Tag: The Girl Who Played With Fire

Soon, I’ll Leave My Creative ‘Vacuum’ & Find Out If My Gut Instincts Are Right

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Since I first started writing a novel, I’ve pretty much been doing it all in a creative vacuum. All I’ve had is my gut and a well-used copy of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire as my guide.

The gold standard.

Living in a delusional state as I did this has helped me a great deal. But soon I’m going to find out what people with careers and money –specifically literary agents — think of all my writing. I really need to pay a manuscript consultant to read the novel once I have a final third draft done –but I’m very, very poor.

As such, I may just say screw it and submit that I have and see what happens. The story is getting a lot better and it will be interesting to see what severe existential mistakes I made because I haven’t had a wife or a girlfriend to be my Reader on this project.

But I have to summon up some courage. I have to accept that it will really be like winning the writing lottery to actually sell this novel, even if I otherwise stick the landing. That’s why I continue to dwell on back up stories to use should it become clear that this novel just isn’t going to sell anytime soon. A lot of selling a novel comes from luck and hitting the zeitgeist just right.

It would also definitely help if I was, I dunno, an undocumented transgender woman. But, I’m just me, a smelly CIS white male who can be something of a kook at times.

I really need to start using my time in a more structured way. I really need to accept that things might get a little bit…bumpy…once I actually start to query. And I really want to query my first novel as early as fall 2024. Hopefully the country won’t be descending into chaos just as I finally reach the point where I can query.

I Continue To Be On Edge About The Looming Querying Process

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve vowed to sooner rather than later to take the querying process for my first novel a lot more seriously. At the moment, I’m on track to wrap up the novel around — hopefully — April. Then the plan is to begin querying no later than, say, September.

But it’s always possible that that deadline may slip and it won’t be the fall 2024 querying season that I take the plunge, but, rather the Spring 2025 season. And all of this is happening in the context of not only me Not Getting Any Younger, but knowing damn well that any literary agent who does due diligence on me might just throw up their hands with dismay at all the kooky things I’ve written about and done videos about over the years.

And I am the first to admit that if you don’t know me personally, I can come across as a drunk crank. Ok, I get it. But what am I going to do about it at this point? I am who I am and I have some quirks and sharp edges that might turn some (liberal white women) people off.

My heroine kind of looks like this in my mind as I write her.

I really need to stop stewing about querying and begin to take it concrete steps to be ready to go when the moment comes. But I also want to start to work seriously on some backup stories. I have at least three solid scifi novels rolling around in my head and all the hard work I’ve put into my first novel should speed the process of development up for these “back up stories” a great deal.

That’s the plan, at least.

Things Are Moving Fast Now

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While disaster could strike at any moment, for the time being, I’m feeling pretty good about the state of the third draft of my first novel. I’m going to focus on having a “alpha release” done as soon as possible. Once I get to that point, then I might start to do some fleshing out of the canon and characters so the beta release will be good enough to show other people.

I’m getting soooooo close to being in a position where I have to take the process of querying seriously. The idea of pitching my long-term delusion to people with money and careers is really going to rattle my cage. But it’s something I’ve been expecting for years now.

The story is pretty strong and it is provocative enough that I could see — if I sell the novel and it is huge success — that Hollywood will be interested. Even though the story isn’t nearly as dark and twisted as Stieg Larsson’s work, I feel confident that anyone who has read his work find my novel to be something of an old brown shoe without it being a hackneyed copy.

This novel is its own thing, it’s just I used Larsson’s “The Girl Who Played With Fire” as my “textbook” and, as such, it’s something of a homage. I hope people don’t think it’s some sort of fanfic, because it’s not. It’s very much my own personal interpretation of the general concepts that Larsson wrote about.

I have done everything in my power to make work as original as possible, even as I use some basic techniques that Larsson used in his work — for better or for worse.

I hope to zoom through the rest of the third draft of the novel now. But, like I said, so much can go wrong. But, I try to be hopeful.

I’m Just About To Enter The Second Act Of The ‘Alpha Release’ Of The Third Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Months after I started working on the first act of the third draft of my first novel, I am at last about to enter the second act. This is important because I know this part of the story far, far better.

Though there are some structural elements to the novel I’ve had to change in the rest of the novel, things SHOULD move very, very fast now. I should be able to come out with an Alpha Release of the third draft no later than April. Then I will go through and do an edit of it so the Beta Release is actually coherent enough that I can maybe find some professional to read it and help me take it to the next level.

And, yet, I am very, very poor, so…I don’t know. Don’t know how exactly that will work out — if it will work out at all. I might just query what I have in early fall 2024 and see what happens.

Of course, now I have to take a deep breath and think seriously about querying. But I think I may punt that particular issue down the road a little bit more. I want to have a complete third draft done — even if it’s an Alpha Release — before I get too worked up about querying.

And, of course, all of this is happening in the context of the fucking Petite Singularity / Fourth Turning happening at just about the moment I want to query.

Wish me luck, I suppose.

I Don’t Have A Problem With Being ‘Woke,’ Just Don’t Come After Me For Being A Male Author Writing From A Female POV In My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I notice that someone is interested in all my ranting about the “woke cancel culture mob.” So, let me be clear — all my ranting on this subject is usually generated by booze and annoyance that I will be dinged by some hyper-woke people for being a male author writing from a female POV in my novel.

If Stieg Larsson can do that, why can’t I?

Anyway, I also know that being a drunk crank I’ve almost — certainly — done more than one thing in my personal life that will leave the hyper woke aghast. But, all I can say is the worse thing anyone ever said about me was that I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

My heroine, in my mind, looks like Corrie Yee.

So, yeah, I’m not perfect. But who is? And I generally mean well. So, I find myself wondering if all my talk about consensual kinky sex and periods in this novel will be poo-pooed by woke liberal white women because it’s ME, a smelly CIS white male, who wrote it.

Meanwhile, Emerald Fennell can go way, way off the creative beaten path and is hailed as the best thing since slice bread. It’s shit like that that causes me to rant when I’m drunk. Judge me by work, not by my gender. I GENERALLY support the media narrative about trans rights, etc, but I’m human and I have the occasional stray thought that maybe might get me in trouble with the woke Powers That Be.

I HATE this type of “woke.”

Regardless. My first novel is going well. So well, in fact, that I’m probably going to feel comfortable doing a lot more reading, watching of TV and movies and doing some writing on my “backup stories.”

I Finally Have A Stable First Act For The Third Draft Of My First Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are going so well with the first act of the third draft of my first novel that I’m seriously thinking about developing the three scifi novels I have rolling around in my mind.

I just need to stretch my legs creatively. I need to have the option of thinking about something other than this same novel. The goal is that the overall product will be better for all the things I’m working on.

I find myself thinking about querying and reading books to “comp” my book to. At the moment, all I have is pretty much just Stieg Larsson books, the originals of which are about 20 years old now.

But I think once January 1st rolls around that I’m going to get a lot of work done. Watch me say that then something happen to slow me down significantly. I’m kind of falling apart physically and I’m a little worried that Something Bad will happen big enough to force me to either pause writing or change the context a great deal.

Ugh. N+1 and all that.

Well, I Suspect Hollywood Actresses Will Like My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve written before, Hollywood actresses have a…unique…psychology. And that psychology tends to get more unique the older they get because they often times become producers. That’s why someone like Jennifer Lawrence is cool with getting paid $20 million for a mid-tier vehicle where she apparently has a fight in the ocean totally buff naked.

And don’t get me started in how puzzling it is to me that there was this huge scramble to play the Hollywood movie version of Lisbeth Salander. I love the character, too, but, yikes, why put yourself through the horrific things that poor woman had to go through and have it on screen!

Sorry you had that done to you, Lisbeth.

Very curious.

With that in mind, it definitely seems as though if I win the creative lottery and my novel becomes successful enough that Hollywood will want to adapt it…that a lot of actresses will be interested in playing one of the numerous female characters I’ve come up with.

The novel isn’t nearly as dark as The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. But there are some…edgy elements to it that I think Hollywood actresses might really like. But, really, what do I know.

I’m just drunk nobody in the middle of nowhere with a dream.

This Third Draft Of My First Novel Is Getting Really Good — But

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The original script for The Blues Brothers was over 300 pages long. While I don’t quite have the problem that Dan Akroyd had with that project when it comes to length, I definitely have a problem.

In number of scenes, at least, the first act of this novel is going to equal the entire second act. This is bad structure. And, yet, I think what I’m going to do is just finish an “alpha” release of the third draft then take stock of things. I will have two options depending on how things work out.

If the novel is no more, than, say, 140,000 words, then I will just say damn the torpedoes’ full speed ahead and try to pitch what I have. If the final alpha release is closer to 160,000 words, I’m going to think seriously about splitting it in two and connect the two novels through a cliffhanger.

No matter what, I think I need to YET AGAIN try to begin work on a backup project — probably a scifi novel. I have a really good scifi take on pandemic fiction that I think I could probably knock out pretty quick because I have so much more experience about how to write a novel after years of struggle.

But I am really pleased with how this third draft is sorting itself out. The big issue is there are all these elements to the novel that simply can’t be “yadda yadda yadda’d” if I want to do it properly. Now that I know how to tell a story, I realize that writing a novel — at least for me — is a lot like trying to move a huge ship one way or another.

You can’t just turn on a dime. If you think up a really cool element of the story with a secondary POV character, you have to give that element some thought or otherwise people will feel cheated.

That’s why I have a huge first act at the moment. And, yet, I try to comfort myself by realizing that the first act of The Girl Who Played With Fire is just as enormous. All this goes back to the cold, hard fact that the point of writing a novel is to equally tell a good story and finish the Goddamn thing.

So as long as I serve up a great story to readers, I doubt the average person will get too worked up that it has an enormous first act. And, remember, the issue is there are a number of known unknowns. I just know scene number, not length. And I haven’t rewritten the rest of the novel that is already written from the second draft.

So, I’m going to buckle down and finish the third draft without much regard to some pretty basic issues. Once the alpha release is done, THEN I can make an executive decision as to what to do next.

At A Loss As To What The Audience Reaction To This Novel Will Be

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

On a structural basis, my novel is a lot like Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire in the sense that the Big Event doesn’t happen until the end / beginning of the first act. It took me forever to figure out the structure of that novel…until I learned it was actually the first half of a much bigger story. After that piece of information, its structure make a lot more sense.

But other than having The Big Event be the thing that pushes my heroine in the the Special World, otherwise, if I do my job right, the rest of the structure of the novel should be pretty conventional. At least, that’s my goal.

My big concern is that it takes soooo long for The Big Event to happen that people will grow board or annoyed. And, yet, there is so much drama — and sex — in the first act that I’m pretty confident that people will be so busy reading all the spicy scenes in the first act that they won’t even notice that that many thousand of words have gone by without, well, The Big Event happening.

My heroine looks, in general, like Corrie Yee in my mind as I write her.

I, in general, like what I’ve come up with. But, as I keep saying, all of this is being done in a near complete vacuum so, lulz, I have no idea what the fuck the audience will think of it — especially some of the more spicy elements. Some of what I’ve come up with is supposed to be serious, but because it’s not hateful and scary…I could see it be as rather….uhhh…comical.

But I can’t help who I am. I’m just not as dark and scary as Stieg Larsson in my writing.

Writing This Novel In A Creative Vacuum Is Really Frustrating

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have no friends and no one likes me. As such, all I have when it comes to this novel is my gut. I just tell the story with Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire as a hazy, general frame of reference. I have — somehow — managed to flip the script on some of the…uhhh….darker…elements of the first novel in a way that reflects my personality.

Instead of dark and scary, I do the same thing but in a consensual way that furthers the plot. (IYKYK)

At least, that’s the general goal.

There is so much sex happening the first act that I sometimes worry that it may come across as the mystery-thriller version of Debby Does Dallas. And, yet, because all of this is happening in a vacuum….I just don’t know.

And things calm down dramatically on the sexxy time front during the rest of the novel, to the point that I kind of feel uneasy that I come out swinning hard in the first act then everything goes normal for the rest of the novel, leaving the audience a little let down.

Or not. Who knows. I really do like what I’ve managed to come up with. The story is a real page turner, even if I have no idea what the reaction of the audience will be to some of the more….controversial editorial decision on my part.

YOLO.