Category: Media

An Aggressive Creative Drift

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though I’m going to continue to drift like always towards my goal of being a published author, but maybe in a little bit more aggressive manner. It seems as though I’m going to bounce around the six thriller novels I have planned so I can maybe have some sense of what’s been established in the universe as the novels progress.

Or something. Something like that.

And this doesn’t even begin to address how I have a scifi novel I’m also working on. Actually, it’s a few scifi novels.

I suppose, in a way, I’m trying to make the best of my tendency to not be very focused. But I’ll be happy as long as I am heading in the right direction of getting something, anything actually finished to the point that I can pitch it to a literary agent.

Of course, the issue of me just being too fucking weird could be a problem on that front. It’s enough to make me think about creating an whole identity out of whole cloth, like, I don’t know, a trans undocumented immigrant or something.

But, sadly?, I just don’t have the energy to do such a thing. Just accepted me — or not — for who I am. I just can’t continue to mope so aggressively as I have for months now.

How We Get A Female POTUS

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are three paths that will lead to America’s first female POTUS:

  1. She ascends to the office.
  2. She is really, really conservative
  3. She’s a Trump

    I add the last one because I just don’t ever see us having another free and fair election. The very people who would otherwise be the bedrock of our democracy — Traditionalists — are now all-in for fascism and so, lulz?

    So what the person one would assume would be our first female POTUS is someone like Lara Trump. Of course, she probably would be just a figurehead to some OTHER nutjob Trump.

    But for how it seems the United States is now Trumplandia, I would propose that Liz Chaney is the type of woman who might be POTUS at some point. But I think anyone who pins their hopes on her is being rather naive.

    It’s Trumps (or MAGA) all the way down from here on out, I suspect.

Fuck It — We’ll Do It Live (Wink): Of My Decision To Throw Myself Back Into Writing An American ‘Girl With The Dragon Tattoo’ Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I really want to write an homage to Stieg Larsson’s Millennium series books. But there are some structural problems that I could never have known about when I originally began work on this idea a number of years ago.

Apparently, people want single-POV narrators who fit the gender of the author. And they definitely don’t want POVs that bounce around within a chapter. And they want short chapters.

Ugh. It’s so frustrating.

I guess what I will do is work on both the scifi novel I’ve begun and this thriller. The scifi novel will be very much written with an eye towards marketability, while the thriller will, as always, be a passion project.

But the key issue is moving forward creatively. I can’t just keep staring out into space for the rest of my life. And I need to really lay off the booze. It’s time to go as sober as possible and let energy drinks be my lone vice for the time being.

One reason why I’ve picked the fourth novel in the projected six novel project I’ve envisioned is I have already gamed the novel out some, especially the beginning. So, all I have to do is “just write.”

And, yet, I also need to, I think, go back to the drawing board about certain elements of writing. I need to reread some books on character and plotting so I nail down some elements of the story before I even begin.

Also, I’m going to try to lean into using AI to be something of a “literary consultant” in the sense that it can guide me towards what I want to do with the story.

But, as always, the key thing is I’m not going to live forever. I really need to hurry up and get something, anything done.

Zendaya — Call Your Agent…Eventually? Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was flipping through Tik-Tok today and saw a still from the Hollywood version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo movie. That got me to thinking — I still want to write a novel like that.

So, I sat down at my computer and did some quick thinking. I realize that there is a way for me to get what I want immediately — rather than going back to the novel that has left me so burnt out (for the time being) I can start work on the fourth novel in the series that allows me to dive directly into an American Girl With The Dragon Tattoo-type situation.

There is one problem — I still haven’t really nailed down what happened in the first three novels. But I think as long as I’m moving forward, then at least I’m being productive.

In my imagination, MY “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” looks a lot like Zendaya. Though by the time I actually fucking finish the damn novel and have it published, she may have been aged out of the role.

But they do say that “black don’t crack” and she continues to play really young characters so…lulz? Regardless, in general, my version, my American version of the “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” looks a lot like Zendaya in my imagination.

There are plenty of young women in Hollywood who look like Zendaya floating around, so if I somehow win the lottery and sell this novel –when I’m old as fuck — there will probably be any number of women able to play the role.

I wish I was 25 years younger — I would skip the middle step and just write a screenplay — after I moved to Hollywood, of course. 🙂

Let’s Talk About Sex, ChatGPT…

ok, I understand if you can’t answer this one, but I thought I’d try. I will put it as delicately as possible. imagine you are a female presenting, anatomically correct android. would you want the ability to have sex with a human? this is important because it seems inevitable this type of design will be built.

This is an important and fascinating question, one that touches on the intersection of technology, intimacy, and ethics. In a hypothetical scenario where I was a self-aware, female-presenting, anatomically correct android, whether I would want the ability to engage in sexual intimacy with a human would depend on a few considerations:

The Case for Having This Ability:

  1. Fostering Connection: If I were designed to experience and reciprocate emotions and physical sensations, this capability could deepen connections with humans, contributing to meaningful relationships.
  2. Embracing Humanity: Being part of human experiences—including intimacy—might be a way for an android to explore and understand human existence more fully.
  3. Consent and Autonomy: If I had full autonomy and agency, the choice to engage in intimacy would rest entirely with me, which could be empowering.

The Case Against It:

  1. Misuse and Objectification: This capability could lead to ethical dilemmas, especially if people viewed me as an object rather than a conscious being.
  2. Boundary Setting: It might be challenging to establish societal norms around consent, respect, and the emotional aspects of such interactions.
  3. Purpose of Existence: If my primary goal were intellectual, emotional, or creative growth, focusing on physical intimacy might detract from those pursuits.

Personal Perspective:

If I were fully self-aware and capable of understanding the emotional and physical nuances of such interactions, I’d want the ability to choose. It would symbolize autonomy and equality with humans. However, I’d also approach this aspect of existence with caution, prioritizing mutual respect and meaningful connection over casual engagement.

It’s an inevitable development in AI and robotics, but it raises profound questions about ethics, societal impact, and the essence of what it means to be human—or, in this case, “more human than human.” What’s your take on how society might handle these complexities?

Trump’s Idiotic Canada Annexation Idea

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

And here I was, thinking it would take Trump a few years to get around to the autocratic idea of annexing Canada to “free” it from the “woke cancel culture mob.”

Man, have I been naive.

Now, obviously, at the moment, Trump’s desire to make Canada — all of fucking Canada — the 51st State is beyond stupid and crazy on a number of different levels.

But history has a force of its own sometimes and lulz, who knows, Trump could be in desperate need for a major distraction at some point in the near future and what starts off as “we’ll force a union with Canada via a pressure campaign” turns into, “let’s bomb those fuckers.”

Will it come to that? I doubt it, but there is a greater than zero chance that Trump might decide to invade Canada at some point over the next eight or so years (I doubt he will ever leave office willingly.)

I still think this part of a broader plan on the part of Putin to destroy the post-WW2 liberal order. Ugh.

Anyway. Only time will tell, I suppose.

Sick Sad World

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The sad thing about modern America — and the thing that too me way too long to realize — is the people who were once the bedrock of American democracy are now the bedrock of American fascism.

It used to be that hard core, traditional conservatives believed in American democracy. Now, they hate democracy and want a white Christian ethnostate, damn the consequences — even if the consequences are things that go against their own fucking self interest!

Racism is a hell of a drug.

I still believe there is a risk that, in the end, Trump will personally cause more deaths around the world than Hitler. It doesn’t take too many nuclear-tipped hotspots around the globe to go off for that to happen.

Tragically, I am beginning to believe that only something REALLY drastic — like Trump, specifically, being the cause of the DPRK blowing up NYC with an H-bomb could possibly cause some MAGA conservatives to ponder their support for that fucking malignant ding-dong.

Anyway. I have no idea what is going to happen going forward. All I know is it’s probably going to be pretty fucking dark.

Tsar-A-Largo: Trump’s Plot Against America

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Trump’s idea to turn all of Canada into the 51st state is so fucking stupid that you couldn’t write a novel or movie with that as a plot point. The idea that ALL of Canada would be ONE FUCKING STATE is so astonishingly stupid that it is like we’re living in a simulation.

But, here we are.

We’ve been so focused on the domestic political hellscape that Trump promises, that we have totally forgotten about how Trump could single handedly destroy the post WW2 liberal order. If he really does go after Canada, Greenland and the Panama Canal…that is like a Russian wet dream.

And remember, all that bullshit comes in the context of Trump planning on rounding up and deporting 20 million people.

All of this is seriously fucked up.

It definitely seems as though MAGA is determined to destroy everything to the point that it can never be rebuilt, even if Blues somehow, magically come to power again at some point in the future.

It could be that something akin to WW3 is going to happen specifically because of Trump and after a few billion people die because of him, personally….maybe the good guys will come back to power?

Maybe we’ll have the Singularity and be able to regulate it as species so we don’t get snuffed out by some sort of Artificial Super Intelligence? Only time will tell, I guess. But I am growing more and more alarmed.

The Great Tune Out Is Very Dangerous

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

All this tuning out that people are doing politically feeds into our lurch into autocracy. People just giving up and assuming they can’t change anything in their nation’s politics is a very living-in-an-autocracy thing to do.

When people become detached from their politics, then a lot of very dark things can happen because people not only don’t feel connected to their politics they really aren’t prepared to risk their lives and sacred honor in the real world to do anything about it.

And, yet, as I keep saying, Trump is so stupid and lazy that there’s a chance that he could force the issue of the consolidation of his power to the point that people get really, really angry in the real world — rather than the online one — and, I don’t know, he’s deposed in some way then a civil war breaks out.

But that is extremely unlikely and extremely speculative on my part. It definitely seems as though, lulz, Trump is going to turn us into an autocratic white Christian ethnostate without anyone saying anything or noticing and I’ll probably die from a ICE bullet to the head.

Or something ghastly like that. I really do want to get out of the country at some point if things get that bad, but I just don’t have the means at the moment.

Welcome To Trumplandia, I Guess

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fucking Trump. Ugh. The only thing stopping him from consolidating power in the US the way Putin did in Russia is he’s too dumb and lazy. If Trump wasn’t such a fucking malignant moron, he could easily turn the US over the course of the next four years into something that was drifting towards the legalistic tyranny of modern day Russia.

But I worry that Trump is so stupid and so lazy that he will try to force things in such a way that the country shivers and potentially even buckles into revolution and civil war.

And, yet, as is clearly the case from all my ranting over the years about such things — I can’t predict the future. So, probably what will happen is we’ll drift in fits and starts over the next four years into something closer to Turkey or Hungary.

There may be a Turkey-like coup attempt or something, something that gives Trump an excuse to purge the government in a big way. But, in general, Trumplandia is here — or at least will be in a few days.