Category: Hindsight 2020

Ugh. Word Count

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The rule of thumb is the sweet spot for your first novel is somewhere between 80,000 and 100,000 words. There is a chance that I may FINALLY have figured out a suitable beginning to the third draft of this novel and yet the first act has ballooned to about 48 scenes. In general, each scene is 1,000 words and so that’s potentially 50,000 of my 100,000 allotted words right there.

My novel has a Barry-esque element to it.
The first step is to just write the thing and see what happens. There is a chance that the whole novel is going to be about 140,000 words, which is about what The Girl On The Train is, as I understand it.

At that point, I have two options.

One, I could theoretically figure out a way to split the novel into two, self-contained novels. This would be difficult, but not impossible. This is what happened to my first serious attempt to write a novel in this universe. Those two novels are now the last two novels in what is projected to be a six novel project. If I did split this novel into two, that would really help me keep it being a six novel project while eliminating what is now the second novel because I’ve been struggling to figure out what to do with it.

The last option is to say fuck it and just try to sell a novel that is 140,000 words. The success of The Girl On The Train proves that it’s not impossible to sell a novel that is a little bit longer, as long as it’s good.

I think the solution to this problem is to just finish the third draft and then pause to take stock as to what I’m going to do.

Idle Rambling About ‘The Fourth Turning’

The Interesting Conundrum Of Bella & Gigi Hadid

Why, Yes, My Novel’s Heroine *Is* A Sex Worker. Now What?

The Curious Case Of A Lack Of A Beatles Bio-Pic

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though the bio-pics of Queen and Elton John have been proxies for the big prize — The Beatles. To date, the whole subject of the rise and fall of The Beatles simply has not been addressed by Hollywood.

I don’t know how much of that is the lingering cultural significance of the band and how much is the remaining living members are very protective of the group’s legacy and simply won’t sanction any sort of attempt to document what happened.

But here, just for fun, is how I would structure a movie about The Beatles.

Beginning
You open with where the four future Beatles are just before events cause their lives to become intertwined.

Inciting Incident: John Lennon meets Paul McCartney.

You spend much of the first act showing the lead up to the formation of The Beatles. Crucial points of the first act would be Brian Epstein becoming the bands manager and Ringo joining the band. You would linger on John, Paul and George’s time in Germany.

The band appears on Ed Sullivan.
Middle

This would be the “fun and games” point of the story where you see how the individual members of the band reacted to Beatlemania.

Midpoint: Brian Epstein dies.

Crisis: John Lennon produces the “How Do You Sleep” diss track towards MacCartney.
End

Climax: Lennon is shot.

End: The last meeting of Paul, George and Ringo.

My Writing Agenda For Oct. 10th, 2023

Mulling An American Military Junta Starting In Late 2024, Early 2025

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It is definitely hysterical doom shit on my part to suggest that the United States might find itself with a military junta starting in late 2024, early 2025. It would be the first time in our history when such a thing had happen. It goes against everything the U.S. Military believes in even do such a thing in the first place.

As such, it definitely seems as though we’re going to peacefully side into a MAGA-themed autocratic state. Not a shot fired. We just shrug and give up. About 1 million smug Twitter liberals leave the country, leaving Poors like me to fend for themselves.

If such an unlikely thing DID happen, I could see Gen. James “MadDog” Mattis being acting POTUS while we had a Constitutional Convention to push through some MUCH needed structural reforms to our political system.

I think that is specifically what would happen. The crisis of late 2024, early 2025 grows so dire that the there’s a coup, a military junta is established that runs the country for the specific amount of time necessary to hold a Constitutional Convention.

I have to say when that’s your best case scenario for your country, you’re definitely in a “Not great, Bob,” situation. We can only hope that this is just yet more hysterical doom shit on my part.

Idle Reflections On The State of My Novel for October 9th, 2023

Some thoughts about the state of my novel.

‘Ping’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a child of the Cold War, so everything that’s going on in the Middle East right now reminds me of what was going on in the background of The Day After before everything went kabluey.

I’m well aware that I’m prone to “hysterical doom shit,” as this may just be more of the same. But it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine things escalating if Israel struck targets inside of Iran for their involvement in what has been going on.

And Israel is one of a few nuclear powers so, yeah. The whole thing is rather unnerving. I only even suggest any of this because this IS the Middle East we’re talking about and the whole region as been unstable for a long, long time.

What’s more, we have the whole fucking “Fourth Turning” to worry about in the United States at some point between now and early 2025. I still think the whole thing is astrology for dudes, but the point the theory makes is still relevant — it definitely seems as though 2025 Is It.

We’ve collectively, on a global scale, enjoyed peace for too long and a lot of idiots are itching to burn the whole post WW2 global order to the ground. I don’t know what to tell you, folks.

Get ready.

Still Spinning My Wheels In The First Few Chapters of The Third Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just as I thought I was going to push into the beginning of the second act of the third draft of my first novel, I made a strategic error — I decided to read over what I had done so far. As always, always happens whenever I do this, I discovered a new, improved way to tell the story to the point that I am rewriting everything all over again.

My heroine kind of looks like this woman in my mind. Sorta. Kinda.

Some of this rewriting was inevitable — I know I can do better and I given that I consider this the THIRD draft of the novel, I feel compelled to make sure I can produce the absolute best quality copy. I hope to show this draft to some sort of professional manuscript consultant and I would rather do the hard work of rewriting now, rather than waiting until the end.

One thing that I really need to work on is fleshing out my characters. They’re getting a lot — A LOT — better, but they’re still not where I want them to be. I keep mulling the idea of maybe yet another attempt at a character study of my main characters so I can get a better sense of who they are.

But I don’t know if I’m prepared to slow the already slow process down THAT much. I do, you know, what to wrap this third draft up soon enough that I can start to query in late 2024. Which, of course, is when I think we might experience the so-called “Fourth Turning.”

Lulz. Good times!