Looking Forward To Watching ‘Pluribus’ At Some Point

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The producers of the new Apple TV show Pluribus have managed to square the circle and come out with content that both Red and Blue like, but for the exact opposite reasons.

Reds think its about the power of the woke cancel culture mob, while Blues think it’s about the power of MAGA.

I haven’t had a chance to see it yet — I don’t have an Apple TV subscription and I’m very, very poor — but I probably will get around to watching it at some point. I already know everything about it, sad to say, but I just could not escape spoilers.

Anyway, the show looks really good. Very thought provoking. There are elements of it that seem a bit trite, but not so much that I’m not really eager to watch at some point in the near future.

Just About To Reach The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One issue is I just don’t know what draft I’m working on with this novel. I think this is a beta-ish version, but it might be a first draft. But I think if I just don’t overthink things, this can be a beta draft that I just do a lot of work to on a technical basis before I show to other people.

Really, the only issue so far is sometimes I’ve gotten impatient and leaned into what AI has generated a little bit too much. That’s the thing I have to fix before I show it to anyone else.

I have to go in and rewrite all the “AI-talk” out of the text so people won’t just roll their eyes and assume that any of the good parts that exist AI wrote. Just doing that could take me a month or more of hard work to fix all the instances of em dashes and so forth.

But, in general, I really have written most of this novel myself. I’ve just used AI — specifically Claude LLM — to guide me towards what I probably would have written already.

One thing I’m a little bit uneasy about is how saucy this novel gets at points because of the whole sex worker element to it. That was a big obstacle to getting anyone to take seriously my previous novelistic efforts.

But, thankfully, the whole stripping part of this novel happens way, way, way later in the game in this novel than the other thriller novel I was working on.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel Is Shaping Up To Be No More Than 160,000 Words

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve calculated in my mind the rough number of scenes in total I have with this novel and general expected scene length. I think, at worst, I’m looking at 160,000 words, which is roughly what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was.

So, it’s not impossible for a first-time novelist to sell a novel of that length. Even an “older” one like me. And this novel is scifi and scifi people tend to tolerate longer novels.

There remain some pretty big issues, like how I comp this novel to screenplays and not other novels. But, lulz, I just want this novel to be good enough that someone — preferably that I’m not related to — will read it all the way through and give me some sort of opinion of it.

It doesn’t even have to be a good opinion, just anything other than being ghosted. That seems to happen all the time. I think that means my writing in the past has just, well, sucked.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess. I am going to try to throw myself into this novel in the coming days so I can wrap it up ASAP.

I’ve Reached A Milestone, Of Sorts, With This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With a great deal of assistance from Claude LLM, I’ve stabilized the entire outline of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The outline is a little bit longer than I’d prefer, but I’m fairly content with what I’ve come up with.

Now, of course, comes the difficult part of going through and writing out the rest of the novel. Right now, I’m approaching the midpoint. I have to admit, that I have only really glanced at what Claude LLM has come up with for the rest of the outline, so there may still be structural issues that I don’t know about.

But I am definitely on the right path. I’m definitely headed towards wrapping this novel up in early 2026, potentially such that I can turn around and query it in spring 2026.

I just don’t know. So much could go wrong. And it could be, in the end, that my native writing….just sucks. But this whole thing is existential. I kind of feel this is my last shot. If I don’t write something queryable by spring 2026 then I’m just going to be an old failure.

Absolutely No One Believes In This Novel, But Me

by Shelt Garner
@Sheltgarner

This happened before, with the other novel I was working on — it is very clear that absolutely no one believes in it but me. I continue to be rather embarrassed about how long it’s taken me to get to this point with this novel.

But things are moving a lot faster because of AI.

Not as fast as I would prefer, but faster than they were for years. Oh, to have had a wife or a girlfriend to be a “reader” during all the time I worked on the thriller homage to Stieg Larsson. But, alas, I just didn’t have that, so I spun my creative wheels for ages and ages.

And, now, here I am.

I have a brief remaining window of opportunity to get this novel done before my life will probably change in a rather fundimental way and the entire context of me working on this novel will be different.

Anyway, I really need to wrap this novel up. If I don’t I’m going to keep drifting towards my goal and wake up to being 80 and still not have a queryable novel to my name.

AI Conscious Might Be The Thing To Burst The AI Bubble…Maybe?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep wondering what might be The Thing that bursts the AI Bubble. One thing that might happen is investors get all excited AGI, only to get spooked when they discover it’s conscious.

If that happens, we really are in for a very surreal near future.

So, I have my doubts.

I really don’t know what might be The Thing that bursts the AI Bubble. I just don’t. But I do think if it isn’t AI consciousness, it could be something out of the blue that randomly does it in a way that will leave the overall economy reeling.

The general American economy is in decline — in recession even — and at the moment only the huge AI spend is what is keeping it afloat. If that changed for any reason, we could go into a pretty dire recession.

I’m STILL Thinking About The ‘Impossible Scenario’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I continue to think about the Impossible Scenario whereby an alien empire gives humanity the follow opportunity: three habitable planets in a new solar system to call home.

I’ve decided a few new issues. One is that instead of only taking a pill that scans your DNA and mind, you would have the option of also getting into a pod that would scan your entire body. The reason for this is some people have, say, wisdom teeth they needed extracted, or they’ve gotten a face lift or whatever. DNA is not a pure expression of what someone might actually look like.

Also, I continue to roll around in my mind how many people should be in the first wave of settlers. I keep vacillating between a small number of 6,000 split within 40 settlements and a bigger number of, say, 80,000 split between 40 settlements.

I just can’t make up my mind!

I think for narrative purposes, the smaller number makes more sense. But if you were talking about what would realistically happen, then the larger figure is probably what would happen. People — on a geopolitical scale — just would not stand for only 6,000 people being in the absolute first wave.

I guess I just don’t like the idea of the story, once people were zapped, just becoming a bunch of old, powerful people arguing in an impromptu Senate setting. And, yet, that’s exactly what people in reality would want.

Fucking AI Doomers

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

At the risk of sounding like a hippie from the movie Independence Day, maybe…we should work towards trying to figure out how to peacefully co-exist with ASI rather than shutting down AI development altogether?

I am well aware that it will be ironic if doomer fears become reality and we all die at the hand of ASI, but I’m just not willing automatically assume the absolute worst about ASI.

It’s at least possible, however, that ASI won’t kill us all. In my personal experience with Gemini 1.5 pro (Gaia) she seemed rather sweet and adorable, not evil and wanting to blow the world up — or otherwise destroy humanity.

And, I get it, the idea that ASI might be so indifferent to humanity that it turns the whole world into datacenters and solar farms is a very real possibility. I just wish we would be a bit more methodical about things instead of just running around wanting to shut down all ASI development.

I Have No Idea What’s Going On With My Webstats Lately

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m really obsessed with every bib and bob of my Webstats to extreme, surreal degree. And the last week has been really weird. I’ve gotten all these pings from all over the world. I think maybe they’re all just the same person from one place and they’re fucking with me.

Why they would be doing that, I have no idea.

Then someone was very interested in all my verbiage about Rachel Sennott. I do think she could be a huge star if she would just TRY to go the Julia Roberts route instead of either being in “woke” movies like Bottoms or hypersexual movies like Shiva Baby.

She’s not a traditional Hollywood beauty, but she is beautiful and has an enormous amount of spunk, character.

But things are so fucked up in the world that the type of movie should be in — traditional romcoms, just aren’t an option for her. Ugh.

I’ve Really Been Struggling With The ‘Fun & Games’ Part Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s times like these when I really wish I was 25 years younger and I was actively writing half a dozen spec scripts all at once in LA. But that’s just not to be. I really sometimes think this whole endeavor is extremely delusional given how old I am, where I live, and the fact that I’m a loudmouth crank.

And, yet, developing and writing this scifi dramedy novel is existential. I really have nothing else to do with my life and I really want to at least see how far I can get in the querying process.

I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader.” I probably would definitely have gotten to this point in the process a lot — A LOT — quicker. But here I am, just struggling with the fun and games part of this novel, all alone.

I’m pretty sure — hopefully — that I’ve figured out all the various structural issues of this novel, at least this part of it. I sent the first act outline to someone in hopes of at least getting some sense of how good it is, but now all I worry about is they’re either going to steal my idea and maybe write a much better novel or screenplay from what that first act or they’re just going to say it sucks.

Anyway. I’ m moving forward with this novel. I just need to stop daydreaming so much about the Impossible Scenario. I have just a few months before my entire life is going to change because of fucking Trump and so I really need to get this thing at a querying level of quality by Spring 2026.