Tag: Replicants

I Don’t Wanna (For The Moment)

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.

This Current Draft Of The Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On Is A Real Mish-Mash Of Versions

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While at the moment I’m kind of zooming through the “fun and games” part of the novel I’m working on, it’s probably going to take me a month or two to “color correct” things once I’m done with this draft.

That’s why I’m still thinking Sept 1st will be a more likely moment for me to start seriously querying this thing. That would make a lot of sense — that would be the 20th anniversary of things really getting going with ROKon Magazine in Seoul.

Ugh. So long ago.

Anyway, I’m so fucking moody when it comes to writing that I sometimes just do nothing on the novel for days and then sprint out of the blood for no apparent reason.

I still hope to wrap this novel up ASAP. Then start post-production stuff and probably start developing and writing a new novel to work on while I query. I’m still pretty uneasy about what is going to happen when the woke liberal white women who I imagine make up most of my prospective literary agents do due diligence on me and find this blog.

They probably will recoil and what a kooky crank I am.

But, anyway, it’s better to have loved and lost than never loved at all.

Definitely Looks Like I’m Headed Towards A Sept. 1st Querying Date For This Scifi Dramedy Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As always, I didn’t factor in post-production when it comes to when I’m going to query this novel. This novel, as it stands, is a mish-mash of different versions that I’m going to have to “color correct” before I can give it to any beta readers.

As such, even if I finish this novel around May, it’s actually going to be closer to Sept 1st before I can sit down and start to query. And THAT process could take months, if not years. To the point that I could be nearly 60 before I am published.

Oh boy.

The only thing I can do is piviot to a different novel while I query. But at least, if nothing else, I will have the satisfaction of completed something that I feel is query worthy in the first place.

This does not even take into account the fact that my life is probably going to change in rather dramatic fashion at some point this year. Things are going to get bumpy, so it could be that the context of my life will change…just about the time when I wrap up the novel.

Funny how stuff like that works, huh?

Definitely makes one think about the idea of us living in a simulation. At least to me.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel Is A Little Darker Than I Meant It To Be

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. So, this novel is about a sexbot that, at the inciting incident, presents our hero with a proposal so he can “subscribe” to her. Now, I have only gradually come to realize how dark this particular proposal is.

It was just something I stumble across in the process of thinking about how I, a broke ass writer, might be able to have a replicant-like being in my life at some point in the not too distant future.

My only concern is that the novel is a little too dark for its own good and my hero is going to come across as an asshole for accepting the proposal at all. I can just see the vocal woke cancel culture mob people saying *I* am an asshole for writing the novel at all.

And, yet, the novel isn’t, like Girl With The Dragon Tattoo dark. It’s more One Battle After Another dark. It’s funny enough — or I at least hope and think it is — that some of the darkness will be offset by how surreal and amusing some other elements of the novel are meant to be.

One thing is for sure — there will be no sex work in whatever other, new novel I end up working on going forward. I’m cool to wallow in talking about it with this novel because it gives the novel its point and, best of all, stakes, but I’m growing tired of people thinking my work is trash because I talk about sex work.

The Shifting Tides Of Using AI To Work On This Scifi Dramedy Novel Of Mine

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Oh boy. Every time I hard reset my chat window with the AIs I’m using (Claude LLM and Gemini LLM) I never quite know what to expect. The last time I did it and fed my outline into the chatbots, they were universal in their agreement on one subject: my hero was too passive.

That gave me such consternation that I threw everything up in the air and tried again. THIS TIME, I THINK my hero isn’t as passive. But I’m still just in the first act.

But I think — maybe — that I might be able to zoom through the “fun and games” part of the novel for various reasons.

Yet, let’s go back to the AIs.

This go round, they aren’t giving me as much help writing actual text, which is a good thing. But I haven’t asked them for extended scene summaries, so I could still find myself in a position where I lean a little too much into using what AI gives me when it comes to the actual writing of text.

I hate that. I hate it so much what I might to do is use the AI to write extended scene summaries THEN use THAT as inspiration for a new, rewritten version of the extended scene summary so I won’t feel tempted to generate AI slop that everyone will make fun of.

Anyway, I am just about to enter the second act. Probably in a few days. Then the dynamic of things will change some. It’s not until I get into the second half of the novel that things might slow down significantly.

I really didn’t write very much in each scene because I wanted to keep momentum and I wanted to stress test the outline.

Of Being An ‘AI First’ Author: Spellcheckers & AI Slop

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I gave the first scene of the novel to someone else and they were generally praise worthy. But one thing kind of bothered me. They essentially effused over my writing being better on a practical basis.

This made me blanch because what they were noticing was me leaning into AI to write the scene. So, in essence, what they were saying without realizing was: my native writing ability sucks.

This is enough to throw me into intensive psychotherapy. But maybe not. Not only am I going to make a one final pass of the novel’s text before I query to make sure it’s as much my own style and tone as possible, I also look at it this way: what’s the difference between using AI to help write a novel and using it to spellcheck?

I am a horrible, horrible speller. I always have been, always will be. So bad that the only way I ever got any journalism gigs was…because of the existence of spellcheck.

So, as long as I do as much hard work as possible, I don’t really see there being *that* much of an issue when it comes to leaning into AI when working on a novel. And I do a whole lot of work. I really do.

One thing I probably need to tweak when it comes to my workflow is to totally not use the expanded scene summaries that AI generates for me directly. What I need to do is read those expanded scene summaries…and then do my own writing. I have gotten into the bad habit of using going through and directly using the expanded scene summaries as the basis of scenes.

Bad author, bad. Don’t do that!

Another observation the guy I sent the first scene of the novel to is that my hero was quite “likeable enough.” I hate that. Given what happens in the novel, I fear that is a problem that will only grow. And, yet, who knows.

The key thing that is going to delay me querying this novel is going to be the one last pass I’m going to make of the text to tweak things like hero likability and the vague “AI slop” quality of some of the writing. I’m the writer, I have to actually do as much of the writing as possible.

Ugh.

The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good: ‘AI Speak’ Edition

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am just about to wrap up the first act of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on and, as such, I’ve looked over some of the beginning scenes. And I’m pleased but for one thing — they definitely are a bit…too…polished.

They suffer from “AI speak” a little bit too much for my liking. I just hate the idea of people rolling their eyes and saying the only reason why my writing is any good is I used AI. (This, despite me still thinking that the way I use AI is simpler to how I might have used spell check a few decades earlier.)

Regardless, everyone and everything is horrible so to prevent me from having to endure the slings and arrows of people accusing me of producing AI slop, I’m probably going to go in and simply rewrite scenes as necessary completely in my own hand.

That way, even if the end product is “worse” at least it will be my writing and not AI.

This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On Is Shaping Up To Be Really Good

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This novel I’m working on is really good. So good that I keep expecting a movie or Black Mirror episode to come out that so steals a creative march on me that I have to piviot to some other story idea.

I will have lost valuable time, but, lulz.

I’m not getting any younger, you know.

And, yet, just because the premise is obvious to me, doesn’t mean it’s as obvious to other people as I think. But I’m definitely putting my stick where the puck will be. The premise of the novel is sort of like, “what would it be like, in real terms, for Pris from Blade Runner living her every day life?”

Pris from Blade Runner

That’s pretty much the general gist of the novel’s premise, even though that’s not exact.

Anyway, I still am on track to wrap this novel up around April-May 2026. Then I have to do some last minute editing before I give it to whatever beta readers I can scrounge up. Then I’ll probably have to go therapy because everyone will praise my writing and I’ll feel all this angst about how my writing was “enhanced” by being AI first, even though I did, in fact, write as much as possible of the novel with my own hand.

But because everyone and everything is horrible, people will just assume AI wrote everything and probably dismiss the novel as just more “AI slop.” Ugh.

I Have To Put Up Or Shut Up About This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

My life is going to change one way or another this year, just by doing some simple back-of-the-envelope gaming out of things. And, as such, I really, really need to buckle down and get this beta draft of the novel done ASAP.

As I say that, I also have to accept that things are probably going to change dramatically in my life in Spring 2026, just as I hope to finish the novel. The thing I have to keep telling myself is there is a lot of post-production stuff I’m going to have to do.

So, just finishing a beta draft of the novel isn’t the be-all-and-end all of what’s going on. I’m going to have to do one last pass through the text to make sure all the scenes are up to stuff and I eliminate any too-obvious “AI talk.” THEN, I have to figure out what I’m going to do about finding beta readers.

All of that could push my actual querying of the novel to around Sept 1st. As I understand it, there are two “seasons” for querying — spring and fall. And I just don’t think I’m going to make spring. I may finish the novel in the spring, but because of post-production stuff, I doubt I will actually start to query until the fall season.

But all that works on the assumption that I wrap up the beta draft of the novel no later than maybe April-May. And, just calculating things in my head, that is JUST about when the wheels are going to pop off of my otherwise broke-ass, but otherwise idyllic life.

Ugh.

Anyway, this novel I’m working on deals with some pretty deep (and dark) topics and I hope people will find it as intriguing and engaging as I do as I write it.

AI Has Helped Me A Lot As An Aspiring Novelist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about using AI to develop a novel is I, someone who is has no friends and no one likes, can actually have a credible “manuscript consultant.” That has been a real issue for me in the many years that I’ve spend working on various novels.

I was doing it in a vacuum, so I would make all these mistakes and waste all this time on tangents. But now, with the rise of AI, I actually have someone to bounce ideas off of.

Instead of writing many thousands of words that go nowhere, I can just ask an LLM a question or two and move forward.

I still don’t know how much of how slow it is for me to write because I’m doing something wrong and how much is just that’s the way I write a novel. They usually say give yourself about 2 years to develop, write and finish a novel. So, if I can wrap this scifi dramedy novel up by spring 2026, I will be way ahead of schedule.