Tag: Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After about three years of struggle, I have finally figured out not only what the story I want to tell is, but how to tell it. I’m extremely embarrassed by how long it’s taken me.

If I wasn’t totally alone, a wife or girlfriend probably would have pointed out how I’m solving a long-term problem with this story about two years ago. Or, she would have maybe told me what was obvious to everyone but me — the story was just too big. While she might have said it was “too ambitious” which would have made me angry, what would have been true was I had a lot of great set pieces, but too much time covered.

Anyway. Problem fixed now.

I still have a huge amount of reading to do. But the “snap!” I heard in my mind when I figured out how to tell this story was so loud, I’m still adjusting to how pleased I am. It’s like I realize that I finally, at last, have the credits to graduate from grad school.

A lot — A LOT — could still go wrong. But the specific reason for this creative journey is now within sight. I am going to finish a novel.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just in the last few days I’ve had a massive “Ah-ha!” moment. It’s so massive that I’m still sort of processing the implications of it all.

I feel like how Dan Ackroyd’s original Blues Brother script was, like, 300 pages and he used just the best bits for the produced movie. This, in a sense, has happened to me.

I now know how to tell this story.

It’s going to have a lot of really cool gadgets that put James Bond to shame. It’s going to have strong, complex female characters with flaws who are believable. I have a huge amount of reading to do to get that last bit done, however.

But, in general, I have a profound sense of relief.

I’m actually going finish a novel. It’s taken me three years, but if nothing else, I’m going to actually finish the first draft of a novel that doesn’t embarrassment me pretty soon.

I say this knowing that a civil war could erupt at any moment and all my plans will be thrown up in the air, to say the least.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everything was going great with the novel until I had one of those occasional hard crashes where on a structural level everything stop making sense and the whole thing collapsed in on itself.

Add to that a hacking problem I’ve been having in which my cyber assailant has been interested in my development of the novel that I’ve produced over the last two years or so and I’ve been left rattled.

And, yet, I managed over the course of a few hours figure out the problem and am now ready to start work again. Though, I have to admit that I’m probably going to do a really, really hard reboot and write without re-using much, if anything, I’ve already written.

I need to clear my head some before I do that, though. I’m really taking this novel seriously — even more so than before — but I just can’t keep writing and re-writing forever. At some point, I have to realize the first draft just isn’t going to be perfect.

I have to allow myself to write crap, to fail when it comes to totally writing my vision for the novel.

You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.

But now that I’m beginning to warm back up to develop and write, I think I can still wrap up much of the first draft by about the same time I planned to before.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be clear — I have no idea what I’m doing. But I am beginning to read more and I have done enough graze-reading about how to write a novel that I feel as though I’m slowly beginning to get some sense of how to do it.

Generally, things are going well.

A few issues still exist. One of them is length. I see a “real” novel being closer to 160,000 words, but as I keep reading, the sweetspot is 80,000 – to 100,000. I’ve changed the structure of the novel around some, so it’s possible I’ll get closer to 100,000 with a lot less pain than I originally expected.

I’d like to have a first draft in the 120,000 – 140,000 range because Gone Girl and The Girl on The Train are both in that range, as I understand it. But, obviously, I’m just a boy with a dream at this point.

I honestly just want to finish a novel and say I’ve accomplished that. The fact that there are at least three more books in the series (one sequel and two prequels) is cool, yes, but I need to hurry up and finish just one.

I’m still very interested in writing a screenplay and attempting to seriously write song lyrics. But I need to give this novel 110% of my creative ability for it to be a success, so those other interests are going to be put aside for the time being.

I currently have six solid chapters sketched out. It fits within my current timetable to use the rest of the week to make those chapters readable. As such, I at least hope to spend much of this week reading.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

They say Shakespeare wrote King Lear while under quarantine. I’m in quarantine right now only because I’m waiting for my test results. So, I have a few days on lockdown and, as such, a lot more extra time to knock out some copy.

I have a unique work ethic, so it could be I just stare out into space for most of this time then stay up all night right before I find out if had COVID or not. I’m starting to think I just had a really specific cold or or something. For me to be knocked out for a sold 24 hours and then it pass seems a little bit too lucky to be true.

Anyway.

A lot of different aspects of this story are falling into place at the same time. I still have a massive amount of reading to do. Most of that reading is so I can flesh out some of the more interesting parts of some of the characters.

But it’s work that has to be done sooner or later.

It is interesting that I’m throwing some of the more sci-fi elements of this story into the plot far sooner than I thought I would. I will note that the second book in this 2-book story is going to be very, very female James Bond only with far, far cooler and well thought-out gadgets.

The hope is, once I get past the “first part” of this novel, that the rest of the story will zoom by because I will have established what is “real.” I can’t believe I kept revising this goddamn story as much as I have.

But they say all novels aren’t finished but abandoned, so there’s that.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Tomorrow, Dec. 1st, I’m going to gird my creative loins and throw myself once more into the breach. Everything fell apart last night with the beginning of the outline and I realized the only way to fix things was to do some serious re-imagining of individual scenes.

And so, from Dec. 1st until just past my birthday, I’m going to be really aware of self-imposed time constraints.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that things are beginning to get locked down, I have mapped out how, exactly, I’m going to finish the roughly 32 chapters of this novel by my birthday.

The hope is that if I have a specific chronology that my native need for deadlines will kick in and I’ll actually finish some sort of first draft far sooner than if I didn’t really have any idea of how things were going to specifically work out.

I honestly don’t know how much of that is just yet another Lucy-with-the-football and how much is real. But I hope — hope — that if I’m actually looking at the calendar as I write that I can wrap up my first draft far, far sooner than I might otherwise.

We’ll see.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While people have repeatedly attempted to peg me as someone with an “addictive” personality, in reality I have an OBSESSIVE personality. And, as such, I am completely consumed by this novel.

It’s all I think about.

Morning, noon and night, I obsess over every aspect of the novel from structure, to theme to character development to you name it. It’s all I think about. And now, after two years, my obsession is finally beginning to bear fruit. It appears as though within a few days I will lock down “Part One” of the novel and head into the actual story itself.

Part One is pretty much everything from the beginning of the novel to the inciting incident, though a lot goes in these pages as well. It’s not like people are just staring at each other on a smoke break. But anyway. I still hope to wrap the first draft up by my birthday.

In fact, if the first draft is as good as I hope it is, I can show it to people the way I might show a second draft. I might be able to skip a step in that regard. Again, this novel was born out of my absolute, white hot rage at the Trump Administration.

It will be interesting to see what the context of all of that will be once Trump is actually out of office. Hopefully that happens peacefully and we don’t, like, have a fucking civil war. The novel I’m developing and — finally — writing is really, really good.

I look at the outline and then the first three chapters and I’m shocked that at what I’ve managed to pull off. I feel bad that it’s taken me two years to get this point, but at least I’m here.