Tag: am querying

The Point Is To Tell A Good Story

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, my first novel isn’t going to be a murder mystery thriller. It’s a novel essentially about a power struggle over a community newspaper that will serve as the cornerstone of what could be a open-ended seven novel project. But, given how fucking old I am and how even if I stick the landing I could be in querying hell for years — I’ll just be glad to finish A Novel.

The heroine of my novel looks like Morena Baccarin.

As such, I’m zooming through the third draft of my first novel.

Though, I will note one annoying thing about all of this — way too many people get all excited and promise to read a chapter here or there only to ghost me. I can never figure out if this means they hate what I gave them and don’t want to give me ANY opinion, they realized they just didn’t want to anything and ghosted me or there’s some third thing going on that I don’t know about.

Anyway, I’m very pleased with the state of this first novel and I’m really beginning to think about the second novel in the seven-novel project as well as a few scifi novels that will serve as a “back up” option in case something happens with the main creative track.

My heroine sports a sleeve tattoo similar to this one that Megan Fox has now. Even though I thought of the idea first!

I still refuse to even think about self-publishing. While I play pretend and give myself five years from the point when I start to query to get traditionally published before I self-publish….I know that’s just a dumb thing I tell myself instead of the truth: I’m never fucking self-publishing.

I May Not Be Able To Afford A Manuscript Consultant Before I Start To Query My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve had mixed results when it comes to paying manuscript consultants to help me improve the text of my novel. Too often, they get all snooty on me and won’t even help me at all. I’ve long assumed that between finishing the novel and querying it, I would pay a literary consultant to look over the final copy of the novel.

I spent all my money on booze. Wink

Well, I just don’t know if that’s going to be possible.

I live in poverty and I just don’t have the hundreds of dollars necessary to pay someone to look over the novel. And, really, I’m well aware of problems with the first novel. I think — think — I can self-correct those problems without having to pay someone.

I sure would be nice, though, to get someone to look over the novel. I have to accept that I’m a broke ass motherfucker and I just have to make do with what I got.

I’m Nervous The Liberal White Women That Make Up A Big Chunk Of Literary Agents Will Not Like What They Find When They Do Due Diligence On Me

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I can’t change who I am. I can’t change what I’ve done — or not done — with my life over the years. I’ve always been a kook. I’ve always been a late bloomer.

So, there’s every reason to believe that if literary agents — many of whom will be liberal white women — can get past my age and dissipated life, that they may not be thrilled at what a kook I’ve been my entire life.

I’ve already had a problem with some snooty literary types not being willing to work with me because…I don’t honestly know. They’re snobs? They’re arrogant? But the key issue is I have to stop being so delusional. The moment I start to query my first two novels (if I can finish them both by July 22 like I hope) I have to leave delusion behind.

I have to start to deal with the cold hard facts of life.

I’m a middle aged man who can tell a good story. But that, alas, is all I got. I’m broke. I’m a smelly CIS white male. As one person told me recently, “the demographics aren’t on your side.” Ugh.

But I refuse to give up. I am going to keep going forward. I’ve decided to give myself five years from the moment I start querying before I will “give up” and self-publish.

By that point, if I’m not a published author — or close to being one — I will be about 56 and I might as well just self-publish to get it out of my system. And, yet, I’m not so sure I’ll actually do that. I have a huge fucking chip on my shoulder and I want the validation of getting past the gatekeepers so I can rub it in the face of people who have told me my writing sucks my entire life.

Fuck those people. I’m good enough, I’m smart enough and I *can* get published traditionally.

The State of The Novel(s) I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While it’s still at least possible that I will finish not one but two novels by my hard deadline of July 22, it’s beginning to sink in that maybe I should cool it talking about that possibility so much. It’s possible, just not probable.

I have a huge amount of work to do on the first novel and the only way I might finish both novel is if I do a lot of work on the second book while I work on the first. I may not finish two novels by my hard deadline, but I can DEFINITELY finish two novels by the end of the year.

And I hope to start to work on a third novel, a scifi Western, this year as well.

I continue to stew in my juices about how, exactly, I’m going to “comp” these novels. I really don’t read a lot these days and I can’t just comp the two mystery thrillers I’m working on to Stieg Larsson’s stuff. I have to find other novels to compare them to as well.

And, what’s more, I continue to be very worried about what is going to happen when the white liberal women who make up literary agents do “due diligence” on me, a freaky weirdo. At least I’m not a drunk crank anymore, but, rather a sober one.

I can’t help who I am.

One of my biggest concerns is that me being a drunk loser for so long will, by definition, prohibit me from ever — EVER — being a published author. But you have to have hope, no matter what. While there’s life, there’s hope.

A Risky Decision

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a number of reasons for splitting the novel I’ve been working on into two stories. The now two different stories can be written faster. The two of them now are a lot more coherent. And, what’s more, each story will be about ~100,000 words if things work out the way I hope.

I hope my heroine is as interesting and compelling as Lisbeth Salander.

But there are risks.

One is, who wants to read a novel that is, for the most part, a story about a woman struggling to own a newspaper? So, in a sense, my first novel would be if The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was about a power struggle over the Millennium magazine, rather than solving a decade’s old murder.

But I do think that because the story will be really interesting, character driven — and does have a murder in the third act — that it could be interesting enough to be successfully queried. And, what’s more, because of how I’m splitting the novel, I have the original murder mystery story that I can write out pretty quickly.

(L to R, foreground) DANIEL CRAIG as a stranger with no memory of his past and director/executive producer JON FAVREAU on the set of an event film for summer 2011 that crosses the classic Western with the alien-invasion movie in a blazingly original way: “Cowboys & Aliens.”

So, rather than one novel done this year, I could have two.

And, given that I want to write a third novel, a scifi western, I could soon have three novels to pitch in some capacity within the next year.

That, at least, is the plan.

Am Querying (Eventually): Not Dead Yet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Sometimes, I feel like I should just lie in my bed, twiddle my thumbs and wait to die. I’m old and I’ve wasted way too much of my life grieving over a dumb zine in Seoul. But every time I get into this mood, I immediately think, “Well, once more unto the breach.”

I hope that the heroine I’ve come up with is as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.

It’s just not my nature to give up, even though that’s exactly what I should probably do — give the fuck up.

So, I’m going to keep going with this novel as well as a back up novel. All I can say in my defense is I’m an eccentric and, as such, I willing to throw myself into something which objectively will never happen successfully — querying my first novel.

But I just refuse to self-publish, no matter what. I would rather fail on a spectacular level than self-publish because to me self-publishing is a huge co-out. I need and crave the validation of a third party — in this case a literary agent — so I can turn to people who have told me I suck as a writer all these years.

I can turn to them and tell them to fuck off.

I can prove them wrong.

So, I keep moving forward.

I May Have To Split This Story In Two & Connect It With A Cliffhanger

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided to just write the story without worrying about word count. Once I actually finish the novel, I will assess things. I will either split the story in two and have it connected by a cliffhanger, or I will try to pitch a backup novel that is the “proper” length.

I hope my heroine is as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.

I just don’t know yet. It could go either way.

But I am really interested in a scifi-Western. I think that is going to be my backup story. It shouldn’t be too difficult to bone up on how to write a Western then use the scifi universe I’ve thought up in the same story. The Western element would allow me to have a number of ready-made plots that I could fuse with scifi elements.

(L to R, foreground) DANIEL CRAIG as a stranger with no memory of his past and director/executive producer JON FAVREAU on the set of an event film for summer 2011 that crosses the classic Western with the alien-invasion movie in a blazingly original way: “Cowboys & Aliens”.

I do know I have to hurry up, though. I can’t keep screwing around. I now have just about six months to wrap up this third draft of my first novel, regardless of how long it turns out to be.

Querying My First Novel Will Be Brutal

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Tomorrow, the day after my birthday, is kind of my January 1st. I have vowed to myself that this will mark a new era in my life where not only do I lay of drinking so much, but I also really buckle down with the novel.

I’m watching House of Cards a decade after everyone else.

I have something of an idyllic situation on my hands when it comes to developing and writing a novel and it could change literally at any moment. Then I’m going to look back at this moment in my life and be smarting that I didn’t take more advantage of it when I had the opportunity.

And, yet, having said all that, I know, just know, that once I transition from the delusional la-la land of developing and writing a novel into the cold, hard reality of querying that I have to prepare myself for A LOT of disappointment. I’m already preparing myself to piviot to a few scifi concepts while I query.

The biggest problem I can sense about this novel is it’s just not dark enough. Not enough fucked up, twisted things happen. But, having said that, I have come up with more than one reason for people to keep reading during the really long first act — there’s intrigue and lots of sex — some of it kinky, if consensual.

My heroine has a sleeve tattoo similar to this one on Megan Fox, even though I thought of the idea before I saw this.

I like the idea of talking about kinkier sex in a mater-of-fact, consensual way, even though it’s easy for it to be all rather funny. But, I can’t help myself. That’s just my nature — to be kind of droll instead of dark, twisted and scary.

The Final Countdown (For The First Act Of The Third Draft)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As far as the first act of the novel goes, I’m just about to the point where there — hopefully – won’t be too much change on a structural basis. As such, that will really aid in editing and writing the rest of it out.

My novel is meant to be a homage to Stieg Larsson’s Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Once I reach the second act, then things will slow down again because even though I know, in general terms, what the story is, I’m far from locking things down. But the general “Fun & Games” part of story — the first half of the second act — is, in general terms pretty stabilized.

One structural problem I have is the first half of the novel may be significantly longer than the second half. I don’t quite know what to do about that. And I’ve had at least one Reader suggest that my chapters are too long. While I understand where the person is coming from, they were the only person to complain about the length of the first chapter and Stieg Larsson’s chapters were about the same length — if not longer — than what I showed them.

And, really, shit to do with chapters is something that can be figured out in post-sale, post-production.

I just need to get the story done. And the word count is something I really worry about at the moment. I hope that I can come in at no more than 140,000 words — the length of The Girl on The Train — but I fear it will be closer to 160,000 words, which would be about the length of a Larsson novel.

My heroine looks like Nathalie Emmanuel as I write her.

But, in general, I’m very pleased with what I’ve come up with. One concern is how much sexxy time there is in the first act, so I’ve decided to embrace the issue by suggesting my heroine is a sex addict. So, rather than, being coy about that particular element of the story, I hope readers will simply accept — “Oh, ok, I should accept a lot of sex in this novel.”

The whole second half of this novel is in a great deal of flux. Especially in regards to the third act — I have only the vaguest idea of what is going to happen.

But, in general, things are moving a lot faster than they have been. I have to admit that I’m kind of embarrassed by how fucking long it’s taken me to get to this point. But, I’ve been doing all of this in a vacuum and that slowed me down a great deal.

I Suspect Hollywood Will Love The ‘Part-Time Sex Worker’ Element of This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Whenever I get a little nervous about having my heroine be a part-time sex worker — stripper — I remind myself how freaky most Hollywood actresses are. And, what’s more, I don’t even really have anything all that bad happen to my heroine compared to, say, what Stieg Larsson puts Lisbeth Salander through….Jesus Christ.

So, I think that while a certain portion of the reading public will be turned off by this particular element of my heroine’s character, the people who might actually one day adapt it into a movie — if it ever became that popular, natch — will really dig it.

Having her occasionally strip to relax adds a lot of complexity to her character and evokes an emotional reaction of some sort, which is what all good storytelling does. I am well aware of how some people will want to throw the book across the room the moment they realize that it’s a smelly CIS white male writing from a female POV instead of an undocumented trans woman, but, lulz, slings and arrows and all that.

It will be interesting to see what happens, regardless.