Be The Power
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The idea the the lights will go out because of the looming snow storm that is approaching my home looms large in my mind. I have a little bit of food to tied me over that I don’t have to cook.
It shouldn’t be more than just a few days if the lights go out. But it’s going to be a pain, nonetheless.
Anyway, I still need to work on my novel and it’s also a pain that I could be potentially knocked offline in that regard for a few days as well. Sigh
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Things are just…too surreal…of late. To the point that I start to wonder, “how do we know the past exists?” Is it possible that we live in a massive simulation and the people “playing” the simulation have decided to fuck with us more than they already do.
If we lived in a simulation, it would explain the seemingly random mass shootings that America has. It would explain the “impossible” galaxies that the James Web Space Telescope discovered right after the Big Bang.
It would explain a lot of things, at least in my opinion.
Though, to be fair, if I can’t zoom around like Neo from The Matrix movies…meh. Knowing I was in a simulation wouldn’t change anything for me. It would dramatically change the context of my life, but other than that, nope.
Although it might make me wonder what happens after death. Do we “wake up” in to the real world, or is our “data” just deleted from the game? I just wish someone would help me understand why everything suddenly seems so fucked up of late.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
All the big, strategic moves I’ve done over the years with my efforts to develop, write and finish a novel have happened very suddenly abruptly without much thought. I decided to split one novel into two just because Trump lost the election in 2020.
That makes me feel sad because it reminds me of how long I’ve been struggling to write any sort of novel that’s good enough to query.
Anyway, I keep being in the doldrums with this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on because…it’s just kind of dark. The premise is solid, but I’m afraid no one is going to want to read it because of how dark the premise is — and the fact that it deals with an ostensibly very transactional romantic relationship.
And, yet, I’m just not prepared to scrap it. I keep thinking about other less weighty novel ideas…and I just can’t bring myself to piviot to them. The key issue is, lulz, I just don’t have time anymore to do such a thing.
This is the novel I’m stuck with, so I have to just do it.
I hope to get out of this neutral state pretty soon so I can enter the “bad guys closing in” part of the novel. This is probably going to be something of a slog because it’s not as written out as the rest of the novel.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, about 20 years ago now, I started ROKon Magazine. It is the greatest story never told, in my opinion. Anyway, if I was an expat in Seoul now, I would start a podcast.
What I would do is, we would have a regular podcast — maybe once a week — and then as part of that podcast, we would have a regularly updated Website that would have content that would otherwise be in a magazine.
There would be a symbiotic relationship between the podcast and the Website.
Too bad the only way I’m ever going back to Korea it looks like at this point is if North Korea collapses and there’s a dire need for English teachers there. Otherwise, I will be 80 years old before I can return (unless I somehow finish and sell this novel I’m working on.)
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
There are a number of reasons why, over and above the actual quality of my writing in the scifi dramedy I’m writing, that I won’t — ever — get traditionally published.
Tied for first place, I think, are me being a big old fucking kook that no one takes seriously or listens to and my age. I think both of those to metrics are going to be really tough to overcome.
I could write the fucking Bible, but I’m just too fucking old. I suspect publishers want a spry 30 year old, not some glum 50something. And, let’s not forget what a fucking weirdo most people think I am.
And it’s not like I can hide what a kook I am. Any liberal white woman literary agent that snoops as part of due diligence on me will soon realize I’m not only old, but I’m a loudmouth crank.
But I’m not going to get discouraged. While they’re life, there’s hope. And, as such, I am going to keep going, no matter what. Though, sometimes, I really do think I’m more likely to find a career in some post-Singularity world helping our ASI overlords than I am going to get published traditionally.
And, yet, we’ll see, won’t we?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This is just about the nadir of winter because it’s not Christmas Eve, but it also is when you can feel the world grind to a halt. The next week or so is just going to be a bunch of static I suspect.
Unless something big and unexpected happens.
I tried to play the lottery in hopes of a Christmas miracle, but the damn machine simply could not, world not work. So, I think I’ve wasted enough money on that particular fantastical dream.
I rarely play the lottery, but when it gets up there, I grow weak and actually dabble in that particular “sin.”
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m breezing through the transformation of the first draft of the scifi dramedy novel into the second draft. At least at the moment. That’s because I’m able to reuse a lot of text that I generated in the first half of the novel.
Things are going to get much, much more difficult when I reach the second half of the novel because I just was more interested in stress-testing the outline that actually worrying about making sure scenes were long enough.
So, I’m going to have go through and really work to make the scenes of the second half proper length and that is going to slow me down some. But, and this is a huge but, I think I’m still on track — maybe — to query this novel in spring 2026.
Maybe.
If that is the case, then I have to start thinking about post-production stuff like querying, getting and agent and…a lawyer? I am totally broke, so unless I can figure out a way to get someone I’m related to do spot me for the costs of a lawyer to look over a book contract…oh boy.
And, yet, on a psychological basis, this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with a novel so far. I really think I may wrap this baby up sooner rather than later.
Hopefully. Maybe.
But I continue to worry about my bonkers social media output being enough to either make “serious” liberal white women literary agents run away in dismay when they do due diligence on me.
I can’t help who I am, so, lulz?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
It has been a very long time since I was in South Korea. And, in all honesty, I don’t really think about it that much. At least, until, of course, I see someone from South Korea did something like search my name on LinkedIn.
Then I start to remember all that fun (and bullshit.)
Going to South Korea really, really, really changed my life for both the better and the worse. There is definitely a before South Korea me and an after South Korea me. You can even see it in the photos of me taken before, during and after that time in my life.
Anyway.
The way it’s going, I’m going to be in my 60s or 70s — if even then — before I ever get out of the country, much less back to South Korea. I sometimes muse that if North Korea ever collapsed the country would be so desperate for English teachers that even a bad English teacher (at least for little kids) could get job there.
But I probably shouldn’t worry about such things. I have to accept that barring something REALLY unexpected, that I’m never, ever going back to South Korea. It was a long time ago and nobody cares anymore.
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
Ugh. I’m bumping up against 50 scenes for the “bad guys closing in” part of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The only upside to things is that I have some wiggle room still about how long the individual scenes will be.
So, even though I have about 50 scenes for the second half of the second act, that doesn’t mean they will each be 1,000 words. But I’m definitely going to go through and make them longer when I go through the pre-beta draft of the novel before I give it to Beta Readers.
Anyway.
I am really pleased, in general, with what I have on my hands with this novel. I just really need to focus on getting shit done. I still want to try — TRY — to begin querying this novel in late spring 2026.
But it will be interesting to see how that works out. My life is set to change rather dramatically between now and then so…lulz?
by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
This is the autumn of our discontent.
I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a turbulent moment in my life. I’m going to be go through some personal…transitions….I think. Definitely by around the time I want to query this novel I’m working on, things will probably have changed a great deal in my life.
And probably not for the better.
But, lulz, at least I’m alive. That should account for something. Now that I’ve got this fucking tooth out of my noggin, I really find myself reflecting on how fucking old I am.
I have GOT to do something of note for my third act. I really think this novel is it. At least, that’s what I’m pinning on it. The only fear I have is my life will get so…complicated just as I want to query that, I don’t know, I won’t be able to query for a few months, or at all.
Ugh.
I think even with the added complications, that I can probably query no later than fall 2026. I really do, however, need to get off my butt and write this damn novel. It’s really good!
Though, of course, you have to take that statement in the context of what my native writing ability may be. By the time I wrap up going through and making sure the novel is told in my voice, it may suck.
(I worry that AI is a lot better writer than I am.)
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