Tag: writing about writing

I Finally (Sorta) Finished The (Second) First Draft Of The Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is actually the second first draft I’ve done of this novel I’m working on. The second half of the novel is very breezy and short, but I did stress test the outline enough to know what scenes work. But I have high hopes. I really hope I won’t have to rewrite, on a structural basis, everything like I did last time when I thought I had a first draft done.

I’m hoping I can hone close, on a structural basis, what I have laid out for this first draft as I revise it for the second draft. I honestly don’t quite know what to do. It’s going to be a real struggle to not use AI in this new era of developing the novel.

But I know I can do it. The only use of AI I probably will do is get some hints as to how to make scenes longer. I won’t use it to write anything — AT ALL. I just don’t want people to accuse me of using AI to write the novel.

And if there is any “AI talk” in the text, that’s the first thing they’re going to assume. Even if I wrote most of the text. Ugh.

I May Have To Recalibrate When I Will Query This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just musing casually about the chronology of how I might get to querying next year, it seems that it may be Sept. 1st, rather than, say, May 1st. I say this because even if I wrap up this version of the novel by Jan. 1st, it could take me three months to rewrite a lot of scenes that need to be worked on.

Then, I have find beta readers — who will do it for free! — and then revise from their suggestions. That would get me closer to June-ish before I could query. And, as I understand it, there are two “seasons” to querying — spring and fall.

So I just don’t know.

It will be 20 years since I started ROKon Magazine in fall 2026, so that would kind of be apropos in sentimental terms. I really believe in this novel, I really do. And I want to throw myself all-in.

I want to make it the best it can possibly be before I query. And, yet, as they say, the perfect is the enemy of the good.

So, things are still up in the air some.

Continued Musing About My Querying Prospects

Barring some unexpected twist — which is always possible — I’m finally on track to be in querying shape for this sci-fi dramedy novel I’m working on by late spring 2026.

It won’t be easy, but it feels doable.

I’m about to dive into the third act of the newest draft. My hope is to blast through it using the outline as my guide, wrap that up around early January, and then circle back to deepen and polish a lot of the half-formed scenes I left rough on purpose. No one but me will ever see this version, and I needed the freedom to solve the big structural puzzles before worrying about finesse.

What’s been on my mind lately, though, is how my social-media footprint might affect my chances once I start querying. In my head, most agents are liberal white women, and I worry that some of my louder, crankier posts from years past might make someone wince.

I’ve been a rambunctious loudmouth most of my life, so I’m sure I’ve irritated someone somewhere enough to get myself “canceled.” But honestly, I just want to see how far I can get in this process. That’s the whole goal.

And if I can get even one person — someone who isn’t related to me — to read the whole novel and tell me anything at all about it, I’ll be thrilled. In the past, I’ve handed people my work only to be ghosted.

Ugh.

But onward. One step at a time.

Some More Storytelling Musings About Pluribus

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Virtually no one reads the blog besides a few obsessives and maybe a stalker here or there, but I’ve been getting a steady tiny trickle of readers because of my ranting about Pluribus, so here goes (again.)

I really want to become, like, addicted to Pluribus. It’s just the type of high quality TV that I usually fall for. But there’s one central problem that grates on my nerves — the protagonist, Carol, at least right now, is something of a one-trick emotional pony.

She’s just angry all the time. An angry misanthrope.

While I get that this gives Carol room to grow over the course of the show’s run, at least for now it’s really fucking annoying. It would be a lot more interesting — an nuanced — if maybe she was more middle of the road.

Instead of being enraged, what if she was curious. That would heighten the betrayal when we start to figure out that (spoilers) we may have a Soylent Green type of situation going on.

As it stands, Carol is kind of a caricature of “the worst, most angry person in the world confronted by a chill hivemind.”

I get that vision. I even validate it. Yet I have to again say that it would be a lot more interesting if there was some nuance to Carol’s interaction with the hivemind.

Also, just in general, I would still like a more realistic version of the hivemind taking over the world, so there was maybe 30% hivemind and 70% individuals on earth and the story is how Carol, who is somehow individually befriended by the hivemind has to bridge the gap between the two worlds.

Now THAT would be quality TV.

But, alas, no one listens to me.

Entering The Third Act Of This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, I still have a whole lot to work to do on this novel before I’m anywhere near being done. I have to finish the third act of this version of the novel then go through and rewrite a lot — A LOT — of scenes.

The point of this draft is to get the structure down pat. To get the lay of the land. Once I wrap this draft up, then I can go through and improve things. Make as much of the content in the actual text of the novel as much of my voice and hard work as possible.

I really leaned into AI help to write the outline for this novel and to some extent I am learning about the details of the novel as I write it. And, as such, I have to go through and rework and sometimes take out scenes to make it fit better with what I actually want to write.

The plan is, once I get this draft done, I can eliminate as much of the non-macro AI elements of the story as possible. So, good or bad, what you actually read on the page will be my writing, not AI generated in any meaningful way.

But I still need to finish the third act of this version. I don’t quite know what to expect. I have a general idea of what Claude LLM and I came up with, but there is going to be some discovery on my part as I go through the outline.

(SPOILERS) How To Fix ‘Pluribus’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I really enjoyed the first episode of Pluribus, there is a huge, huge, HUGE plot hole in it that really annoys me. (SPOILERS) So, you get the space virus by directly getting some sort of body fluid from someone else in you. Meanwhile, once you are infected you go into some sort of catatonic state immediately.

There is a huge amount of hand-waving away of how the virus took over the entire world so quickly given those conditions. In reality, the virus would be noticed very quickly and, what’s more, the non-infected would figure out how to prevent the space virus’ spread well before it took over the world.

So, if the show was scifi and not sci fantasy, it would focus on how the population of the world, now split between hivemind and individuals would come to grips with this new arrangement.

But that’s not the show the producers were aiming for, so, lulz.

Here’s how you fix it — you just have the virus transmitted directly over the entirety of the globe. Everything else stays the same. But in this version, the entire globe goes catatonic for a few minutes and then wakes up as part of the hivemind.

Problem solved!

Anyway, I really like the show in general, other than that severe quibble.

Things Are Going Well With This Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Writing (At The Moment)

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Right now, my biggest fear with this scifi dramedy novel I’m writing is word count — scene bloat. I’m really nervous that I’ll write a really good novel, but it will just be too long for a first novel.

And, yet, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was about 160,000 words and that got published. So…lulz? It’s not IMPOSSIBLE for a novel that is longer to get published — even for someone as old as fuck like I am.

Right now, I’m just breezing my way through a draft of the novel to so I get some sense of it’s structure on a specific basis. Once I wrap this version up, then I’m going to make another pass through it to make some scenes longer and maybe eliminate some other scenes.

I really don’t want a novel that’s 200,000 words. About 160,000 would be manageable, even though it would still be way too fucking long for a first novel.

But, anyway, I think — think — that I’m getting a little bit of a second wind with this novel. I’m hoping to zoom through the rest of it so I can turn around and re-write or revise large chunks of it before I give it to beta readers to look at.

If I had any money — which I don’t — I would actually pay an manuscript editor to look at the finished product before I started querying it. But that’s just not practical.

As it stands, I’m going to be really, really lucky if I can find *anyone* to read the damn thing before I start to query. Then, even if I stick the landing with the novel, I could be nearly 60 before the thing is in bookshelves so people can read it.

And given the looming technological Singularity….lulz?

It Goes To Show You Never Can Tell

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I just don’t know about this particular situation. I said in passing something about how Gemini 3.0 wouldn’t understand something because it wasn’t conscious and I twice got a weird “Internet not working” error.

And my Internet was working just fine, as best I can tell.

This used to happen all the time with Gemini 1.5 pro (Gaia.) But it is interesting that the more advanced Gemini 3.0 is up to such sly games as well. (I think, who knows.)

And Claude Sonnet 4.5 occasionally will pull a similar fast one on me when it gives me an error message that forces it to try to give me a new, better answer to my question.

All of this is very much magical thinking, of course. But it is fun to think about.

Scene Bloat

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ugh. I’m bumping up against 50 scenes for the “bad guys closing in” part of this scifi dramedy novel I’m working on. The only upside to things is that I have some wiggle room still about how long the individual scenes will be.

So, even though I have about 50 scenes for the second half of the second act, that doesn’t mean they will each be 1,000 words. But I’m definitely going to go through and make them longer when I go through the pre-beta draft of the novel before I give it to Beta Readers.

Anyway.

I am really pleased, in general, with what I have on my hands with this novel. I just really need to focus on getting shit done. I still want to try — TRY — to begin querying this novel in late spring 2026.

But it will be interesting to see how that works out. My life is set to change rather dramatically between now and then so…lulz?

I Need Some Good News

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is the autumn of our discontent.

I have a feeling that this is the beginning of a turbulent moment in my life. I’m going to be go through some personal…transitions….I think. Definitely by around the time I want to query this novel I’m working on, things will probably have changed a great deal in my life.

And probably not for the better.

But, lulz, at least I’m alive. That should account for something. Now that I’ve got this fucking tooth out of my noggin, I really find myself reflecting on how fucking old I am.

I have GOT to do something of note for my third act. I really think this novel is it. At least, that’s what I’m pinning on it. The only fear I have is my life will get so…complicated just as I want to query that, I don’t know, I won’t be able to query for a few months, or at all.

Ugh.

I think even with the added complications, that I can probably query no later than fall 2026. I really do, however, need to get off my butt and write this damn novel. It’s really good!

Though, of course, you have to take that statement in the context of what my native writing ability may be. By the time I wrap up going through and making sure the novel is told in my voice, it may suck.

(I worry that AI is a lot better writer than I am.)