Tag: novel

Fixed A Massive Structural Problem With This Novel Project


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Well, I solved a long-running structural problem with this project. I now have a traditional trilogy. What’s more I have the first two books of an additional, more open-ended series ready to be finished once I finish the trilogy. This leaves me feeling pretty good.

Additionally, the focus of all of this is now worked out. The trilogy would be character-based and a lot more Mare of Easttown than Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. The trilogy would focus on a mother’s love, be it for her own child or for that of another (dead) woman. Meanwhile, the first two books in the open ended series would be about revenge, pure and simple and be meant to evoke the same type of vibe that the Millennium series does.

And I’ve managed to sketch out pretty quickly the structure of the now split in two first book. It occurred to me today that because of all of these changes I’ve reached quite and accomplishment — I’ve finished a (proto) first draft of a first novel.

It’s not a real first draft because the structure is all wrong (it’s just the first act and the first half of the second act) but it’s length — about 87,000 words — is a novel. And, you could read it and it would be a coherent — if very bad — novel. So, there you go — accomplishment unlocked.

Now, to sort of chill out.

They tell you to wait a month after you finish your first draft before you start to work on the next draft, but I’m not really going to consider what I’ve “finished” as my first draft, so while I’m going to chill out — because of my fucking broken ankle — I’m only going to do it so much.

Any pause I do for the next few weeks will be more about doing a lot of reading and development that I should have done years ago. I need to psych myself up for really throwing myself back into this project come come January 1st. Things could change a bit for various reasons, but I’m stoked.

While I’m still extremely delusional — and have to continue to be for some time — all the pieces are there for me to write a trilogy just like Stieg Larsson, while having two additional books in the wings which are a more direct homage to his work.

Hopefully I can avoid the whole dying of a widow maker heart attack that poor Larsson did.

A Potential Solution To A Conundrum


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ever since I decided to add two books to the four novels I had been working on for years, I faced a problem — suddenly I had a series of four, rather than the traditional trilogy.

But I love all four novels and am willing to fight for them, so there you go.

And, yet, it has occurred to me that now that I better understand the first novel that I may have a fix at hand. Instead of a huge story I have to figure out how to compress, I simply use the first half of the first novel as the first novel. The second half of what is now the first book becomes the second book. The second book becomes the third in the trilogy.

The last two books would be the start of a new Millennium-like series focused around not the Mare of Easttown type heroine of the the three trilogy, but the Lisbeth Salander-type character.

At least, this is now a viable option. It would fix a lot — A LOT — of problems. I would now have two novels that were about 100,000 words and one novel that was a longer to wrap up the series. There was be a lot more consistency of tone with this now trilogy because the three stories would deal with the same general theme.

But all of this is still very much on the bubble. I may just say screw it and keep what I have. I do this all the time. I come up with a great(?) idea then vacillate wildly until I figure out if I’m going to use it or not.

Bouncing Back — A Creative Holiday


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

After yesterday’s dark storms have passed and I’m again feeling good about these four novels. The solution to yesterday’s angst is to recalibrate my estimations about how long this project is going to take. I think I have about two years more ahead of me.

It could be closer to a just a year, but I’m going to assume that given the huge size of this project that two years is definitely a pretty good estimate as to how long all this is going to take.

But this holiday season, I’m going to try to go outside my comfort zone and dabble in things like short stories, reading up on photography and screenwriting. I also hope to read up on some primary text that will help me flesh out some of the personalities of the characters I’m working on. The point of doing this would be to stop making myself feel bad for not meeting the deadline in my own mind about when I was going to finish the first draft of the first book.

All of this makes me think about how Stieg Larsson was able to write three novels at the same time then sell them. Hopefully, I’ll sell my four novels and not take the next step of dropping dead within days of doing so.

Anyway, the point is, I’m back, baby. I’m ready to rock. But I also know that I need to relax and be creative in different ways over the course of the holiday season so when January 1st rolls around, I can throw myself back into these four novels, working smarter, not harder.

Resetting The Development Of These Four Novels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. Today has been a bad day for the novels. It has finally begun to sink in that I’m probably not going to finish the first draft of the first novel by the end of the holidays. It’s just not going to happen.

In fact, today it has hit me how massive developing and writing four novels at the same time is and how I’m going to have to take this all a lot more seriously if I’m going to finish it before I drop dead.

As such, I think I’m going to recalibrate in my mind my expectations. I would guess I have as much as two more years ahead of me the way things are going. And it’s all worth it because, lulz, what else am I going to do? I suppose this is the point where those few people who are paying attention say something like, “Just write a short story.”

These people are idiots and can fuck off.

The reason is — I have a huge ego and I’ve done a very good job of improving my storytelling ability. It’s just I was kind of drifting the last few weeks and I just woke up from a trance of sorts in the sense that I realized that the clock in my head whereby I finish the first novel’s first draft by, say, Christmas was wildly off kilter.

But I’m going to come back strong. I’m going to focus on reading the next few days, I think, then get back to developing and writing. I’ve just been stopped cold for the moment as I contemplate how to work smarter, not harder.

Writing Four Novels At Once Is A Huge Undertaking


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It has begun to sink in — again — how massive writing four novels simultaneously is. But that’s what I wanted about three years ago when I started this process. I was originally going to write what gradually became a massive scifi series. Then I realized there was just too much I didn’t know about real world geopolitics and I pivoted to a story that I knew I wanted to use as a way to talk about how much I fucking hated MAGA.

I hope to come up with a character as compelling as this one.

Well, that has grown into four novels and the connection between my hatred of MAGA and the novels has grown very tenuous. But my hatred of MAGA is being fired up again by how fucking obvious that we really are living in Weimar America.

It’s very easy to imagine how future historians will depict this moment in American political history. America is running on fumes. Everyone is sitting around either oblivious to how obvious it is that Something Bad is going to happen around 2024 – 2025 or complicit to whatever the Bad Thing is. The people who should know better, who should be willing to fight to save democracy — conservative Traditionalists — are all-in with MAGA because of negative polarization and an extensive permission structure.

Anyway, every once in a while, it dawns on me the massive undertaking I’m doing right now. I have to write four novels about three times. Just the writing part takes time because it takes physical time to write unless you’re on, I dunno, crank like Philip K. Dick.

But I do have a broken ankle at the moment, so I have “all the time in the world” to just read, develop and write. Only time will tell if I use this time as wisely as I should. I do have a tendency to just get drunk and pass out. But I have been doing a good job avoiding that of late. I have managed to stay sober enough to be productive.

I love having four novels to work on at the same time because I can always switch things up and still stay in-universe. I find myself wondering what Stieg Larsson’s development process was. But, interestingly, the more self-confidence I get as writer in my own right, the less I find myself dwelling on Larsson.

Though, I do find myself flipping through some of the stuff he wrote just to get a sense of how far I still have to go.

Anyway, wish me luck.

Just About Time To Get Back To Work On These Four Novels


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My regular efforts to distract myself for a few days are just about to come to an end again. I’m in something of a unique position where, because of a bum ankle, all I can do are things I love — writing, developing, reading.

So.

I’m probably going to daydream aggressively for a just a bit longer today then develop until I’m exhausted. Or, I could just get drunk and pass out. There is, as always, a chance it could go either way.

But I’m feeling pretty stoked about these four novels. I’ve begun to aggressively develop the second book and it’s going really well. All of this is happening in a vacuum — I have no one to talk to. Things would be going so much faster if I just had, say, a girlfriend or wife, to talk to about all of this. But there is a chance the opposite would be true and I wouldn’t get any work done at all.

So, lulz?

Anyway, I’m feeling pretty good — other than the broken ankle issue.

Wish me luck.

Am I Too Weird To Sell These Four Novels?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So. I have four novels I’m working on. But there is a real possibility that no matter how well I write them, when the time comes to try to sell them I will fail because of, well, me. I could be too weird.

At least, that’s my fear.

Ugh.

My fear is that I could achieve my dream of writing four solid thrillers that will appeal to Stieg Larsson readers…and the moment the gatekeepers do due diligence on me, they will walk away because they’ll think I’m just too bonkers.

This is a very annoying prospect, to say the least.

But, I think some of what I’m sensing — at least from the manuscript consultants who keep blowing me off — is for the time being I’m all talk. (Even though I’ve written a huge amount.)

It could be that when I have “paper” to show people, that they will be willing to look past what a kook I am for on other reason than my art is pretty cool. At least, that’s what I hope will happen. I have to think like that, otherwise, ugh.

Hollywood, Or Bust –Distracting Myself With Screenwriting


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

But for my broken ankle, I would probably be zoning out at a bar somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard on one my regular “Writer’s Retreats.” But, alas, I’m hobbled for the moment, so I have to make do with what I have.

And what I have is Syd Field’s “Screenplay.”

I have more than that, obviously, but this weekend, I’m trying to study that book so I can get some sense of how to properly structure the screenplay outline I’m half-assed working on as my current creative “second track.” I have a really compelling movie concept that I want to do something with as an method to “distract” myself from the main track of writing four novels.

But the only way I could get to this point was a lot of hard work on those four novels. Now that I know how *I* develop a big, overarching story, I can just reuse what I have discovered and use it in a different way — the different way of outlining a screenplay.

I still don’t know how to use Final Draft, though.

But that’s the second stage in all of this. The first stage is to game out the story as well as possible, then turn around and learn Final Draft.

I’m well aware that I probably need three solid completed screenplays to my name before I think about doing what I want to do — simply fly to LA for a few days and walk around, hoping my natural larger-than-life extrovertedness will “somehow” get me near a producer or something.

This IS EXTREMELY DELUSIONAL.

But it’s also how, as I understand it, Hollywood really works. You do your hard prep work, then hope for the best. It’s all in who you know, not what you know. I’m also well aware that 99% of the people in LA are writing scripts and have exactly the same idea I do.

My mom always told me I was special, though. Wink.

I’ll put a move on you.

Right now, I have a strong scifi movie idea, a strong Wedding Crashers-like movie idea and MAYBE a screenplay based on The Impossible Scenario that I’ve been mulling a lot of late on this site. Maybe. I’m going to have to think some more about that third one. I also have the idea for a movie that I might be able to pitch to Seth Rogen because it deals with a film concept that he, also, is interested in. I just know how to actually pull it off, something he, to date, has not (apparently.)

The only problem with the Wedding Crasher’s style movie I have rolling around in my mind is, well, I’m not THAT funny. But I really like the concept — which I find hilarious — and maybe just by writing it, it could be the basis for a new version I wrote with someone else that was, like, actually as funny as the movie deserves to be.

Anyway, I’m kind of overwhelming myself with creativity, which is how I like it.

The Glory That Is The Name ‘Shiv Roy’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I spend a lot of my time thinking of names. And the idea that a name as great as “Shiv Roy” exists drives me crazy. Shiv Roy has got to be one of the greatest character names because I have no idea about the character and yet I do. Shiv, as in a small knife combined with “Roy” which means “sun” or “king” (I think — rex and roy are very similar).

The character with the perfect name — Shiv Roy.

So, while I have never watched an episode of Succession, “Shiv Roy” is so, so great. It’s so loaded that virtually anything the character does is ironic. If she’s sneaky and does “front stabbing” then she lives up to her name. But if she’s not, then that’s an interesting use of a character with a name like that.

Anyway, just had to get that off my chest. Back to thinking up equally great names to populate four novels.

Everything I Ever Needed To Know I Learned From Falling Out Of A Deer Stand & Breaking My Ankle


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Fuck. Here I am, totally out of commission for as many as four more weeks and all I can do is write, read and develop the four novels I’ve been working on. That last bit of the sentence is great. It’s just it comes a huge fucking cost. I hate that I’m indisposed for such a fucking dumb, freak reason.

Ugh

If you want to know a general “truthful” description of how all of this happened, you’re going to have to wait for the second novel in my four novel series to come out. But, let’s talk about what I’ve learned from this clusterfuck.

I think this marks the end of the my youth. I have all the time in the world to contemplate my life for the next few weeks and get some sense of What Happens Next. I find myself throwing myself even more into these four novels and also beginning to think seriously of writing a screenplay or two. It seems that outlining a screenplay is a lot like outlining a novel — at least for me — and so I can leverage what I’ve learned from developing these four novels to working on screenplays.

And….this doesn’t even begin to address that I’m not fucking getting any younger. I need to accomplish something. I have so much “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro said…and I’ve still managed to do only squat since ROKon Magazine.

I guess the biggest thing breaking my ankle has taught me is a reinforcement of how fragile and short life is. Never let grief — for a fucking magazine of all things — sap you of your ambition.

Keep the faith.