Tag: woke cancel culture mob

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.

Economics, AI & ‘Woke’ Hollywood

I’m Dreading The Due Diligence Of Literary Agents When I Start to Query This Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

You know, you take yourself wherever you go. And I’m at a point in my life when I can’t get rid of all the evidence that I’m a drunk crank kook and have been that way my entire life.

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

My fear is, of course, that in about a year, when I start to query my first novel that I will see agents crawling around this Website doing due diligence on me and obviously being shocked at what a drunk crank I am.

I’ve talked about these fears before, but as I get closer to zooming through the third draft of this novel, I find myself thinking about it yet again. I just don’t know what I’m going to do.

I suppose, in the end, I do nothing.

Slings and arrows and all that. I just have to accept that I may suffer something of a “kook tax” yet again — the liberal white women who I believe make up the vast majority of literary agents may be aghast at what a freaky weirdo I’ve been as I written — and talked — over the years at great length, in vague terms, about what I hope is a six novel project.

Only time will tell, I suppose.

A Hot Take On ‘Woke’ Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Everything is fucked up in the world. What I mean by that is everyone seems to have an agenda whenever anything makes them uncomfortable. At the moment, there seems to be two types of movies — big budget “four quadrant” blockbusters….and woke movies.

The president of Hollywood.
For someone who is a storytelling snob, this really grates on my nerves. It seems impossible to find just “a good movie” that doesn’t seem to be some sort of preening pontification on the “woke agenda.” And I say this as someone who considers himself center-Left.

I’m all for art having “a message” but there is this thing called….subtext?…that too many earnest Hollywood people seem to have forgotten about. I mean, I hope to write a six novel project that pretty much is just one huge, long screed against extremism in general and MAGA in particular. But my goal is to do it all in such a way that you, the reader, won’t really realize what’s up unless you give it a lot of thought.

That’s the dream, at least.

I know why we have such a problem with over-the-top “woke” movies — the economics of movies are such these days that the only people willing to do passion projects are people who are members of the “woke cancel culture mob” who think you can only tell a story if all its characters are gay and / or a minority. (South Park has a good recent episode on this trend.)

I’m all for having representation in art. In fact, I organically have a lot of representation in my first novel. But at the forefront of my mind is TELL A GOOD STORY. If your message browbeats the audience to the detriment of your storytelling, you’re kind of shooting yourself in the foot.

And I know — I KNOW — that as a smelly CIS white male I’m opening myself up to a lot of hate by even bringing this up. But, I had to vent. I just would like to see modern interpretation of, say, a movie like The Big Chill or Time Bandits without the “message” of the movie making it unwatchable.

Living In Oblivion

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I know I have a lot of “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro once told me, in general, I’ve been living in oblivion for a very, very long time. I kind of flew too close to the sun in the 2006 – 2008 timeframe.

Vibe.
As such, I was kind of a mental prison of my own making for a long, long time. And embarrassing amount of time. But things have changed and I’m finally really focused on something that will — hopefully — let me live up to my potential: my first novel.

Occasionally with this blog’s Webstats, I see pings from places that make me scratch my head a little bit. Why would someone from — there — be looking at this blog of all things? I can never figure out if these mysterious people from exotic locales are interested my political ranting or my very public navel gazing about writing a novel.

It’s a mystery!

I fucking hate this test.

But just the idea that someone of note would give a shit about me — whatever the reason — is quite flattering. All are welcome, I suppose, as long as you’re not a fucking stalker. (Ugh.)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I wrap up this third draft of the novel when I hope to — which is no later than around April 1st. So very much could go wrong. Not only do I have lingering problems with my teeth, but the fact that Stieg Larsson died at 50 looms large in my mind.

Stieg Larsson

Being 50 at the moment makes me think about if I don’t wrap this novel up as quickly as possible that it will all be a lulz. I’m not writing A Confederacy of Dunces, after all — this is a modern pop novel that needs to hit shelves at some point in the near future, not 11 years after my death.

Hopefully, I won’t become so incapacitated from my teeth problems that I can’t continue to write as quickly as I have been the last few weeks.

I Love Developing & Writing Female Characters, But The Process Can Be a Pain In The Ass As A Male Author

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

People love, love, love to pick on male authors for all being a bunch of clueless hornytoads when it comes to the female characters that they write. I’m so self-conscious of this issue that I over think everything to do with my female characters.

My heroine looks like Corrie Yee.
Then, of course, I turn around and turn my heroine into a part-time sex worker (stripper.) And given that I often write from a female POV, I find myself in a situation where I just can’t avoid talking about T&A, even though that’s the very thing that the fucking “woke cancel culture mob” things I have no right to describe at all as a CIS white middle age male.

But I dunno. It’s typical of my lot in life that I would inevitable gravitate straight towards the most problematic situation possible. And given that I’m a smelly CIS white middle age male, for some members of the “woke cancel culture mob” there just isn’t anything I can write that they would validate. So, fuck it, why not just endure the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and see what happens.

I like to THINK that I can write about women as a male author that won’t be embarrassing or cause women in the audience to want to throw the book across the room. But the whole sex worker element of the novel definitely makes it a provocative novel in the context of how sexless the “woke cancel culture mob” tends to be.

I’m happen with what I’ve come up with. I know people will really enjoy this novel once I finish it. The question is, of course, will the liberal white women who are often literary agents be cool with not just the contents of this novel but the fact that it was written by a smelly CIS white middle aged male.

Man, Dua Lipa Is Rather Chaste Compared To Madonna

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m old enough to remember how Madonna ran around quite naked in the late 1980s, early 1990s. It’s rather startling that someone like Dua Lipa — who clearly might be willing to nude for Playboy if it was still culturally relevant — is content with just the occasional spicy snap or faux nudity of a music video.

Its the rise of not just online porn but specifically OnlyFans that makes you realize what a brave new world we live in. Playboy is now a long-forgotten cultural backwater, a legacy brand. Meanwhile, mainstream culture in general has grown not only “woke” but rather chaste.

Of note — the moment MAGA Republicans have power again, they’re probably going to effectively ban online porn. It’s possible that soon enough that because of that specific act that Playboy may again have mass media appeal. I can’t predict the future, but such a thing is definitely one of those unexpected consequences of major policy changes.

I say all of this knowing how fucking dark the Playboy empire was in the shadows. But I do have an appreciation of the (romanticized) Playboy ethos. It would be so cool to bring back something like Playboy After Hours. That was the epitome of cool.

It Seems Possible The Hollywood Industrial Complex Isn’t Unaware Of My Dream

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me be clear — it’s extremely flattering if *anyone* connected to Hollywood or the literary world is in any way looking at this blog. I’m so living in oblivion at the moment that just the hint of such a thing being possible is enough to make my week — month?

The President of Hollywood
I only say this because of some rather odd pings in the depths of this blog, as if a lot is going on with the blog that I’m not seeing. I mean, why would someone give a shit about a whole page of me just idly talking on video in vague terms about a novel in this series? (The earlier you go in posts, the more likely the novel I’m talking about is actually the two novels that come from one big story that makes up the last two novels in a projected six novel series.)

I’m so blasé about all of this that I don’t even care that much. I mean, it would be *nice* if they were keeping tabs on this blog because they thought the general premise of the novel was cool and accessible. I’d prefer they not be looking at this blog because they want to take the premise I’ve come up as the premise of a screenplay.

But, I know this novel is getting really good. It’s really, really different and unexpected because it treats stripping in a rather matter-of-fact kind of way. It validates sex work in a non-salacious manner. Which, I think, will really appeal to women readers.

Even if I am a smelly CIS white male.

A Known Bug With The Third Draft Of My First Novel: Too Many Female Characters(?)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Things are moving really, really fast now with the third draft. I hope to lock down the first three chapters by no later than the end of the month. I’m still on track to finish the third draft by about April 1st.

Looking over my copy, however, I’ve noticed something — I have an unusually high number of female characters. Now, this isn’t all bad — women read a lot of novels — but, lulz, I’m a smelly CIS white male, a member of the patriarchy, if you will, and there will be a bunch of fucking woke Xennials who make it VERY CLEAR that I have no right to write from a female point of view as a man.

Ugh. Fuck that and fuck them.

All that should matter is I tell a good story. That’s it. I feel a little bit like Freddy Mercury with Boeheim Rapsody in that if you know the macro plot for the six novels of this project, then it makes sense for all these characters to be female. There is a method to my madness.

And I think I’m probably overthinking things some. Again, as long as I tell a good story I think the unusually high number of scenes where two or more women are talking about something shouldn’t be TOO much of an issue.

I hope.