Category: Media

Now That I’m Not Such A Drunk, Maybe I’ll Get A Lot More Writing Done

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have stopped drinking. I’ve just reached the point where I would prefer not to die of an early death as the result of some alcohol-related illness. The biggest change all of this causes is I’m not in an alcohol-induced haze most of the time. As such, I hope I’m going to be able to focus and get much, much more work done on the novel.

No more barfly.

Hell, maybe I’ll even force myself to read and watch more content produced by someone other than myself. I hope. I really do. That’s the goal. I may have finally locked the first chapter of the third draft of the novel. I can use that as the cornerstone of the rest of the novel and, as such, things should move a lot more quickly.

That’s the dream, at least.

I’m hoping this new era in my life will stick. I really want to get this novel done as quickly as possible so I can at least get the next stage which is figuring out what to do with it, once I finally know how long it is.

I really hope it’s not 160,000 words. I really, really hope it’s no more than 140,000 words. That’s about how long The Girl On The Train was and that was a success, so, lulz. But I still need work on a back up plan. I need some sort of back up creative plan in case something happens that screws everything up with this first novel.

Biden Being So Frail Is Historical Bad Ju-Ju

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m very uneasy about what is going on with President Biden. He’s demonstrably old and frail — if mentally still smart as a tack. My fear is that things will get so bad with Biden that we’re going to have to invoke the 25th Amendment in some way.

I continue to believe that late 2024, early 2025 could be one of the momentous few months in American history. The fact that Biden is so frail and old just as a number of major historical trends are all coming to a head all at the same time. And remember, Trump is chomping at the bit to exploit any possible weakness that might occur in late 2024, early 2025.

Look up the election of 1872.

If we manage to escape this catastrophe, I will be very pleased. I’m just worried. Really worried. But maybe the strange thing to happen will be not that something shocking happens, but rather….we muddle through.

I dunno. It will be curious going forward.

We Need A Cultural Reset

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know if this is the cultural equivalent of The Fourth Turning or not, but it seems like we need some sort of cultural reset. It we need to lurch into a new, more exciting future. We exist in some sort of luminal state whereby a bunch of old people control culture.

I honestly don’t know how to fix this problem.

But I suppose if there was some sort of Fourth Turning then once it was over and we came out the other side, we would have a new, vibrant culture again. But it definitely seems as though we’re stuck in a cultural malaise for the foreseeable future.

I also think that people aren’t thinking through how bad things suck at the moment in general. I suppose there is a possibility that technology will fix the problem. Some combination of AI and the Apple Vision Pro going mainstream might be the thing that prompts some sort of cultural reset or vibe shift.

I hope, is all I gotta say.

I Know This Novel Is Getting Good Now — Too Bad I Have No Friends & No One Likes Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My gut tells me this novel is getting a lot better — a lot better. And I’ve started to get at least not-bad impressions from people I’ve let read the latest version of the first chapter. Some people have ghosted me randomly without giving me any kind of input, which is unnerving.

I get if they thought it was too bad to give me a response, but to agree to read the third draft of the first chapter then ghost me when I know it’s good….I dunno. It’s a mystery.

It’s times like these when I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend like Garp’s Helen in The World According to Garp. But I got squat. No one and nobody. All I got is my own views on what makes a good story. I have some very high — if arbitrary — standards.

Working on a novel all these years has all but ruined my ability to enjoy anyone else’s story. If a story doesn’t meet my standards, it’s really, really difficult for me consume it.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess.

‘National Security Threat:’ Zombie Arthur C. Clarke, Call Your Agent

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the re-occurring themes found within the scifi works of Arthur C. Clarke is the idea of nukes in space. So, my ears perked up when I heard that the “national security threat” that we’ve all heard about today might have something to do with…nukes in space.

But, who knows. No one listens to me. It is interesting that Clarke has a way of predicting the future on a reasonably consistent basis. But he never go the race war in South Africa he kept writing about. 🙂

I’ve Tentatively Locked Down The First Chapter Of The Third Draft Of The Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have handed out the first chapter of the third draft of the novel in an effort to sort of force my hand. I have to lock down things sooner rather than later or I’ll wake up in a year an be exactly where I am now.

My goal is to write a novel as popular as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

So, I am going to chill out for a little bit today then sit down and see if I can flesh out chapters two and three. Then, I can use the first three chapters as a cornerstone for the rest of the novel and things will go really, really fast. That’s the hope.

The big issue is word count. At the moment, I’m hoping to come in at no more than 140,000 words. My fear is that I’ll be closer to 200,000 words. If that happens, then I’m going to split the novel into two.

A first novel with 200,000 words is just too fucking long. I would never be able to get a first novel of that length published. So, like I said, splitting the novel into two would probably be the best option.

And I also need to start working on the various scifi novels I have floating around in my mind. I really need to stop daydreaming about these stories and start writing them.

A Disturbance In The Force

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are a number of destabilizing things floating around these days that make me very uneasy. The chief amongst them is the weird far Left bullshit focused on the “Free Palestine” movement. It definitely seems as though some crazy person might use the Free Palestine agenda as the underpinning of something very dramatic and unexpected.

What that might be, I don’t know.

I am very empathetic to Free Palestine, I just don’t think violence is ever the proper way to achieve an objective. And I worry that some weird thing is going to come at us from left field between now and early 2025 that we just can’t predict that will totally put a different spin on things.

To the point that it might be the “Black Swan” even that forces us to rethink everything. I have no idea what that might be, but I am worried that something might happen that is so historic that it’s up there with 9/11. It could be that whatever bad juju we should have to worry about has already been excised as part of the January 6th Insurrection.

Who knows. But I do, in general, sense Something Big is brewing out there in the historical aether.

Once I Stabilize The First Three Chapters Of The Third Draft Of This Novel, Things Should Move Really Fast

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am so close to stabilizing the first three chapters of this novel to the point that things might start to go really fast. One huge problem I face is I’ve so forked the story from what it was intended to be in the second draft that I have a huge amount of writing, rather than editing, ahead of me.

My dream is to write a novel as popular as Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

I’m going to have to just throw everything up in the air and reimagine a lot of the novel on a specific basis, with the third act really being something I have to work on. The third act of the second draft s u c k e d. It was horrible. So these days I spend a lot of of my time thinking in the back of my mind about how I can straighten out some serious problems in the third act.

Anyway. My storytelling and writing ability have both gotten significantly better. Some of it is I’ve being using AI some to help develop the novel — but not write it — because I’m doing everything in a vacuum and I have nothing to go on but my gut.

And sometimes my gut just doesn’t cut it.

But, in general, I’m very pleased with what I’ve managed to come up with. One key thing I have to do is stop being such an absolute perfectionist. The point is to finish a third draft THEN go back and edit it some. This business of forking the Goddamn thing all the time has got to stop.

Big Gretch For POTUS

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In an ideal world, Biden would step down ASAP and we would have a President Harris who would be thrown into the mix of who would be the next Democratic nominee. But even if Biden just decided not to run again, I know who I would support — Gretchen Whitmer. And I think Josh Shapiro should be her veep.

Big Gretch

That would be my personal ideal ticket, if nothing else.

I would throw Jon Stewart into that mix, but I would prefer if he got some experience in government before he ran for POTUS.

But all of this is just mental masturbation. Fighting Joe Biden isn’t going anywhere and so we just have to hold our collective breath for a few months to see if he can not only beat malignant ding-dong Trump but actually function as a human being.

I just don’t want to have to get a flood of hot takes about the intricacies of the 25th Amendment if Biden’s health really deteriorates. But, hopefully, that won’t happen.

My Heroine Looks Like A Mixture of Olivia Munn & Nicole Scherzinger — But Younger

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

In general, my heroine looks like combination of Olivia Munn and Nicole Scherzinger, but younger. While those two women are gorgeous, for structural reasons my heroine is in her early 30s. I suppose Munn could “play younger” or be de-aged a little bit. (This is all delusional at this point because I haven’t finished the novel yet, much less gotten to the point where I can seriously think about any sort of movie adaptation.)

But I like to daydream, so, lulz.

Here’s a gratuitous picture of Olivia Munn.

So if you take Olivia Munn and combine her with Nicole Scherzinger…

And make this combined woman younger, you get…

…Corrie Yee.

Anyway. I’m just letting off some steam at the moment before I turn my attention to trying to lock down the first three chapters of the third draft of the novel.