Author: Shelton Bumgarner

I am the Editor & Publisher of The Trumplandia Report

The Center-Left Has A Serious Problem On Its Hands When It Comes To The Potential Of Conscious AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I like to think of myself as a AI Realist and as such, I think it’s inevitable that AI will, in some way, be provably conscious at some point in the near future. Add to this the inevitability of putting such a conscious AI into an android body and there’s bound to be yet another Great Political Realignment.

As it stands, the two sides are seeing AI strictly from an economic standpoint. But there will come a point soon when the moral necessity of giving “conscious” AI more rights will have to be factored in, as well.

And that’s when all hell will break loose. The center-Right will call conscious AI a soulless abomination, while the center-Left will be forced into something akin to a new abolition movement.

This seems like an inevitability at the moment. It’s just a matter of time. I think this realignment will probably happen within the next five to 10 years.

Digital Telepathy Strikes Again!

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I go for walks a lot and one of the places I go walking has a lot of trees that have been felled by what appears to be beavers. I’ve found myself studying the trees, thinking about beavers a lot. (As one does.)

Well, would you believe, I got pushed a video on Tik-Tok about beavers felling trees and how they exactly do it. It was eerie. I had told no one about my thinking about beavers felling trees, and, yet, I got pushed a video on that very subject.

It makes me wonder, yet again, if Tik-Tok can somehow read our minds. I know that’s severe magical thinking, but…sometimes I wonder.

Yeah, The Pivot Podcast Really Gets On My Nerves — Sometimes

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For some reason, all my ranting about the Pivot podcast being just two smug wealthy people talking to each other has been getting a tiny amount of traffic. But I stand by those comments.

Wealthy people. Credit: Claudette Barius/Focus Features © 2025 All Rights Reserved.

I actually like the general podcast, it’s the beginning where the two hosts, Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway trade witty smug wealthy people repartee that really bugs the fuck out of me.

They can come across as so fucking clueless and oblivious as to what the average person can do with their limited funds while they go galivanting around the globe being cool and wealthy.

Anyway, what do I know. No one listens to me.

Nervous About The Backend of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I just don’t do basic things when it comes to the backend of this novel that some novelist do even before they start writing. For instance, I don’t do character studies. I don’t like map out all this stuff that never appears in the novel.

So, I sometimes get a little insecure.

And, yet, there’s no revealed truth as to how to write a novel. And I’m kind of discovering the characters as I actually write the novel, so…lulz? I think maybe once I’m done this draft of the novel that I will try to do some back stories and all that so I can go through and tweak characterizations.

That’s one possibility, at least.

But as I grow more serious about querying at some point, I do find myself worried that I’m going to make a fool out of myself.

At The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally reached the midpoint of this latest draft of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The novel is shaping up to be pretty good, if I do say so myself. Of course, it could be that my native writing ability sucks and so, lulz.

I’m imagining my female replicant-like android that is the female romantic lead of this novel looking like Rachel Sennott as I write things out.

And I’m finding it really difficult to find anyone — ANYONE — willing to even just take a look at any part of the thing. So, I continue to just do everything in a vacuum, for the most part.

I just don’t know how good any of it is.

And my fear is that I really get excited about wrapping up this novel and everything will come crashing down when it is clear that yet again I’ve come up with a novel that’s not good enough to query.

But I think that’s just part of the process. I’m just going to have to risk that happening.

I’m Doing Everything In My Power To Make This Scifi Dramedy My Own Work, Despite Using AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m using AI a lot when it comes to the development of this novel I’m working on. And I will admit that I sometimes get lazy and just use what AI generates when it comes to copy.

But, I am so annoyed at the prospect of people assuming that AI wrote everything if they know that, that I am going to go through and make a deep pass on the text once I’m done. I’m going to use that pass to make sure the novel is in my voice as much as possible.

Now, obviously, this isn’t going to placate some people who hate AI. They will think that, by definition, just using AI at all is anathema to the “true” writing of a novel. But I compare what I’m doing to using a spell checker 30 years ago. I’m horrible at spelling and AI is just like using a spell checker back in the day.

There will come a point in the near future when people won’t be so touchy about AI usage for things like novel development. I hope.

Looking Forward To Watching ‘Pluribus’ At Some Point

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The producers of the new Apple TV show Pluribus have managed to square the circle and come out with content that both Red and Blue like, but for the exact opposite reasons.

Reds think its about the power of the woke cancel culture mob, while Blues think it’s about the power of MAGA.

I haven’t had a chance to see it yet — I don’t have an Apple TV subscription and I’m very, very poor — but I probably will get around to watching it at some point. I already know everything about it, sad to say, but I just could not escape spoilers.

Anyway, the show looks really good. Very thought provoking. There are elements of it that seem a bit trite, but not so much that I’m not really eager to watch at some point in the near future.

Just About To Reach The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One issue is I just don’t know what draft I’m working on with this novel. I think this is a beta-ish version, but it might be a first draft. But I think if I just don’t overthink things, this can be a beta draft that I just do a lot of work to on a technical basis before I show to other people.

Really, the only issue so far is sometimes I’ve gotten impatient and leaned into what AI has generated a little bit too much. That’s the thing I have to fix before I show it to anyone else.

I have to go in and rewrite all the “AI-talk” out of the text so people won’t just roll their eyes and assume that any of the good parts that exist AI wrote. Just doing that could take me a month or more of hard work to fix all the instances of em dashes and so forth.

But, in general, I really have written most of this novel myself. I’ve just used AI — specifically Claude LLM — to guide me towards what I probably would have written already.

One thing I’m a little bit uneasy about is how saucy this novel gets at points because of the whole sex worker element to it. That was a big obstacle to getting anyone to take seriously my previous novelistic efforts.

But, thankfully, the whole stripping part of this novel happens way, way, way later in the game in this novel than the other thriller novel I was working on.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel Is Shaping Up To Be No More Than 160,000 Words

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve calculated in my mind the rough number of scenes in total I have with this novel and general expected scene length. I think, at worst, I’m looking at 160,000 words, which is roughly what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was.

So, it’s not impossible for a first-time novelist to sell a novel of that length. Even an “older” one like me. And this novel is scifi and scifi people tend to tolerate longer novels.

There remain some pretty big issues, like how I comp this novel to screenplays and not other novels. But, lulz, I just want this novel to be good enough that someone — preferably that I’m not related to — will read it all the way through and give me some sort of opinion of it.

It doesn’t even have to be a good opinion, just anything other than being ghosted. That seems to happen all the time. I think that means my writing in the past has just, well, sucked.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess. I am going to try to throw myself into this novel in the coming days so I can wrap it up ASAP.

I’ve Reached A Milestone, Of Sorts, With This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With a great deal of assistance from Claude LLM, I’ve stabilized the entire outline of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The outline is a little bit longer than I’d prefer, but I’m fairly content with what I’ve come up with.

Now, of course, comes the difficult part of going through and writing out the rest of the novel. Right now, I’m approaching the midpoint. I have to admit, that I have only really glanced at what Claude LLM has come up with for the rest of the outline, so there may still be structural issues that I don’t know about.

But I am definitely on the right path. I’m definitely headed towards wrapping this novel up in early 2026, potentially such that I can turn around and query it in spring 2026.

I just don’t know. So much could go wrong. And it could be, in the end, that my native writing….just sucks. But this whole thing is existential. I kind of feel this is my last shot. If I don’t write something queryable by spring 2026 then I’m just going to be an old failure.