Category: Media

‘Let Them Eat Cake’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It definitely seems as though April’s Social Security checks are now in danger, the way people in the Trump regime are talking. If that happened, if nothing else, it will make a lot of people who are rather blasé about politics sit up and take notice.

A lot would depend on how long the delay was. If it was just a few days, that is one thing, but if it dragged on for weeks or months, that is a different matter altogether. People might actually get mad enough to risk their “lives and scared honor” IN THE REAL WORLD.

But…I have my doubts. Trump is an dictator and people are lulzing it. So it definitely seems as though this frog, as they say, is cooked. The country is just too big, to beholden to plutocrats — especially the media — for anything of note to happen.

And Trump has all the cards, all the power.

I just never see us having another free and fair election on the Federal level and Trump is probably going to run for an illegal third term and STILL people will lulz it all.

‘A New Hope’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. In the name of not throwing too much at the reader at one time — and to made the first act more manageable, I’ve decided to yet again change the beginning of the novel in a dramatic fashion.

Now, a lot of things are either alluded to or happen “off camera” so things are smoother and not so overwhelming. But I do think I’m probably going to have to do a lot more rewriting than I would prefer.

And, all the same problems that this novel has relative to modern expectations still exist — I change POVs within chapters, etc. But my hope is that people who remember Stieg Larsson’s work will read it and say, “Oh, I get it, this is just like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.”

That’s the hope, at least.

And this remains a passion project. I really, really need to piviot some of my free time to the other, more traditionally marketable novels I’m working on. But there comes a point when I just have to shrug and say, “Either you like this passion project and want to read it, or you don’t.”

I have my vision for the passion project and I’m sticking to it, come what may.

Kook Tax Worries (Again)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m back at it with the thriller passion project, I again find myself dwelling on the kook tax problem. In the past, whenever I’ve tried to get “serious” people to look at my novel, they inevitably roll their eyes and find some reason to beg off.

I’m just too big a kook in their opinion to be worth their time. And in the specific instance of this novel it’s not going to help that my heroine is a part-time sex worker. But the latest version of the novel tones that down a great deal and — I feel — the sex worker element isn’t nearly as gratuitous as it once was.

At least, I hope that comes across as the case.

My only hope, at the moment, is to lean into the use of AI to improve the novel instead of having to rely upon humans who think I’m a weirdo. But there is going to a come a point when I’m going to have to piviot to human eyes and things might get bumpy.

But I really do believe in this novel, even if I’m going to be old as fuck, even if I get the damn thing published. Unless the Singularity happens in the next few years and I can live to be 500, even if I get the success from this novel I so desperately hope for, the context will be a lot more different than when I started this project.

I won’t be able to run around with 24-year-old women like I had hoped, but rather, I will just be content that I actually proved the haters wrong and I hope I can start to work on other projects.

‘clears throat’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This was bound to happen. Trump is determined to ruin everything — including the Social Security Administration — so I guess it was inevitable that shit like this would be proposed.

So, there you go. Millions of people may be in the lurch because Trump is a very stupid tyrant. If those checks are processed on time for April — and it definitely seems like that’s a possibility — all hell may break loose.

Now The Word Count Problem Is Back

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel that my novel is meant to be an homage to, The Girl Who Played With Fire, is, as I recall, about 160,000 words. That is way, way too long for my novel for a number of reasons, the biggest being it would be my first novel.

And, yet, here I am — it definitely looks like I could blow past the 100,000 sweetspot of a first novel in a pretty big way.

I don’t know yet because I haven’t gotten that far in the process — I work in terms of scenes, not word count, so I don’t get around to finding out how many words something I’ve worked on is until pretty late in the process.

I have been very careful in the other projects I have been working on to do everything in my power to get them in at about 100,000 words.

Despite all that, I still am fixated on this passion project to the detriment of the other novels I should be working on. So, all this time I should be using on a scifi novel of about 100,000 words, I’m using on a thriller that could be close to 160,000 words.

Yikes!

But, like I said, I don’t know yet. It could be that the novel — which is probably going to be more than 100,000 words no matter what — could come in at something closer to 120,000 or maybe 140,000.

I’m really enjoying myself, though, with this passion project. Once I get into the second act, I think things are going to slow down a great deal ’cause I’m going to be working with the second draft material. I probably am going to have to root around in that second draft material a lot to have it synch up with all the changes I made between the second and third draft of the novel.

They’re Going To Deport Me To South Korea, The Way Things Are Going (FUCK TRUMP)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I constantly say, you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and I’m growing a bit unnerved that ICE or the FBI is going to come after me at some point in the not-too-distant future.

I’m totally harmless and there’s no reason for anyone to want to lock me up other than I hate MAGA and can get into a diatribe about that fact here on this blog every once in a while.

And, yet, Trump is slowly circling the US like an anaconda and soon enough he will consolidate power to the point that he can strangle what little is left of our democracy altogether.

Really, the only issue is how far he will ultimately go. It is clear to me that he is probably finally going to do something really bad to the point that either he is deposed (don’t know how that will happen) or we lurch into being a legalistic autocracy like Russia.

It seems as though the thing Trump and Musk will do that will finally cause a lot of otherwise blasé people to sit up and take notice is something to do with the Social Security Administration. If it really does collapse and checks are delayed for a significant amount of time, that would probably be enough for massive demonstrations or maybe, just maybe some sort of General Strike.

But I have severe doubts about that. Americans just don’t think in those terms and ultimately Trump will consolidate power, run for an illegal third term, shuffle off this mortal coil and then whomever succeeds him will be our dictator for the rest of my life.

I Really Need A Backup Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As it stands, I’m going through the latest version of my passion project at a nice little clip. So fast that it’s at least possible that I will finish this fourth draft soon enough to query in about a year.

That is, of course, unless the Singularity happens and or Trump’s stupidity causes the country to collapse into chaos.

But as all of this is happening, I continue to realize I probably need a backup novel that is a bit more marketable and maybe doesn’t have stripper elements to it. I have a number of scifi novels done to varying degrees and pretty much all I need to do is just sit down and burrow through an outline and finish something, anything — at least a first draft.

And, yet, the call of the passion project thriller is just too strong most of the time.

I really want this homage to Stieg Larsson to be my first novel. And, yet, I know I probably can write a really good scifi novel if I just get over myself and focus. It’s all very difficult for various reasons.

I think what I may do is edit the first act of the thriller then with that as a place to pause, I will piviot to one or several of the other novels and use that distraction to clear my head.

‘True North’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The one book that has been my guiding light, my true north throughout the years and years I’ve been working no this thriller is The Girl Who Played With Fire. I’ve studied it every which way.

It took me forever to figure out its structure and, in fact, it wasn’t until I learned it was mean to be one huge novel with its successor that I understood what what was going on. (The two novels are connected by a cliffhanger.)

I bring this up because I’ve printed out the first act of the novel so I can edit it and it’s kind of long at about 63 scenes. (I have no idea how many words it is, I go by scenes, not word count.) But The Girl Who Played With Fire’s first act — if you include a longish prelude-like part is about 70 scenes, so I don’t feel so bad about it. And I’m still at a point in the process when if I somehow get an editor they could probably figure out how to cut a lot from the first act.

Once I read over the first act, then I’m going into the first half of the second half and that’s where I have to begin to bring in the second draft of what was supposed to be the second novel in the series. I’ve decided to make the first book in the series a more traditional murder-in-a-small town novel as opposed to something that is clearly just setting up a bigger universe.

I still have A LOT of work to do, but I’m feeling pretty confident that I will be in a position to query the novel in about a year, maybe. Of course, my life could totally be turn upside down by this or that unexpected event — and I’m going to be really old to try to get a first novel published — but, lulz.

There is also the issue of the name. I have pretty accessible name I want to use, but it’s so generic that I’m SURE someone else has already published a novel by that name. I have a more unique name, but it’s not as accessible and at least one person has rolled their eyes when I told them what it is.

I just don’t know on that front. I think for the time being I’m going to assume I’m using the less accessible name unless I get an agent and they tell me it just won’t sell.

You Have To Believe, Sometimes

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just have to believe when it comes to this novel. I have all these other novels I want to work on, but the central passion project is something I have to just believe in.

The main reason for this is I’m using a lot of the structural elements of Stieg Larsson’s work — multiple POVs within chapters being one of them — and I keep feeling insecure about that. That’s why I think of this novel as a passion project — I really need a back up or two that will be more marketable in a traditional manner.

Sometimes I just feel really meh and don’t do anything for a few days because what I really want to do — which is to focus exclusively on the passion project — I know I probably shouldn’t do. I need a backup plan, but I just sometimes don’t feel like it.

Ugh.

We Live In A Political Liminal Space (For The Moment?)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump is pushing and pushing our political system to the breaking point…or is he? Maybe the our political system is just going to bend so far as to be unrecognizable.

It could be that we’ll have what I’ve heard as a “competitive autocracy.” And yet I wonder if we are heading towards some sort of final spasm of consolidation that turns us into a full-blow autocracy.

Maybe this is just a mid-way point. Maybe we’re in a transitional phase that isn’t over yet and this liminal space is just a temporary moment in time. I just don’t know it could go either way.

But I think what’s really happening, which is kind of dark, is Trump is going to be a Julius Cesar like transitional figure who destroys what’s left our democracy and we turn into a full-blown autocracy in the style of Russia.

Whenever Trump shuffles off this mortal coil, there will be a huge power struggle until we get the official successor who will be president for 30 to 40 years. That seems like one potential fate.

Of course, there’s a chance that Trump could finally do something so stupid that he gets deposed then there’s a civil war when Red States get mad and leave the Union. So, there is a wide range of possibilities.

Who knows what is going to happen. Probably whatever is the worst possible outcome.