Category: Cold Civil War

The Second Draft of My First Novel Is Lurching Forward

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While it’s definitely slowing me down significantly, I’ve decided to pick the weakest scenes the first draft of this novel and rewrite them completely. Things are really falling into place, however. I’m very pleased with how my characters are beginning to take shape in a professional manner.

My dream title for my first novel.

Two things are influencing this development. One is, I’m finally doing, like, research and shit that I can use to flesh out my characters. Also, I’m making my way through Fleabag and I definitely feel the need to up my game some. The Fleabag characters are so well constructed that I feel obliged to make my own characters better.

Also, I’ve finally, finally, finally figured out motivation. I understand what makes my heroine tick and now that I have that down pat, a lot of other crutical elements to the story can now flow from it.

I have tweaked some elements of the character to make her personal history more spicy and engaging. One thing I’m paying close attention to is how people would actually react to someone as interesting as my heroine if she was a real person.

I’ve set June as my deadline for finishing this second draft. That’s about as late as I can put it and still hope to begin querying agents in early 2024 after the holidays.

How Tall Is Ron DeSantis?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no idea, for sure, how tall Ron DeSantis is. I have a few leads, but, oddly enough the last time I checked a few days ago, Wikipedia does NOT say how tall he is.

This leads me to believe that there may be an active campaign on the part of his would-be presidential campaign staff to obscure how tall he is. Here’s what I know:

And yet, if this is the case, how come Wikipedia doesn’t have his height? This leads me to believe that maybe however tall DeSantis is, he’s short enough that he doesn’t want anyone to know.

Or, if you want to get all paranoid about it, you could even go so far as to say that this is a ping from a future where DeSantis is POTUS and, well, lulz, America has become a Russia clone.

Speaking of Russia — Putin is pretty short, too, and that hasn’t stopped him from being Russia’s president for close to 30 years. And, what’s even more amusing — it’s not so much DeSantis’ height that I would be worried about so much as his weasley voice.

His voice is really, really fucking annoying. And, yet, even with him being short and having an annoying voice, non-Trump MAGA cocksuckers are so in love with the “idea” of DeSantis that he could very well be the next POTUS.

Is 2023 a New 1788?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I grow more and more alarmed about what is going to happen in late 2024, early 2025, I think I’m going to add more books about the French Revolution to books that I buy then wait years to read.

It seems to me that because of income inequality, the United States may burst into civil war and revolution as part of the 2024 presidential cycle. And, honestly, sometimes I think it’s just a matter if its Blues or Reds who are going to be the ones who get fed up and bolt the Union. (Spoiler Alert: it will probably be Blues.)

But the United States is so huge, diverse and powerful that if we collapse into civil war and or revolution, it will one of the biggest events not just in American history — but human history. The only thing I can compare it to would be the 1789 – 1799 French Revolution combined with the American Civil War.

The world really will be turned upside down if the United States should buckle – it probably would prompted WW3. The entire global order would be thrown up in the air until everything was sorted out one way or another. And just because Blues might leave the Union to start their own center-Left nation doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be mission creep and, ultimately, there would be a global conflagration that would totally re-arrange the entire global framework.

But, before I go down that hysterical path TOO much, remember — I’m always wrong. I think, in the end, that DeSantis will be elected and initially, any changes in the United States will be rather subtle. It won’t be until 20 years of DeSantis consolidating power that we’ll endup invading Canada to overthrow the “woke cancel culture mob” there.

Or, put another way — I’m probably full of shit and why are you even listening to me at all? Wink.

My Latest Attempt To Explain The Battle Royale Over ‘Wokeness’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok. Here goes. I think, at its heart, “wokeness” is really about white Christians flipping out that America is careening towards a majority minority nation and, as such, “wokeness” is a debate about that transition.

As such, the white Christian “powers that be” scream about “wokeness” as an effort to rally other white (angry) Christian (men) in an effort to establish permanent white Christian minority rule. It’s a dog whistle for their broader fears about not being in the majority anymore.

So, ANYTHING they don’t like is considered “woke” because they need some sort of catch-all for the bad vibes that white Christians feel as a majority of the country becomes brown, secular and feminist.

That’s all I got, at least.

I Have To Admit, Seeing The Petite Singularity Make Woke People Squirm Is Delicious

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was listening to, I think, a Slate podcast about the Ozempic diet pill and I was struck by how they began to squirm at the consequences of it. I mean, if there comes a day when everyone can afford to just take a pill not to be fat….then all the woke ranting about “fat shaming” people will become moot.

You could hear, in real time, their natural woke tendency about how great and wonderful it is to be fat collide with the realization that growing numbers of people think it’s ok for OTHER people to be fat. But they, themselves, are willing to risk even cancer to be 10 or 20 pounds lighter.

Let me be clear — I have a beer gut and I need to lose 30 pounds. And I have no intention of doing anything other than eating better and / or exercising to lose that gut. And I’m indifferent to overweight people — you do you.

But there is a part of me that wistfully regrets that the olden days of us having places like the Victoria Secret Runway Show as a “safe space” for traditionally attractive people before all the fucking woke people decided to burn everything ground.

Now, with the Petite Singularity, it’s possible that in the near future, there really won’t be any excuse or reason for you to be fat. And then maybe we can have “normal” Victoria Secret Runway shows again.

The Sides Are Set

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

No amount of “owning the libs” or rhetorically “destroying” this or that MAGA person means jack shit. This is it, the two sides are set — and they’re hardening their positions.

There are just 100,000 people in four or five swing states who will ultimately decide if we have a civil war with Red States leaving the Union or a civil war with Blue States leaving the Union. Or, even more likely, we won’t have a civil war at all, but rather, we’ll just slip peacefully into autocracy.

America is in a serious, lingering rolling political crisis with no obvious endgame in sight. In short, the one thing we all want — to remain in a traditional Western democracy — is the one thing that is the absolute least likely to happen.

The United States is careening towards a very dark future, one way or another. I just can’t figure out which one. A lot is going to depend on Trump. If he is the Republican nominee, the likelihood of a civil war grows exponentially. If he is not the Republican nominee, then either he splits the vote and maybe — just maybe — Biden wins a second term and we punt our problems down the road again.

Or, Trump folds and supports DeSantis and we become an illiberal democracy like Hungary.

Anyway, I hope to wrap up my novel in time to flee the country with all the smug liberals. Wish me luck.

The Conundrum That Is America’s Immediate Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something Big Is looming in America’s future — but what?

I honestly don’t know. It could go either way and by either way autocracy or civil war. I fear the nation is far more fragile politically than we’re willing to admit to ourselves.

I keep thinking about different scenarios for the future between now and, say, spring 2025 and the least likely is we’ll have a 2020 situation again where we somehow punt the problems that are tearing the country apart down the road one more election cycle.

At the moment, at least, it seems, Ron DeSantis (or some other non-Trump Republican figure) will become POTUS and we’ll slip peacefully into autocracy. That will be that.

We’ll wake up in 20 years and wonder why not only have we had the same POTUS for 20 years but why we’re invading Canada to save it from “wokeness.”

It’s all very curious. I have no ready answers as to what is going to happen to America. But I do have a lot of fears.

I’m Wading Into Dangerous Territory As A Male Author By Making My Heroine A Feminist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m finally, finally, FINALLY, beginning to do some of the long-delayed reading I’ve been aiming to do to make my novel better. At the moment, I’m reading some feminist literature in hopes of credibly having my heroine be a feminist. It’s a lot of fun because if I do it right, women in the audience will dig it.

Look at me (on the right) a budding feminist literature reader.

Of course, if I do it WRONG, they wrong the book across the room in disgust at how presumptuous a smelly boy was to think he could not only write from a female POV — but write about feminism, as well.

But that’s part of the fun of writing a novel to begin with. Seeing if you can go outside your comfort zone by writing about things you don’t know first hand is a real challenge — and also really fun.

I’m well aware that, by definition, there will be women or (wymxn) who will get REALLY ANGRY that a boy is attempting to do what I want to do. But, lulz, I’m not afraid of the devil as my late mother often said of me.

If nothing else, this particular challenge makes me feel like I’m growing into the role of being an actual professional author, not just a notice who dreams of being a novelist.

2025: Am I Going To Be Antifa In A MAGA Fascist State?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Unlike most fucking keyboard warriors on Twitter, I have enough strength in my convictions that should the worst happen and we turn into a MAGA fascist state in 2025, I’m prepared to risk my life and sacred honor in the real fucking world.

I only say this because I’m something of a loudmouth crank and it’s inevitable that if things get as bad as I fear that I’ll round afoul of either autocrat Trump or autocrat DeSantis

So, there you go. Whatever that means in real terms, I’m prepared to live that new, scary existence. I’m just never, ever going to be a “Good German,” whatever that means for me once the United States is an autocracy. HOPEFULLY, I will have written a breakout first novel by that point and maybe that will give me the funds the get the fuck out of the country.

I will be able to a guest on all the Left-leaning podcasts that will be produced in the south of France once all the fucking smug liberals have left the country. In fact, I’m looking forward to being a smug liberal expat. That would be kind of fun, if late in life.

And, again, I could still be wrong — no fate but what we make and all that. It could be that, just like with 2020, the hand of God will step in and somehow allow us to punt all these existential problems we have down the road one more election cycle.

I have my doubts, but you never know.

‘Cry, The Beloved Country’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, it’s time for me to redouble my reading about the rise of the Nazis in Germany. My Traditionalist relatives — who I love dearly — totally lulzed the idea it’s possible my fears about bloggers such as myself being forced to register with the government.

So, I think my alarm over MAGA being American Nazism is valid. I’ve found myself reading a lot more about history — especially the Nazis — and Great Men. I need to understand how to live through what could be Very Interesting Times starting sometime between now and, say, spring 2025.

What do I think is going to happen?

I honestly don’t know. Maybe nothing is going to happen. I’m always wrong, afterall.

But the idea that my conservative relatives would not realize that I, personally, could run afoul of our new American Autocrat, whomever that may be. I’ve long suggested that my Traditionalist relatives have one Red Line — ME.

And, yet, given how much they are lulzing the prospect of me NOT being a Good German ike them, I definitely seems like I may be on my own when the crisis strikes.

I have to prepare myself for either going underground once we’re an autocracy, or I’m going to become a domestic political refugee. If it’s the latter, then, I suppose it’s possible that I might be able to make a name for myself within Blue ranks.

That sounds rather delusional at this point, but in times of civil war and revolution, strange, unexpected things are known to happen.