Author: trumplandiareport_zk3po8

Novel Development: If It Makes Me Laugh, I Put It In

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Though the novel I’m currently developing is supposed to be dark and serious, when it comes to actually developing it, generally, if something makes me laugh, I throw it into the mix.

And right now, I find the idea of a my female romantic lead being inspired by a specific famous person who is easy to do research on HILARIOUS. It’s just a hoot. And it gets funnier to more research I do because given the conditions of the scenario I have setup on an existential level in the novel, it it actually IS within the realm of the possible that my Hero could snag a woman otherwise so incredibly out of his league.

It’s very, very funny.

I mean, usually, constructing a character is hard work. You have to think up all these things about them to make them seem “real.” But since this character is inspired by a famous person who is quite open with their life, then it’s a lot easier to crib off of what is publicly known. And, as I’ve said before, this character is something of a treat to me for all the other hard work I have ahead of me.

And I like the idea of seeing if I can pull this off. I like the idea of SHOWING how life as an expat in Seoul leads to some surreal personal connections that otherwise would never, ever happen. The whole thing definitely lightens the mood whenever I look into how I can base the character in reality as much as possible and to see if I can make it believable that this otherwise bonkers thing (at least to outsiders) might actually happen.

Anyway. I’m sure I’ll see that person from Washington DC (is the FBI monitoring me?) or that other person from Sweden (ex boyfriend?) or that other person from Great Britain (member of her “team?”) snooping around my website in the paranoid fear that I’m some sort of crazy person when, in fact, I’m just a harmless writer looking for a bit of entertainment for myself.

Ugh. This is why we can’t have nice things.

Corona Virus Datapoints Are All Over The Place

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what’s going on with WuFlu right now. In some respects, it seems as though we may have dodged a bullet. Or, to put it another way, there aren’t any new additional hotzones as of yet anywhere outside of Wuhan itself.

And, yet, there definitely is a general sense that any moment that might change. A lot of cases are popping up all over world now, but there’s no existential explosion in cases from any one place. It’s a real headscratcher.

It’s possible that while there might be additional cases of people getting sick, we’re pretty much over any growth in deaths. I just don’t know. That’s the outcome I hope for. I just can’t bear to think what the alternative might be. It’s possible that at any moment we’re in for a major escalation in cases all over the globe at the same time –a pandemic.

The only thing that is really bothering me at this point is how at-risk the American elderly population is. The WuFlu mortality rate among the elderly is pretty brutal — it’s in the 75%-90% range. But I just can’t imagine it could get THAT bad. That would be astonishing on a historical level.

More likely, it’s going to be simply the perception of a pandemic — and the associated slowdown in the global economy that we have to worry about. A million Chinese could die and as long as one American doesn’t die, Americans will be too busy enjoying the “humming economy” to care why suddenly it wasn’t has humming anymore. Nothing matters in the Fourth Reich, don’t you know.

I keep saying the next few days will tell us what’s going to happen and then…nothing happens. I do have a novel to develop, so I really need to just focus on that for the time being.

Idle Rambling About The State Of The #Novel I’m Developing

Shelton Bumgarner

Some Theories On What Happens To Pop Culture Now

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that we’re in the Fourth Reich after the acquittal of Trump, what happens to pop culture? I thought at first maybe a sizable chunk of the audience might want some sort of emotional catharsis. But I now think it may be a bit more complex than that.

What’s more likely to happen is we’ll enter a sort of second 70s in that a lot of people are just going to want to dance while other people want to see serious, gritty movies and TV show that address what just happened. I think. I don’t know.

Given what the novel I’m writing is about, I definitely have a vested interest in people wanting Trumplandia catharsis. But we’ll see. I’m writing a novel instead of screenplay because I live in the middle of nowhere, it affords me more nuanced creative universe building ability and just don’t want to write a screenplay right now.

Back To #Novel Development #amwriting #writing #writinglife

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Barring, like, a global pandemic, I am going to officially jump back into the development of my novel immediately with an eye to wrapping it up in a few months. Things are going really well and as such I’m going to give myself until April.

Then, I’m going to throw myself into writing a really, really good first draft.

Practical Responses To WuFlu On A Personal Level

Can’t Get Sick If You Don’t Catch It
Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea what is going to happen with WuFlu. None. It could be that it’s going to simply be problem for the greater East Asia area and that’s it. It will stay an abstract in the West and the only thing anyone in the States will notice is a slight slowdown in the economy. The Fourth Reich will chug along with gusto and I end up in an ICE camp within two years.

Then there’s a much darker option — all hell breaks loose. When that might happen, I don’t know. Could be today, could be 12 weeks from now. But here are some practical ways to address WuFlu as we wait. (Please note, I’m not a medical professional and I’m simply giving you my educated opinion from what I’ve read on Twitter.)

Wash Your Hands
This is important because it’s easy to do in private. Everytime you shake hands or touch your face, you need to wash your hands as soon as possible.

Wear A Mask
I continue to hear contradictory things about this. Some say a mask doesn’t help, while other say it does. But the basic thing is it prevents you from touching your face.

Change How You Greet People
In “hotzones” they don’t just fistbump, they sometimes elbow bump as well. You can be sly and fistbump people, while elbow bumping is rather eerie if the person you want to do it with is unfamiliar.

Hopefully, we won’t have to worry about any of this. Hopefully, this is just a another scare that passes like so much dust in the wind.

#WuFlu Datapoints Of Note For Feb. 1st, 2020

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The following things are happening or are in the process of wrapping up between now and Wednesday.

Impeachment in the US (Finishes on Wednesday.)
Superbowl (Sunday, Feb 2nd.)
Iowa Caucus (Monday, Feb. 3rd.)
State of the Union (Tuesday, Feb. 4th.)
The Oscars are later this month as well.

All of these are social events with either large groups of people are large groups of powerful people shaking hands or being in the same room together for long durations of time.

As I understand it, a delegation of 80 MAGA sycophants holding positions all over the US government is going to Iowa over the next few days. They will take planes together and be in the same place at the same time.

Queen Elisabeth II / 93
Prince Philip / 98
Prince Charles / 71
Donald Trump / 73
Joe Biden / 77
Bernie Sanders / 78

There have been no reported deaths outside of China to date.

I’m sure everything is going to work out and America will be made great again.

V-Log: Observations About Writing Strong, Believable Female Characters In Fiction

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

What I believe.

Current WuFlu Datapoints & Questions #WuFlu #Wuhan #Corona

Shelton Bumgarner

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I suggest you read the book World War Z if you want some sense of what’s going on right now with the WuFlu. The novel is almost non-fiction at this point. But here are some interesting datapoints to mull.

Wuflu is less symptomatic than SARS
You can have it and not know it. You have two weeks to wander around the world, infecting 14+ other people and not know it.

China is freaking out
Growing number of cities in China are in total lockdown. What do they know that we don’t?

Datapoint trend is ominous.
I’ve looked at a chart comparing the growth of SARS and WuFlu cases and relative to that we should see a significant spike in cases very, very soon.

The dog that hasn’t barked, yet
It would not take many (white) people dying in major cities in the US for the Superbowl to be canceled rather abruptly. (Systemic racism is such in the US that it has to be white people.) That would set up a cascading set of events that might leave the whole world in a panic.

Trump is a bad leader
POTUS is likely to lie, lie, lie, lie, lie, lie about the situation for as long as possible then freak out and maybe lose his mind. When the only redeeming feature of his administration is its incompetence, that doesn’t exactly give one a lot of hope.

WuFlu may have a 15% mortality rate
That there have been so few deaths relative to the number of cases is unsettling. If it has an estimated mortality rate of as high as 15%, then what happens when we go from 1,000s of cases in China to 100,000s of cases worldwide?



V-Log: #WuFlu & The Birth Of The Fourth Reich

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