Tag: literary agents

Psyching Myself Up To Query

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m definitely in the “now what” phase of things when it comes to this novel. My ability to count on my beta readers is iffy at best and as such I have to just bite the bullet and start the process of preparing to query — even if it means I haven’t had effective beta testing.

But the whole point of this specific novel is just to see how far I can get. It could be that this is going to be a disaster no matter what because I have no idea what I’m doing.

And, yet, at least I will push the edge of my experience with such things a little bit further than I have before. So, the next novel, which I hope to start soon, I will know a little bit more about what is expected of me when it comes to ultimately querying it.

I continue to worry about what literary agents — many who I assume are liberal white women — will think of my social media output. It could be that they will think I’m too big a kook just in general to even consider being my agent. But I am who I am, so, lulz?

Just thinking about querying puts me on edge because it will be me going from the realm of just being a daydreamer who likes to write to actually slamming into the wall known as “The Real World.” People who are normal. People who maybe will take one look at me as part of due diligence and either laugh or run away at what a fucking weirdo I am.

It’s all very possible.

But, if nothing else, it all gives me something to do I suppose.

Approaching The End Of This Draft Of My Scifi Dramedy WIP

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have about two chapters left before I will wrap up this draft of the novel I’ve been working on for about two years now. I’m confident that it’s good enough — another one last pass for “color correction” to at least query without being laughed at.

I continue to have two lingering worries.

One worry is it’s too spicy. Given that GenZ is so prudish the idea of a man who subscribes to a stripper android so they can be together may be too much for them. Hell, it may be too much for a lot of people. And, yet, I continue to believe in this idea. I believe in it enough to at least test the waters of querying.

The other issue I have is it has taken me some time to figure out how to properly use AI in my workflow and I’m a little nervous that maybe a few instances of “AI slop” have slipped past me. So I’m really self-conscious and paranoid about that and in the “color correction” pass I’m going to rewrite scenes as necessary to get rid of it.

I still don’t know if it’s going to be this fall our this January when I query. I just don’t know yet. I think — maybe — it’s going to be January before I can query simply because it may be more a struggle than I’d like to find beta readers. Or, I could grow bold and say “who needs beta readers?” and just go without them so I can meet my September deadline.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Gaming Out The Next Stages Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’ve Been Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A part of me is growing really nervous about how spicy this novel I’m working on is. There will be some people who dismiss it out of hand once I describe the premise. In fact, it got a chuckle out of someone just a few days ago and that took me aback.

But it was a young woman, so maybe…that’s not as bad as you might think. And that chuckle only made me feel like hunkering down even more to finish this thing. I know there’s an audience for it, somewhere. I know it’s good enough to at least query.

It being sold is a different issue altogether.

Having said all that, here is what I have to do next:

Finish The Novel
This goes without saying. I’m well into the third act of the novel now. I just need to get it over with. I need to focus and stop drifting towards my goal. I’m really growing nervous that some disaster will strike ASAP that will make it a lot more difficult to finish the novel sooner rather than later. So, I need hurry up!

“Color Correct”
This is where I will just go through and change a few names and maybe rewrite a scene here and there just to make sure they either don’t seem like AI wrote them or they suck. I have done everything in my power to prevent this novel from seeming like “AI slop” but I’m paranoid I may have missed a stray paragraph or sentence here or there so part of color correction will be to re-write such things out of existence.

Beta Readers / Read Annie Bot
This is going to be tough. No one likes me and I have no friends — other than the few stalkers who read this blog religiously, apparently (grin) — so, man, is it going to be tough to figure out how to get someone, anyone to spend the time necessary to finish an roughly 100,000 word novel. (I still don’t know how long this novel is, yet. That’s another thing I have to do. I’m guessing it’s between 80,000 and 100,000 words. But I’ll find out soon enough I guess.) I also need to read the “comp” novel Annie Bot. I just don’t wanna. I want to play and daydream, not read a novel that is apparently a feminist screed that comes to dramatically different conclusions about sexbots than I do. But, lulz, I gotta do it!

Query
This is the big issue going forward. I have eyeballed September as when I want begin to querying process….but it’s possible that for no other reason than how difficult it is to find beta readers…I’m either going to have to forgo beta readers altogether (or at least in part) or I’m going to have to punt querying to January. I say this in the context of their apparently being two “seasons” for querying — fall and spring.

I’m About To Wrap Up The Latest Draft Of This Scifi Dramedy WIP I’ve Been Working On…Soonish (Maybe)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because I’m so fucking moody, I won’t say I’ll be done with this novel I’m working on anytime soon. It could be two or three weeks before I finally wrap things up and piviot to the “color correction” part of the process.

“Color correction” in this sense is just rewriting scenes here or there that really need it and also some last minute name changes for characters who had placeholders.

I’m also really paranoid about there being any “AI Slop” lodged here or there in the text itself, so I am going to be really aggressive to finesse things so that’s not there to be read. I really don’t want to do all this hard fucking work only to be told “AI wrote it” and it can’t get published.

I have written this damn novel. I have used AI as an “AI first” novelist, however to develop, etc things. But the copy is mine. I recently saw someone on Tik-Tok essentially call people like me literary traitors for having anything to do with AI at all.

Shrug. I know what I’ve done and I know this is a novel good enough to query. But I have another novel that I will write after this one I’m working on that I think maybe the one I actually sell, for no other reason than it’s not as “spicy” as this novel I’m working on.

Even without the spice, any novel I write will have problems selling because of, well me. I’m a fucking kook. I’m old(er). You name it. Liberal white women will find some reason to “cancel” me before it’s all over with, but it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

I am looking forward to seeing literary agents poking around this website in my Webstats in a few months. That will be both fun and unnerving.

Well, Now. Huh

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I saw on Tik-Tok today some woman who was absolutely clear that AI could not be used in novel development. You could use AI to learn structure, etc, but you couldn’t actually use it to impliment it.

Oh boy.

Don’t quite know what to do about that.

I’m of the opinion that AI is like a spellchecker was 30 years ago. There probably were people who said you can use spellcheck to “help you learn to spell” but when it came to actually writing, you were forbidden from using it.

It’s all too late, for me, even if I wanted to change things. AI is too much a part of my workflow and I’m pretty strict about making sure that what is actually on the page is mine.

It took a while, but I figured out how to use AI in my workflow in such a way that all the text on the page is mine, even if a lot of the backend stuff that readers never see or know about is aided by AI.

Only time will tell if anyone is cool with that.

I Fear My Novel Is Way Too Spicy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I worry that even within the context of my novel being about a sexbot sexworker that it’s too…spicy. That there’s just too much sex depicted. And that that, combined with how old I am and how bonkers I am will make selling this novel traditionally very difficult.

And, yet, it’s a little bit too late at this point to worry about that.

I’m about to wrap up the second act of the latest draft and wade into the third act. Once I do that, I’m going to prepare to work on the NEXT draft, the final second draft, before I let beta readers read the novel.

AND THEN, I’m going to really sit down and think about what my next novel is going to be. What I want to do is go back to working on a homage to Stieg Larsson’s stuff. But there are problems with that idea, at least for the time being.

I would be a male writing occasionally from a female POV. People get confused with switching third person intimate POVs within chapters. The list goes on. So….I don’t know.

I may piviot to another scifi novel once this scifi novel is done. I have two strong candidates. I still have time — unless of course someone swoops in an steals a creative march on me with this novel I’ve been working on.

And I continue to be really uneasy about people assuming “AI wrote it” simply because I’m too poor to get a human editor to help me out in real time. So, meh?

Nearing The End Of The Second Act For The Latest Draft Of This Scifi Dramedy I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m using three different AIs for various elements of this scifi dramedy I’m working on. But the one that helps the most is Claude. I feed it a scene I’ve written and it gives me really good advice.

I’m really doing everything in my power to remove any “AI speak” from the novel. I want this novel to be as human-written as possible. I have to admit that as I go through this latest version of the novel I realize I got lazy last time and told AI to “gently” edit my copy, only to have it dramatically rewrite my vision of things.

But, this time, I’m doing everything in my power to make sure that if it’s on the page, a human — me — wrote it. I definitely get advice from AI, but the actual writing is done by me.

All of this really is slowing me down.

But there’s a chance that once I actually get into the third act things will speed up dramatically. Maybe? I don’t know yet. But I do hope that within one to two months I will start to assemble beta readers then a month or so after that, I will start to querying process.

It’s possible that I’m just too old and I’m wasting my time. It’s possible that, on the other hand, that it will be the NEXT novel that I work on that I will successfully query. This novel, my expectations are pretty low, given how “spicy” it is. I just want to see how far I can get through the querying process.

If I fail, then I dust myself off and try again with a new novel.

I’m Pleased With The State Of The Scifi Dramedy I’m Writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going at a nice little clip with this scifi dramedy I’m writing. I’m hoping that I can write at least three scenes a day. If I did that, that would help a lot to ensure that I can wrap this novel up in time to query around Sept 1st.

I still have not done basic things like read books on querying or read Annie Bot, my novel’s comp novel. But, lulz.

One thing I’m a little nervous about is that despite my best efforts to edit out as much “AI speak” as possible, that somehow, if this novel was put into a AI detection software that it would say that I had used AI to actually write the novel.

While I admit that I’m an “AI First” novelist, I see my use of AI as more like modern, advanced spell checking than an excuse to not actually write the damn novel. I have done so much work!

But everything and everyone is horrible and I’m sure I’ll be fucked one way or another.

I Worry This Scifi Dramedy Is Too Spicy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I don’t know what to tell you, folks. I’m writing about a sexbot and I worry there’s too much…sex…in the novel. And, yet, I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking things, looking things too much through the lens of a movie.

The point is to tell a good story and if I can tell a good story while depicting a lot of spicy content, all the better.

But I’m WELL AWARE that the “woke cancel culture mob” will likely hate this novel for various personal and fictional reasons. I can’t help who I am. And I can’t help that I came up with a pretty good idea for a novel that just happened to lend itself to lots of spicy scenes.

My biggest problem right now is how fucking moody I am when it comes to writing. I spend way too much time daydreaming rather than writing. Though I have to admit that using Claude LLM and Gemini LLM as my manuscript consultants has really helped a lot.

And I know because everything is horrible that any whiff of an idea that I used AI to help write this novel will cause a lot of people to dismiss the whole endeavor as “AI slop.”

It’s not. I swear.

I’ve done all the heavy lifting, with some assistance from AI.

Well, If Nothing Else, This Scifi Dramedy I’m Working On Is…Interesting

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There are some really interesting quirks to this scifi dramedy I’m working on. I’m feeling pretty good, in general, about how this novel is going. To the point that I’m just going to be happy that the novel is finished.

Any success I might have beyond that will be the cherry on top.

This newest version of the novel I’m working on, in particular, is spicy and interesting. I’ve leaned into some of the more surreal possibilities presented by the premise of the novel.

Anyway, I am still on track to wrap this novel up in such a way that I can begin to query it around Sept 1st. But it’s possible I may be forced to punt that into January.

And, what’s more, I have another novel rolling around in my mind that I will probably begin serious development on the moment I wrap up this scifi dramedy. The next novel is going to be a lot more wholesome (to a certain degree.)