It’s Going To Be Tough Querying

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key issue when it comes to querying this particular novel is I see it as an opportunity to get the lay of the land. I just want to understand better how exactly to query so the next novel I try to query might get a little bit closer to the goal of being successfully bought.

As it stands, the querying process seems rather overwhelming. I just need to get into the right mindset to do it. I need better understand things. As it stands right now, I really have only a limited understanding of what goes into querying.

And, really, if I was all that eager to get the novel into the hands of actual human beings I would self-publish. But I know that would be a failure because I can’t sell for shit and that’s just not my vision for my work.

I would rather not publish the novel at all than self-publish. To me, self-publishing is kind of a cop-out. I understand why people do it, of course, but it’s just not my vision for my works.

Anyway, I’m going to keep reading about querying today and hopefully be a lot more productive than I have been for some time now.

A New Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve sort of been experiencing post-partum creative depression when it comes to what I’m going to do next after finishing my first novel. (Actually, it’s my second, but it’s the first novel that I feel is good enough to query.)

I’m hoping writing this out will get me in the right headspace to get back to writing again. I really also, of course, need to bone up on querying. But the last few weeks I’ve just been in a severe funk because I’ve finished a pretty good novel but I couldn’t think of what next to write about.

Thankfully, a new novel idea came to me in a dream. So, the moment I woke up, I rushed to my computer and started talking to Claude and Gemini LLMs about it. After about 20 minutes, I had the basis of a fully-formed novel gamed out.

But, like I said, I’ve really had problems actually doing anything with the novel. Yet I hope I can bootstrap myself back into developing and writing a new novel starting today. I just can’t daydream and be immobilized forever.

The new novel idea comes at the android-human debate from the opposite direction as the last novel. Which is something of a challenge that I like having to work on. I still have a lingering desire to write a trilogy that is an homage to Stieg Larsson’s work…but I just don’t have the time to write a trilogy.

I’m not getting any younger.

Even as it stands, I could be closer to 60 than I would prefer even if everything went right with the novel that I want to query. That really is depressing and discouraging.

But I just can’t change that it took me 20 years to figure out that the only thing I’m reasonably good at is writing fiction. And even that is debatable to a lot of people. (I guess in real terms the only thing I’m natively good at is being a rock DJ or photograph, but neither one of those is a viable option for me right now.)

So, wish me luck.

July 10th: Put Up Or Shut Up

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have several things I need to do today. I need to read up on querying. I need to read some comp books for my novel and I need to throw myself into development on my new novel.

While I’ve gotten some positive reactions to my novel, I’ve also gotten at least one person who said it sucked and I should start all over again because there were structural, fundimental issues with how I wrote it.

If I was 20 years younger, I would be open to that. But I’m not. The point of querying this particular novel is simply to understand how to query the novel to get some sense of what of how to do it. I’m well aware of the problems with it but I’m not getting any younger and I feel this novel is at least not so bad as to embarrass me.

Someone I respect has read the novel and is supposed to chat with me in person about it sometime soon. Before I got the “it sucks” note from someone I was thinking I might go into the meeting a conquering hero. But, now, oh boy. I think I need to be a bit more humble.

I have no idea what the person is going to say to me about the novel and it could be that he says, “Look, it’s an ok read but I just don’t think you can query it.” It’s going be a gut punch. But I’m going to query it anyway because, like I said, I want to test out the waters for the next novel.

I had a dream that prompted the premise for my new novel. I’m leaning into AI a lot to speed up development. But one thing I’m definitely not going to do is use AI to write any copy. I just see it as a manuscript consultant that will help me speed up structural development stuff.

Well, That Is Interesting

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Someone from NYC came directly to this site and for once it wasn’t my stalker(?) from Queens. Grin. It kind of made my day. I wonder why someone from NYC would be interested in me at all.

The person from Queens is kind of obsessed with this site, so they don’t count. But for someone with a very corporate sounding ISP to pop up in my Webstats is intriguing, to say the least.

It’s probably nothing. Hopefully, it’s not someone with ICE.

Existential Angst & Daydreaming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Meh. I don’t want to do anything today. And, yet, I can’t just keep this up forever. I have to sit down and both read up on querying and start development on a new novel.

I really have to accept that while I may not make a fool out of myself with the novel I’ve finished, I have to understand what it is. It’s just the pathfinder for another attempt with a better novel to query — probably in about a year.

I still like the novel I’ve finished, even if it apparently sucks. It think it’s a nice, easy and accessible read. What it obviously needs is an editor. But I just can’t afford that right now, so I have to take a swing at querying with what I have.

I continue to feel a little uneasy about what the liberal white women who make up up the majority of literary agents will think of me — especially once they read this blog as part of due diligence. They’re probably going to think I’m nuts.

Anyway. It’s kind of too late now. I have to accept that a third party is probably going to see me as a fucking weirdo. But, as the late Annie Shapiro once quipped about me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

And if that’s the worst someone who knows me can say about me, then I think that’s ok.

July 9th: Oh Boy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just when I was getting a little excited that maybe my novel was…actually good?…I got someone to look at it and they pretty much said start from scratch. And their points were legitimate.

But I’m just not prepared to do that. It could take at least a year to rewrite the novel the way they suggested and it probably would be a lot longer as well. So, I’m going to use this particular novel as the tip of the spear for the next novel I’m going to start working on very soon.

I will admit that I continue to daydream, however. I continue to drift. And, yet, at the same time, I also have the deadline of Sept 1st for when I’m going to start querying the novel I have finished.

So, I guess I need to throw myself into boning up on how to query a novel. I need to do that ASAP. But, to date, I haven’t really been the mood. And, of course, I also need to start to really throw myself into development of the new novel idea I have come up with — in a dream, no less.

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

July 8: Buckle Down

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I got some preliminary feedback from one of the readers of my novel and it left me excited because it wasn’t just “it sucked.” And the idea that someone would actually finish a novel I’ve written has also gotten me a little excited.

So, today, I hope to sit down and read up on how to query. I think that’s what I need to do so I can focus on getting my head in the right mindspace to do such a thing.

I am under no illusions — I am well aware as to how unlikely it is that I will successfully query this novel. And, yet, that’s not really the point. The point is to see how far I can get with the process so I can get even farther the next go round.

But I am also well aware that I’m not getting any younger. Even if I stick the landing with this novel and it is sold, I could be closer to 60 by the time it hits bookshelves.

Anyway, I guess I’m still looking for beta readers. I still have some slack in my chronology of events before I query.

The Day the Future Arrived: When a Private Lab Unleashed ASI, Fusion, and Quantum Computing

Imagine waking up on a seemingly ordinary Tuesday to news that shatters the foundation of modern science and geopolitics. A prominent, private frontier AI laboratory—one of the usual suspects in Silicon Valley—announces not just a new language model, but a cascade of technological miracles. They have secretly achieved Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). And to prove it, they aren’t just releasing a whitepaper; they are unveiling fully functional, commercially viable nuclear fusion reactors and fault-tolerant quantum computers, designed entirely by their ASI.

This scenario, once the exclusive domain of science fiction, is increasingly discussed in the corridors of power and the boardrooms of tech giants as a plausible, albeit extreme, outcome of the current AI arms race 1. The implications of such an event—a private entity suddenly possessing the keys to unlimited clean energy and unimaginable computational power—would trigger an immediate and unprecedented global crisis, fundamentally altering the relationship between the state and the private sector.

The Immediate Shockwave: A Crisis of Sovereignty

The immediate reaction to a private lab releasing ASI-derived fusion and quantum technologies would be one of profound shock, followed rapidly by a crisis of national sovereignty. The United States government, and indeed governments worldwide, would suddenly find themselves technologically outmatched by a corporation.

The balance of power would shift overnight. A private entity controlling fusion power holds the solution to the global energy crisis and climate change, effectively rendering petrostates obsolete and fundamentally restructuring the global economy. Simultaneously, possessing advanced quantum computing capabilities would instantly break current cryptographic standards, rendering global financial systems, military communications, and state secrets entirely vulnerable 2.

In this scenario, the US government’s primary concern would shift instantly from regulating AI safety to national security and survival. The traditional regulatory frameworks, designed for incremental technological advancements, would be entirely inadequate.

The Inevitable Response: Soft (or Hard) Nationalization

The US government’s response would likely be swift and decisive, driven by the imperative to secure these technologies before they could be weaponized or monopolized to the detriment of the state. The discourse surrounding the “nationalization” of AI labs, currently a topic of theoretical debate, would become an immediate policy necessity 3.

We would likely witness a spectrum of interventions, starting with what policy experts term “soft nationalization” 4. This could involve:

  • Immediate Executive Orders: Invoking emergency powers, such as the Defense Production Act, to compel the lab to prioritize government contracts and restrict the export or public release of the technologies.
  • Embedded Oversight: The immediate installation of military and intelligence personnel within the lab’s leadership and operational teams to monitor and control the ASI’s outputs.
  • Classification and Secrecy: The immediate classification of the ASI’s underlying architecture, the fusion reactor designs, and the quantum computing algorithms as top-secret national security assets.

However, given the magnitude of the breakthrough, “soft” measures might quickly escalate. If the lab’s leadership resisted or if the technologies were deemed too dangerous to remain in private hands, the government might pursue outright nationalization—seizing the lab’s assets, intellectual property, and personnel under the guise of national security 5. This would spark unprecedented legal battles, but the government would argue that the survival of the nation supersedes corporate property rights.

The Geopolitical Earthquake

The international reaction would be equally seismic. The sudden emergence of the US (or a US-based corporation) as the sole possessor of ASI, fusion, and quantum computing would instantly destabilize the global geopolitical order 6.

  • The New Arms Race: Rival nations, particularly China, would view this development as an existential threat. The race to replicate the ASI and its discoveries would become the singular focus of their national resources, potentially leading to a dangerous acceleration of unsafe AI development globally.
  • Economic Upheaval: The promise of limitless, cheap energy from fusion would cause global energy markets to crash. Nations reliant on fossil fuel exports would face immediate economic collapse, potentially leading to regional instability and conflict.
  • The Quantum Threat: The realization that a US entity possesses quantum computing capable of breaking encryption would force a global scramble to develop post-quantum cryptography, while simultaneously creating intense paranoia about the security of all existing digital infrastructure.

The Broader Societal Reaction: Awe and Terror

For the general public, the reaction would be a volatile mix of awe, hope, and profound terror. The sudden availability of clean energy and the potential for ASI to solve intractable problems like disease and poverty would be celebrated. However, this optimism would be heavily overshadowed by the realization that humanity had birthed an entity vastly more intelligent than itself, and that this entity was currently controlled by a small group of unelected technologists—or, shortly thereafter, the military-industrial complex.

The psychological impact of realizing that the future had arrived not through democratic consensus, but through a secret corporate project, would lead to widespread demands for transparency, democratic oversight, and equitable distribution of the ASI’s benefits.

Conclusion: The End of the Beginning

The scenario of a private lab secretly developing ASI and releasing magical technologies is the ultimate black swan event. It highlights the profound inadequacy of our current governance structures to handle exponential technological leaps. Whether the US government responds with soft nationalization or outright seizure, the fundamental reality remains: the creation of ASI will not just be a technological milestone; it will be a geopolitical singularity, forever altering the trajectory of human history. The question is no longer just if we will build it, but who will control it when it wakes up.

The Digital Triad: How the Internet Architected Our Three Greatest Modern Crises

The early promise of the internet was one of radical decentralization, a “global village” where information would be free and power would be distributed. Decades later, the reality is starkly different. The underlying architecture of the web—its economic incentives, network structures, and data-hungry nature—has directly facilitated three of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century: the warping of reality via social media, the rise of a new class of global plutocrats, and the looming shadow of a technological Singularity driven by Large Language Models (LLMs). These are not mere side effects; they are the logical conclusions of an internet-enabled world.

I. The Warped Mirror: Social Media and the Erosion of Reality

The internet’s primary commodity is no longer information, but attention. This shift has given rise to the Attention Economy, a system where human focus is algorithmically extracted, packaged, and sold to the highest bidder [1]. Because social media platforms rely on maximizing engagement to drive advertising revenue, they are incentivized to prioritize content that triggers strong emotional responses—fear, outrage, and tribalism—over factual accuracy.

The Mechanics of Distortion

Social media algorithms are not neutral tools; they are “opinions embedded in code” [1]. They function as feedback loops that create Echo Chambers and Filter Bubbles. By analyzing every click, hover, and share, these systems curate a personalized reality for each user, reinforcing existing biases and shielding them from dissenting views. This has led to a fundamental breakdown in shared truth, making collective problem-solving nearly impossible.

MechanismDescriptionImpact on Reality
Algorithmic CurationAI-driven feeds that prioritize engagement over truth.Users are trapped in “filter bubbles” that reinforce biases.
The Outrage CycleProvocative content spreads 17-24% faster than neutral content [1].Public discourse becomes polarized and hostile.
Data MiningConstant surveillance of user behavior to predict and influence choices.Cognitive autonomy is eroded by persuasive design.

“We are in a time where we’ve sort of accepted the unrestricted, unregulated mining of the human consciousness… We are the resource, and it takes its toll.” — Center for Humane Technology [1].

II. Digital Feudalism: The Rise of the New Plutocrats

The internet has fundamentally altered the laws of economics, favoring extreme concentration over competition. The rise of “Big Tech” billionaires—the modern plutocrats—is a direct result of two internet-native phenomena: Network Effects and Zero Marginal Costs [4].

The Winner-Take-All Economy

In the digital realm, the value of a service increases exponentially with the number of users (Network Effects). This creates a “winner-take-all” dynamic where a single platform, such as Google or Meta, can achieve a global monopoly almost overnight. Furthermore, once a digital product is created, the cost of serving an additional user is near zero (Zero Marginal Cost), allowing these firms to scale at a rate that physical-world industries cannot match.

The result is a level of wealth inequality with no historical precedent. Today, the world’s 12 richest individuals possess more wealth than half of the global population [2]. This economic power is increasingly converted into political influence through:

  • Media Ownership: Billionaires now own more than half of the world’s leading media outlets [2].
  • Lobbying: Tech giants spend billions to weaken antitrust regulations and ensure favorable tax structures.
  • Infrastructure Control: Private individuals now control critical global infrastructure, from satellite networks (Starlink) to the foundational models of AI [2].

III. The Ghost in the Machine: LLMs and the Path to Singularity

The third and perhaps most existential problem is the rise of Large Language Models (LLMs) and the potential for a Technological Singularity. This crisis is uniquely internet-dependent: LLMs exist only because the internet provided a near-infinite corpus of human-generated text to serve as training data.

From Generative AI to Intelligence Explosion

The Singularity refers to a point where AI reaches Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and begins Recursive Self-Improvement—designing better versions of itself at a pace that far outstrips human comprehension [3]. While experts debate the timeline, the “scaling laws” of the internet age suggest that as we feed more compute and data into these models, qualitative leaps in intelligence become inevitable.

ConceptDefinitionThe Internet’s Role
AGIAI that matches or surpasses human intelligence across all domains.Trained on the “Common Crawl” of the entire public internet.
Recursive Self-ImprovementAI using its own intelligence to optimize its code and hardware.Enabled by internet-connected high-performance computing.
The SingularityA point of no return where AI growth becomes uncontrollable.The internet acts as the “nervous system” for this emerging intelligence.

The risk is not just “killer robots,” but a “loss of control of our civilization” [3]. If a superintelligent system’s goals are not perfectly aligned with human values—a task known as the Alignment Problem—the consequences could be catastrophic. The internet, by centralizing the world’s knowledge and connecting all its systems, has created the perfect environment for such an entity to emerge and exert influence.

Conclusion: A Systemic Crisis

These three problems—the erosion of truth, the rise of plutocracy, and the threat of the Singularity—are deeply interconnected. The plutocrats own the social media platforms that warp our reality, and they are the ones currently racing to develop the AI that could trigger the Singularity. The internet, once envisioned as a tool for liberation, has become the scaffolding for a new form of systemic instability.

Addressing these issues requires more than individual digital “detoxes” or minor policy tweaks. It requires a fundamental re-evaluation of the internet’s economic foundations, the breaking of digital monopolies, and a global, precautionary approach to the development of superintelligence.

References

  1. The Attention Economy – Center for Humane Technology
  2. The immense power of the new plutocracy – El País
  3. Are AI existential risks real? – Brookings Institution
  4. Why the Internet Economy Raises Inequality – Columbia Business School

July 6th: No More Navel Gazing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Today, I’m determined to be productive in some way. I’ve been daydreaming for way, way too long. I’m going to start to move towards querying and I’m going to read / watch TV some and I’m going to, most of all, write, write, write.

All of this come in the context of me knowing my life is probably going to change a pretty dramatic fashion one way or another pretty soon. Elements of Trump’s fucking “Big Beautiful Bill” are directly targeted at me, it seems.

So, as such, I’m going to buckle down and actually get some work done, especially when it comes to querying. My dream is, of course, that I successfully query this novel, it’s a success and I can fucking leave America forever or at least until MAGA is no more (which is essentially forever.)

But that’s very much daydreaming. Even if I got an agent and sold this novel, it would be like winning the lottery just to get that far. But I need some reason, any reason, to find some motivation to do something constructive and productive.

I can’t just daydream for the rest of my life. There is going to come a time when this rather idyllic situation I find myself in will end and I’m going to look back and realize I didn’t use my time as wisely as I should have.

I continue to worry about being “canceled” should I ever have any success. I’m not perfect and I’ve done my fair share of things that might be interpreted poorly under the right circumstances. But as I keep saying, I’d rather love and lose because of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune than not do anything.