance with the novel.

I have three books about querying I should be reading, but just can’t bring myself to do it. But there will come a point when I absolutely have to.

Update On My Scifi Dramedy WIP For March 14th, 2026

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going…ok? I’m pleasantly surprised at how fast my work on my WIP is going now that I’m in the third act. I had some problems with one of my AI editors because a scene was a little too spicy for them, but nothing that couldn’t be overcome.

I hope to wrap this draft up….maybe by the of the month? Maybe?

Then, post-production starts.

Then I have to do fucking open heart surgery on a structural basis to fix some real lingering problems in the nature of the novel. Like, my hero is too passive at times. And there is a moment in the second half of the second act where even I, as the writer, wonder why in the world anyone would want to hang out with these people.

They all seem so unhappy for no reason.

But, then, in the third act, things bounce back to where they should be.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed this struggle this go round when it comes to working on a novel. I continue to think, because I can’t afford a human editor, that I will get an AI to “gently” edit my copy as one of the last stages in the post-production process before I query.

I’m Going Through The Third Act Of This Scifi Dramedy At A Nice Little Clip

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m pleasantly surprised at how fast I’m going through the third act outline of this scifi dramedy I’m working on. I’m so fucking moody about my writing that there’s a chance it could be months before I finish this draft, but if I can focus I think it could be weeks.

And THEN what I’m going to do is do open heart surgery on some of the structure of the novel. Then I’m going to do “color correction” of the novel to stop it being the current hodge-podge of drafts that it is.

AND THEN, once THAT is done, I MAY take the controversial step of doing a once over with AI to give it a final burnish. I’m only mulling do this because, lulz, I can’t afford a fucking editor.

So, I would instruct the AI to “gently” edit my writing simply to bump it up to query-level. Of course, being a lot of people are dumb and horrible, they would say this means I “let AI write the novel for me.”

Nope. I have done so much hard work. But I just can’t afford a human manuscript consultant or a human editor. And my beta readers are simply not going to give me the input that I need. (And I can’t afford to pay a beta reader.)

I still haven’t quite decided to this yet, but I may.

I Really Need To Get Over Myself & Read My Novel’s ‘Comp’ Book, Annie Bot

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I need to just do it and start reading Annie Bot. It’s a “comp” book to my scifi dramedy and, as such, it would really help the querying process to read it.

And yet, I’m really struggling to read it. To even look at it at all.

I guess the key reason this is because I’m not thrilled to be confronted with how badly my writing sucks in comparison.

So, the question is: am I ever going to read it?

Well, I own a copy to read. So, that’s a start.

And I do keep looking at the book. It’s just, I would rather keep working on my own novel instead of reading someone else’s novel about a similar premise.

But I really need to do it. I really do.

Update On My WIP For March 13th, 2026

As an “AI First” novelist, I sometimes ask AI to act as a more aggressive manuscript consultant than I’d normally prefer — punching up a scene when I’m frustrated by how short it is and need a quick-and-dirty way to get it to length. This adds to my workload later, but at least it gives me a guide for fixing length problems down the road.

The real risk is in the “color correction” — my term for the revision pass where I make every line sound like me. If I don’t do that properly, there’ll be an obvious gap between what I wrote and what AI expanded. That pass is where I earn the manuscript.

All of this is happening against a timeline that’s coming into focus. I’m targeting September 1st to start querying. I’ll hopefully — maybe — wrap up this draft within a few weeks. Then comes color correction, and then comes finding beta readers, which frankly worries me more than the writing. I have real doubts I’ll find anyone willing to read the thing.

One thing I’ll probably revisit during color correction: character names. A relative told me the “weird names” were off-putting, and I don’t entirely disagree — but I don’t entirely agree either. I’ll need to sit with that one.

Still, this is by far the farthest I’ve ever gotten in the process of writing a query-worthy novel. I feel a little sheepish about how many years it’s taken to reach this point, but I’ve had fun getting here. And for the first time, the next stage — actually querying — feels like something that’s about to happen rather than something I’m imagining.