Tag: novel

Working My Way Through The ‘Bad Guys Closing In’ Part Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been feeling a bit “meh” of late and only writing on this scifi dramedy novel in dribs and drabs when the mood hits me. I’ve really, really been obsessing over the “Impossible Scenario.” But I know what I’m doing — I just don’t really want to work on the novel at the moment for some reason, so I use all my extra mental energy on the Impossible Scenario instead.

The Impossible Scenario really would be the single best strategy game ever. It would make a $1 billion in sales it’s so interesting, once you fully understand the coset and how complex it is.

But I think — I think — that I’m slowly getting out of my writing doldrums. I think once some really annoying things get out of the way in the next few days that I will get back down to business.

The novel itself continues to be really good. Of course, you have to take that statement in context — the audience may think my writing sucks, no matter how much I lean into LLMs for development.

I’m now bouncing back and forth between Gemini 3.0, Claude Sonnet 4.5 and ChatGPT 5.1. I’m feeling pretty good, all things considered. I just don’t quite know why I just want to daydream all day instead of getting any work done on the novel.

But, as I said, I’m hoping that will change soon. I’m just a little…distracted…because real life keeping getting in the way.

What’s more, once I’m done with this version of the novel, I’m going to go through and rework some of it so it doesn’t suffer from “AI speak.” Some of the scenes are also kind of short and so I hope to imbue them with my own voice more when I expand them.

That’s the goal, at least. I really don’t want people to roll their eyes and simply assume AI wrote the novel. It did not. I’ve put a lot of work into this thing. I’m really proud of it, in fact.

But I definitely want it to be as written by me, not AI. And I want that to show in the final product.

Nervous About The Backend of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. I just don’t do basic things when it comes to the backend of this novel that some novelist do even before they start writing. For instance, I don’t do character studies. I don’t like map out all this stuff that never appears in the novel.

So, I sometimes get a little insecure.

And, yet, there’s no revealed truth as to how to write a novel. And I’m kind of discovering the characters as I actually write the novel, so…lulz? I think maybe once I’m done this draft of the novel that I will try to do some back stories and all that so I can go through and tweak characterizations.

That’s one possibility, at least.

But as I grow more serious about querying at some point, I do find myself worried that I’m going to make a fool out of myself.

At The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I finally reached the midpoint of this latest draft of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The novel is shaping up to be pretty good, if I do say so myself. Of course, it could be that my native writing ability sucks and so, lulz.

I’m imagining my female replicant-like android that is the female romantic lead of this novel looking like Rachel Sennott as I write things out.

And I’m finding it really difficult to find anyone — ANYONE — willing to even just take a look at any part of the thing. So, I continue to just do everything in a vacuum, for the most part.

I just don’t know how good any of it is.

And my fear is that I really get excited about wrapping up this novel and everything will come crashing down when it is clear that yet again I’ve come up with a novel that’s not good enough to query.

But I think that’s just part of the process. I’m just going to have to risk that happening.

I’m Doing Everything In My Power To Make This Scifi Dramedy My Own Work, Despite Using AI

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m using AI a lot when it comes to the development of this novel I’m working on. And I will admit that I sometimes get lazy and just use what AI generates when it comes to copy.

But, I am so annoyed at the prospect of people assuming that AI wrote everything if they know that, that I am going to go through and make a deep pass on the text once I’m done. I’m going to use that pass to make sure the novel is in my voice as much as possible.

Now, obviously, this isn’t going to placate some people who hate AI. They will think that, by definition, just using AI at all is anathema to the “true” writing of a novel. But I compare what I’m doing to using a spell checker 30 years ago. I’m horrible at spelling and AI is just like using a spell checker back in the day.

There will come a point in the near future when people won’t be so touchy about AI usage for things like novel development. I hope.

Just About To Reach The Midpoint Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One issue is I just don’t know what draft I’m working on with this novel. I think this is a beta-ish version, but it might be a first draft. But I think if I just don’t overthink things, this can be a beta draft that I just do a lot of work to on a technical basis before I show to other people.

Really, the only issue so far is sometimes I’ve gotten impatient and leaned into what AI has generated a little bit too much. That’s the thing I have to fix before I show it to anyone else.

I have to go in and rewrite all the “AI-talk” out of the text so people won’t just roll their eyes and assume that any of the good parts that exist AI wrote. Just doing that could take me a month or more of hard work to fix all the instances of em dashes and so forth.

But, in general, I really have written most of this novel myself. I’ve just used AI — specifically Claude LLM — to guide me towards what I probably would have written already.

One thing I’m a little bit uneasy about is how saucy this novel gets at points because of the whole sex worker element to it. That was a big obstacle to getting anyone to take seriously my previous novelistic efforts.

But, thankfully, the whole stripping part of this novel happens way, way, way later in the game in this novel than the other thriller novel I was working on.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel Is Shaping Up To Be No More Than 160,000 Words

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve calculated in my mind the rough number of scenes in total I have with this novel and general expected scene length. I think, at worst, I’m looking at 160,000 words, which is roughly what The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was.

So, it’s not impossible for a first-time novelist to sell a novel of that length. Even an “older” one like me. And this novel is scifi and scifi people tend to tolerate longer novels.

There remain some pretty big issues, like how I comp this novel to screenplays and not other novels. But, lulz, I just want this novel to be good enough that someone — preferably that I’m not related to — will read it all the way through and give me some sort of opinion of it.

It doesn’t even have to be a good opinion, just anything other than being ghosted. That seems to happen all the time. I think that means my writing in the past has just, well, sucked.

Anyway. Wish me luck, I guess. I am going to try to throw myself into this novel in the coming days so I can wrap it up ASAP.

I’ve Reached A Milestone, Of Sorts, With This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With a great deal of assistance from Claude LLM, I’ve stabilized the entire outline of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The outline is a little bit longer than I’d prefer, but I’m fairly content with what I’ve come up with.

Now, of course, comes the difficult part of going through and writing out the rest of the novel. Right now, I’m approaching the midpoint. I have to admit, that I have only really glanced at what Claude LLM has come up with for the rest of the outline, so there may still be structural issues that I don’t know about.

But I am definitely on the right path. I’m definitely headed towards wrapping this novel up in early 2026, potentially such that I can turn around and query it in spring 2026.

I just don’t know. So much could go wrong. And it could be, in the end, that my native writing….just sucks. But this whole thing is existential. I kind of feel this is my last shot. If I don’t write something queryable by spring 2026 then I’m just going to be an old failure.

Absolutely No One Believes In This Novel, But Me

by Shelt Garner
@Sheltgarner

This happened before, with the other novel I was working on — it is very clear that absolutely no one believes in it but me. I continue to be rather embarrassed about how long it’s taken me to get to this point with this novel.

But things are moving a lot faster because of AI.

Not as fast as I would prefer, but faster than they were for years. Oh, to have had a wife or a girlfriend to be a “reader” during all the time I worked on the thriller homage to Stieg Larsson. But, alas, I just didn’t have that, so I spun my creative wheels for ages and ages.

And, now, here I am.

I have a brief remaining window of opportunity to get this novel done before my life will probably change in a rather fundimental way and the entire context of me working on this novel will be different.

Anyway, I really need to wrap this novel up. If I don’t I’m going to keep drifting towards my goal and wake up to being 80 and still not have a queryable novel to my name.

I’ve Really Been Struggling With The ‘Fun & Games’ Part Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s times like these when I really wish I was 25 years younger and I was actively writing half a dozen spec scripts all at once in LA. But that’s just not to be. I really sometimes think this whole endeavor is extremely delusional given how old I am, where I live, and the fact that I’m a loudmouth crank.

And, yet, developing and writing this scifi dramedy novel is existential. I really have nothing else to do with my life and I really want to at least see how far I can get in the querying process.

I wish I had a wife or a girlfriend to be my “reader.” I probably would definitely have gotten to this point in the process a lot — A LOT — quicker. But here I am, just struggling with the fun and games part of this novel, all alone.

I’m pretty sure — hopefully — that I’ve figured out all the various structural issues of this novel, at least this part of it. I sent the first act outline to someone in hopes of at least getting some sense of how good it is, but now all I worry about is they’re either going to steal my idea and maybe write a much better novel or screenplay from what that first act or they’re just going to say it sucks.

Anyway. I’ m moving forward with this novel. I just need to stop daydreaming so much about the Impossible Scenario. I have just a few months before my entire life is going to change because of fucking Trump and so I really need to get this thing at a querying level of quality by Spring 2026.

Break On Through

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I had to cut some corners with a few scenes simply to keep momentum going. I felt like I was spinning my wheels so I just decided to screw it and move past some scenes that maybe weren’t perfect.

I decided this because I’m going to have to go through the entire novel anyway once I finish it just to get rid of any “AI-speak” that may have slipped through.

I continue to feel a little insecure about how interesting and unique this novel is. There are so many “man falls in love with a bot” ideas floating around because of the zeitgeist, I really worry that mine will just cause people to roll their eyes and say, “No another one.”

Anyway. I hope to get past the “fun and games” part of the novel sooner rather than later. I can’t just keep going over the same scenes over and over again, never getting any traction. If I don’t buckle down and do something focused I’ll be 80 years old and still two years away from finishing a novel.