Tag: Big Ideas

You Have To Give JK Rowling Credit For Sticking To Her Guns

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

If ever there was an instance of someone who will not, can not take a hint, it’s JK Rowling. Sometimes saying nothing is far better than saying anything and Rowling continues to muck about in the very, very touchy subject of trans-rights as is shown below with this statement.

I’m impressed that despite the total freak out by the vast majority of people who read her books, she continues to stick to her guns on this subject. I, myself, struggle with trans rights because it’s so an effective wedge issue for fucking MAGA Nazis to use.

We must protect Ethel Cain at all costs.

Just within my own family, sometimes all my far more conservative relatives — whom I love dearly — want to talk about is some of the more exotic scenarios involving trans people. It definitely seems to me that too often the “woke cancel culture mob” is so blinded by their desire to make trans people some sort of “protected class” that they miss the bigger problem — MAGA Nazis use trans rights as a way to push people who should know better into the arms of tyranny.

I’m all for trans rights because I know that they are the political canary in the coalmine — if they end up in some Trump branded concentration camp, I will be right there with them because I’m a loud mouth crank who won’t shut up about what a fucking piece of shit Trump is.

I still believe that most of the controversy about trans people comes more from the Right trolling the Left because of how touchy the subject is to them than any real anger on the average American.

Every Writer’s Journey Is Unique

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I often find the online “writing community” very tiresome. It seems full of people who are more concerned with preening than actually writing. And, all things being equal, I would go dark online while I work on this third draft of my first novel.

But I’m an extrovert.

As such, I just can’t help myself. And, sometimes, I need an outlet to let off steam, so I participate in the online writing community even though it often aggravates me.

I can’t help but notice how so many other writers have a totally different relationship to the craft than I do. I love to write and it comes really easy to me — most of the time. I will admit that I can be extremely moody at times and just don’t feel like writing.

I generally have to believe in what I’m writing and, as such, sometimes I just need to stare out into space for a little bit before I know what my next move is. Because I know I can write really fast and don’t want to waste a lot of time with copy that I will later abandon, I spend a lot of time thinking through what I’m going to write.

Now, obviously, I don’t have a MFA or anything and generally no one cares about me or my novel and I do it all in a vacuum…but I do think I have come up with a compelling story that some literary agent at some point between now and early 2025 might like enough to give me a chance.

‘R.I.P. Hollywood’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of pure human greed, I do believe that there is a real risk that Hollywood as we know it may be about to be totally disrupted by generative AI. A lot of people seem blinded to the potential capability of generative AI while at the same time being so blinded by their love of human Hollywood that they miss how severe the disruption is about to be.

I can’t predict the future, so I don’t know for sure, but I do think that at some point in the future the very idea of a “movie” will change to the point that rather than one version of a movie that everyone watches, there may be millions of slightly different movies generated by AI.

Throw in the rise of VR and there’s a chance that we’ll all “play” our movies like video games in immersive environments.

I continue to believe that the key issue is how fast all of this is going to happen. It could boil down to just one severe recession. And I think there will be a lot of calls for carve outs to protect human jobs.

What’s more, in the end, the live experience will gain a huge amount of cultural value to the point that there will be a huge surge of interest in sports, live theatre and music concerts. There is even a chance that instead of going to Hollywood, young starlets will try to make it big on Broadway.

The First AI Generated Movie Might Be…A Historical Drama?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Given the generative nature of AI these days, it would make a lot of sense if the first AI generated movie was a historical drama. All you would have to do is feed a bunch of photos from the 1860s into the AI and ta-da, you could bring those photos to life in the context of a movie.

At least, that’s what I would do.

I could totally see such an AI-generated drama being the Toy Story of the post-human Hollywood age. And the more modern the timeframe you wanted to depict, the more accurate you could make your movie.

I continue to believe that anyone who doesn’t think Hollywood is about to be disrupted in a severe, significant manner is a fool. It definitely seems as though it’s just a matter of time at the moment. The Toy Story of generative AI is going to come out soon enough and change everything.

Remember, I believe that soon enough the whole notion of movies will change because we will each get a personalized version of a movie generated by an our personal digital assistant who knows our every quirk really, really well.

The Radicalization Of Traditionalists Is Quite Alarming

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the many signs that the bolts are popping off the United States as we careen towards the 2024 presidential election is the clear radicalization of the otherwise principled Traditionalists in my life. Traditionalists are the backbone of any stable democracy and the idea that they would go full MAGA because of “vibes” is very disturbing.

What I mean by “vibes” is the fact that a lot of Traditionalists don’t have a problem with gay people or abortion, but they feel these things should be done in private and with shame attached. In other words, they just don’t want to have to think about it or talk about it. They know being gay or having an abortion exists, but they see them as a “personal problem” that should be treated as personal disaster.

That’s why Traditionalists in principle are against being gay or having an abortion but they would be cool with it if someone in their family turned out to be gay or if they had to have an abortion. Now, I think this means they’re big ol hypocrites, but lulz, America may have a civil war soon because of these “vibe” issues.

The Traditionalist in my family — who I love dearly — have grown so radicalized that their ONLY red line when it comes to MAGA and Trump is the personal. At the moment, they are willing to give up their American birthright of democracy willfully and with a bit of glee if it means abortion is illegal and trans people magically vanish from any form of public discourse.

When I bring up the idea that Trump may go full tyrant on us if he’s re-elected, they dismiss the idea that such a thing is possible because he was all talk the first time, so it makes sense to them that he would be all talk the second go around. And the, in general, support Trump rounding up undocumented people and putting them in camps….even as they just give you a blank stare when you try to tell them the nitty-gritty of such a plan.

“I just want to be left alone,” is their mantra to the point that they don’t give you a yes-or-no answer when you ask them if they would support a National Divorce should Trump lose the 2024 election.

All of this is very personal to me because I *do* think Trump will go full tyrant if he’s re-elected and, as such, there’s every reason to believe that if Trump builds out the infrastructure round up undocumented people he might throw loud mouth cranks like me into the mix as well.

Then and ONLY THEN, will principled Traditionalists take notice. When I get snatched off the street because I won’t stop calling Trump a fucking cocksucker no matter what, THEN they will begin to have second thoughts about their support of Tyrant Trump.

If that is in fact the case, the specter of Trump potentially being deposed in some way begins to become a viable scenario. Talk about bonkers! But, wait, it gets worse — if Trump is deposed in some sort of Blue Glorious Revolution, then, of course, Red States would probably leave the Union in protest.

Ugh.

The Kindness of Strangers

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I continue to zoom through the third draft of this novel, I also have to manage my expectations. It is clear from my efforts to get my usual Readers to look at the first three chapters of my novel that, lulz, most of them don’t care. So, I have to focus on doing this out of spite towards the haters who I feel think I suck and can’t pull a novel off.

I have a huge chip on my shoulder about my writing and storytelling ability and, as such, that is enough power me white hot desire to wrap up this novel as soon as possible so I can start to query. The whole querying process is going to be rather jarring because of how much rejection and failure I’m bound to face.

And, in general, I have no idea how to query properly.

But I’ve gotten this far, there’s no reason to worry about shit now. It’s time to focus on the goal of finishing the third draft of the novel and then seeing if I can find a manuscript consultant I can afford.

Bar fly makes good…hopefully.

One issue that I continue to dwell on is how this novel isn’t a traditional murder mystery anymore. It’s more about the power struggle associated with one woman’s desire to own a small town newspaper. That she happens to be a strip club owner who strips a little bit herself — hopefully — will add enough of an edge to the story that people will be intrigued.

It’s just ironic that the people who know me — and know how long I’ve been working on this fucking thing — just don’t give a shit. So, it’s going to be rather ironic if the people who give me a chance are people who don’t know me. Typical.

I’m Unnerved By This Bird Flu Thing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m of an age where I have the wisdom to know if there was another pandemic that there are no assurances I would make it out alive. As such, I am low-key unnerved by the growing reports of Bird Flu being found on farms across the country.

For the time being, I think this is a nothingburger. But just the idea of another pandemic — during an election year again! — is enough to give one pause for thought.

The key thing is the politics of it all. Things would have to get really, really, REALLY bad before we would do the the most basic of mitigation efforts. The politics just aren’t there for us to do anything like we did with Covid. A shocking number of people would have to start dying on a daily basis before we could come to some consensus as to what to do.

The whole thing would be a massive clusterfuck because too many conservatives are STILL angry about what happened with Covid and they would balk at first if it seemed we were about to have another pandemic. It would only be after a severe number of people were dead that they might come around.

Anyway. For the time being, I don’t think we have anything to worry about.

Managing Expectations

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I feel reasonably confident that I will wrap up the third draft of my first novel in a few months, I have to begin to grapple with expectations. Things are going so well that it is easy for me to fall into the delusion that people will actually, like, give a shit.

I hope to write a heroine as interesting as Lisbeth Salander.

I was wasted this afternoon after some quite enjoyable day drinking — only beer for once — and I sent the first three chapters of the novel a number of people who have helped me out in the past. This time I was met with a whole bunch of silence other than one or two people.

This is a heads up that ultimately, the success of this novel will hinge on the kindness of strangers — people who actually know me seem rather blasé about the novel and don’t really care. I would post the first three chapters of the novel here, but, lulz, what do I think is going to happen — someone actually give me any input?

It’s just not worth it. Though I will note that someone in Europe continues to appear in my Webstats who seems very interested in the first three scenes of the novel I posted some time ago. Things have improved a great deal with the novel since I posted though scenes, however.

So I’m going to have to adjusted my perception of things some. I continue to do all this in a vacuum so I really have no idea how good the novel is other than just what my gut tells me. I’m a storytelling snob, but even with that taken into consideration, I’m not perfect and it would help so much if I had a Reader or two who could give me consistent constructive criticism.

Anyway. It will definitely be interesting to see what the endgame of all this hard work on my part is.

Is My Novel Too Spicy?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that I’m racing through the second act of the third draft of my first novel I find myself mulling some Big Issues. One is the idea that this novel may be a bit too spicy. My fear is that I am using sex scenes as a crutch. And, yet, I once saw a quip from someone where they said characters in novels have much, much more sex than people in the real world.

So, I don’t know.

Having said that, I do really think this is a pretty damn good novel, all things considered.

Another issue that I worry about is the fact that I’m a smelly CIS white male who writes about a same-sex relationship between two women. Now, obviously, the late Stieg Larsson did the same thing with the novels he wrote before his death.

But things have changed over the last 20 years and there is a real concern that, by definition, there is a real chance that no matter how good I am with writing the novel that should I sell the novel that a whole slew of earnest young women will produce Tik-Tok after Tik-Tok complaining that I wrote what I wrote.

As I keep saying, I just find women far more interesting to write than than men. Writing female characters is such a challenge that the struggle to present women in a believable way as a male author is something I really like.

Video: Idle Rambling About The State Of The Third Draft Of My First Novel