Tag: writing about writing

Sent Out The First Chapter of Beta Draft Of The Scifi Dramedy Novel I’m Working On To Some People

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Completely on a lark, because one person asked for the first chapter of the novel I’m working on, I decided to send the first chapter of the beta draft to some people.

I kind of goofed and didn’t read over it one last time before I sent it to these people, so they may see some rather embarrassing goofs on my part. Or not. I just don’t know.

But I think I have learned my lesson on that front — always do one last check of your copy before you sent it out for *any* reason. And, yet, I also think doing it this way is a good way to manage my expectations.

I have to appreciate that things may not quite go the way I expect with beta readers. It could be that I actually write something pretty good and I STILL can’t get anyone to be a beta reader.

I’ve had problems with expectations about novels I’ve written in the past. So, hopefully, I can avoid that kind of stuff going forward.

Anyway, I’m nearing the end of the first act of the beta draft. Soon, things are going to slow down significantly because I’m going to have to do some structural rewriting. And the second half of the novel is far less written out than the first. So that is really going to slow me down as I make my trek to the end of the novel.

But, we’ll see, I guess.

A Little Uneasy

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a little uneasy that my dream of being a traditional published author just is not possible. It’s may just not be possible because I’m too old, live in the middle of nowhere and am a self-avowed loudmouth crank.

I used to think I had enough “rizz” that “normal” people would at least humor me. But, now, I’m growing concerned that I could write the fucking Bible and the “normal” “serious” liberal white women who probably make up (or at least do in my imagination) most literary agents will take one look at places like this blog and run away from me as fast as possible.

I’m not picking on them. And it’s not really there fault — I just can’t help that I’m a kook. I am who I am and it’s taken me way too long to get where I need to be with this novel.

But, while there’s life, there’s hope, I suppose.

How To Fix ‘Jay Kelly’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The key problem with the movie Jay Kelly is it’s a movie devoted to explicating rich people problems. And not in an interesting way. The first half of the movie is just a breezy affair where there’s no there there.

There’s just no conflict.

So, if I were to given the opportunity to “fix” the movie Jay Kelly, here’s what I would do. I would infuse some of Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine movie into the plot. I’d figure out some way to have the hero get out of his comfort zone. Confront that not everyone is thrilled with how fucking rich he is.


I’d do this by either having him go to, say, a Thanksgiving celebration where he met his “loser” brother, or maybe put the hero in a situation where he’s on the cusp of losing everything for some reason. Or maybe have Jay Kelly fall in love with a lower middle class woman with some principle and pluck who he can’t woo by just throwing money at the problem.

I’d do something so there were some…stakes. The actual real movie Jay Kelly has little or no stakes. Things just happen. The second half of the movie does have something happen, but it’s still meh in my book.

I think the movie is a prime example of what’s wrong with Hollywood. Because of the fucking massive structural income inequality in the United States’ economy, the rich people who would otherwise make movies that people might want to actually see are either too fucking woke, or woo or oblivious to focus on telling a good story.

Anyway. I would like to thank Claude LLM for listening to me gripe about how bad Jay Kelly was as I watched it.

Getting A Little Excited

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m breezing through the transformation of the first draft of the scifi dramedy novel into the second draft. At least at the moment. That’s because I’m able to reuse a lot of text that I generated in the first half of the novel.

Things are going to get much, much more difficult when I reach the second half of the novel because I just was more interested in stress-testing the outline that actually worrying about making sure scenes were long enough.

So, I’m going to have go through and really work to make the scenes of the second half proper length and that is going to slow me down some. But, and this is a huge but, I think I’m still on track — maybe — to query this novel in spring 2026.

Maybe.

If that is the case, then I have to start thinking about post-production stuff like querying, getting and agent and…a lawyer? I am totally broke, so unless I can figure out a way to get someone I’m related to do spot me for the costs of a lawyer to look over a book contract…oh boy.

And, yet, on a psychological basis, this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with a novel so far. I really think I may wrap this baby up sooner rather than later.

Hopefully. Maybe.

But I continue to worry about my bonkers social media output being enough to either make “serious” liberal white women literary agents run away in dismay when they do due diligence on me.

I can’t help who I am, so, lulz?

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.