Tag: writing about writing

It Keeps Happening

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the worst experiences of my life to date was when Annie Shapiro “stole” ROKon Magazine from me by bringing back (in secret) without me. In hindsight, I was setting myself up for a fall because I was not exactly in the greatest state of mind at the time and so she just proved that she loved the magazine more than I did.

But the experience has left me really paranoid about someone “stealing” the idea for the novel I’m working on. My paranoid theory is that a woman I gave the fleshed out outline to in hopes she might advise me on it — only to promptly ghost me — somehow has connections in Hollywood. My fear is she sent what I gave her to someone in LA and it’s good enough that they’re going to cherry pick the best bits of the concept for a screenplay.

This is obviously very bonkers.

While I suppose it’s possible something like that could happen, much of the theory is being created out of whole cloth. I have no idea if she would even do such a thing if she could. And getting a screenplay produced is really tough — even with contacts in the business.

And, yet, someone else looked at some of my musings about when I am going to query this novel — fall 2023 — and so of course my paranoia is they’re gauging how they steal a march on me by getting a movie produced before I have to me to even query the thing.

The more I think about it, the more this seems like just the insecurities of a first time, aspiring novelist. I have no idea what the motives of the people looking at the link are — it could be that they’re just interested in when they might expect to see the novel available to read.

The only reason why this particular situation has left me a little uneasy is I think the ping was coming from a Slack channel. So, of course my paranoid that some Hollywood producers were talking to each other in a corporate Slack channel about my novel and they were trying to figure out how to screw me over.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is very bonkers and almost completely unfounded. And, besides, I would have to be a little bit flattered if such a thing happened — at least my baby would get to be created, even if not by me. AND it would prove that I was able to create a concept that real people with real money were willing to produce into a movie — even if not with me.

If my worse case scenario did happen, I would just lick my wounds and pivot to one of the other stories I’m working on in the back of my mind. And this point, my biggest concern is I’m just old and if I want to ever publish a novel I’ve got to get it done sooner rather than later.

Bootstrapping

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Apparently, literary types think I’m a freaky weirdo they don’t want to deal with — even if I’m willing to pay them to help me work on my manuscript. So, as I transition from the first to second draft, I’m faced the realization that I’m on my own.

In short, I’m going to have to bootstrap it.

With that in mind, I’m “forcing” myself to read, read, read. I have a small library of books I need / want to read. And some of those books might seem unexpected. I’ve come to believe that leadership and character are connected so I have decided to read a lot of leadership books.

I want to understand in an abstract way, what makes a “leader” and how I could apply the associated principles when it comes to fleshing out characters — especially my heroine. It’s all very abstract, but I think if I read up on leadership I think it will help the end result.

But it really, really bothers me that literary types are so dismissive of me because they don’t like my personality. Yes, I’m a kook, but that’s typically how creative types act. So, it’s weird that literary types would be so snooty with me just because I can come off as a drunk crank.

All of this, of course, happens in the context of me worrying about what happens when literary agents do “due diligence” on me when I begin to contact them during the 2023 querying season. My fear is, of course, that they will look at places like this website and be shocked at how weird I am and decide to have nothing to do with me.

It’s Reading & Development Until Christmas 2022

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For someone who is paranoid that a rival has somehow gotten ahold of the outline of my novel and they are going to steal a march on me and write a screenplay using it, I somehow still feel compelled to give updates.

Anyway, you can’t live in fear and the narrative in my head that would make such an event possible is pretty bonkers. You have to make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.

Between now and Christmas, I’m going to read, read, read as much as I can. I’m kind of obsessed with reminding myself of the mechanics of development as well as how to flesh out my characters to give them motivation and desire. Around Christmas, I’m going to read the whole first draft. Then I’m probably going to write some sort of cohesive summary of the story before I flesh out the outline AGAIN and use THAT to write the second draft.

That’s the goal, at least.

Still on track to query my first novel during the fall 2023 querying season.

The End Of Writing?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

With the advent of advanced chatbot technology, we have to begin to contemplate the idea that humanity’s relationship to writing may be about to change dramatically. From what I can tell about the ability of chatbot technology to generate writing of all sorts it definitely seems as though some basic ideas about human creativity may be about to be upended.

The case could be made for a dystopian near-future whee writing itself is seen as quaint and antiquated, much like cursive writing is today. We may face a future where being trained to write is something that a narrow subset of the population is trained to do.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of all writing — be it creative or otherwise — will be done by at least chatbots, if not an actual AGI. In a way, if we don’t invent AGI sooner rather than later, that’s kind of the worse case scenario.

At least with AGI, there is the opportunity for us to tax its activities to fund a UBI program — or, even better AGIs might be willing to fund a UBI of its own volition as a “bribe” to humanity to keep it busy playing video games. I’m not saying the transition to a UBI wouldn’t be rather…turbulent…to say the least.

But it could very well happen.

I suppose my biggest fear is that, given human nature, all of this could happen a lot sooner than we all expect because there’s probably going to be a global recession in 2023. As such, that would be the time when the ability to replace high paid writers of all sorts might simply be too enticing for the Powers That Be.

But I think I’m getting a little too ahead of myself. History rarely goes in a straight line. There’s every reason to believe my fears that we’re going to face a Singularity in late 2024, early 2025 at just the same time that the whole world is collapsing because MAGA Nazis are in the middle of trying to steal the 2024 election might be a little bit too hysterical.

And, yet, the fact remains — there’s a real risk that the next generation may see learning to write as optional. Or, if they do learn to write, it will be more about how to write a chatbot prompt than it is writing an essay or a novel or whatever. As is the case with all of my hysterical, dystopian rantings about the rise of chatbots and AGI, the point is to get us all thinking about different scenarios instead of waiting until we have a serious case of future shock.

Sometimes, I Wonder

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s no reason for anyone from South Korea to care one bit about me. And, yet, to this day, occasionally someone from ROK will either look at my LinkedIn profile or look at this site.

It’s very curious.

I haven’t been in South Korea in a long, long time. For me, it’s a very romanticized era in my life, which is the inspiration for a six novel project. The idea that anyone that I know from my days in ROK would even think about me is something I find very puzzling.

I suppose I made a bigger impression on people that I realized. And I have to remember that the long-term expats in South Korea have a very, very, very long collective memory. And that doesn’t even begin to address all the Koreans who were around, watching, as I went rather bonkers for a few months in late 2006 – 2008.

It makes me wonder what might happen if I ever return to South Korea for a little trip. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, but there are definitely a few people in South Korea who would have a VERY STRONG reaction to seeing me again.

The ironic thing about it all is, of course, that I’m a very different person than I was back then. I’ve turned into a graybeard and have far more humility than I ever did while I was living in South Korea.

In a way, I wish people in South Korea would just forget me. And, yet, I have to accept that I was very much a larger than life figure for a brief and shining moment a long time ago.

Maybe I Should Become An AGI Ethicist

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite characters in fiction is Dr. Susan Calvin, robot psychiatrist. Given how many short stories there are to potentially adapt, I have recent come to believe that Phoebe Waller-Bridge would be the perfect person to play the character in a new movie franchise.

A future Dr. Susan Calvin?

I am also aware that apparently one hot new career field of late is being an “AGI Ethicist.” But for, well, (waves hand) I think I would be a great one. I love to think up the worst possible scenario to any situation and I think a lot. But I’m afraid that ships has sailed.

I’m just too old and it would take too much time to learn all the necessary concepts surrounding the field to do formalize my interest. So, it’s back to being an aspiring novelist — if human novelists are even a thing by the time I try to query this novel I’m working on.

Given we may be about to enter a severe recession in 2023 and recessions are usually when there’s a lot adoption of new technology…I may not be too hysterical to fear novelists may be quaint by late 2023 – early 2024.

It does make one think of what jobs will still exist if you combine AGI, automation and robotics. These are macro trends that are all coming to a head a lot sooner than any of us might have otherwise expected. Given what’s going on with chatbot technology the current moment in time definitely seems like the quiet before the storm.

The years 2023 ~ 2025 could be some of the most significant in human history if we’re trying to solve the political problem of Trump at the same time the Singularity is happening all around us. Good luck.

Now, The Hard Part

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve finally finished a solid, stable first draft and, as such, I’m going to try — try — to pause writing for a month to prepare for the dive into the second draft. I hope to read a whole lot so when I sit down to write the second draft in early January 2023 I will have significantly expanded my author toolkit.

But reading — especially, ironically enough, reading fiction — is really tough for me. I like to produce content so much that reading someone else’s content is a real stretch for me. But I have to do it, I just have to. I can’t continue to be delusional and not know what other people in my genre are producing. I can only read The Girl With Played With Fire so many times.

And, yet, reading a lot of different types of things over the course of roughly the next month should be a lot of fun. It will really hit home how this is the farthest I’ve ever gotten with this project to date. And I think actually doing all this reading that I should have done some time ago will be a way to remind myself of that.

Of course, I probably am going to start gaming out the next novel in this six novel project over the course of the next month AND think seriously about a scifi novel I’ve been dwelling on for some time. I have three or four sold scifi novels rolling around in my mind and this particular one really appeals to me at the moment.

I wish I was younger, I would also be working seriously on overcoming the learning curve connected to screenwriting. But the only way I would write a screenplay at my age is if I became a big success really quickly as a novelist and that opportunity became viable.

Of course, in the back of my mind I have a lingering fear not only of a fucking civil war happening in the United States in 2024 – 2025, but the entire concept of being a human writer becoming moot once AGIs can spit out a movie, TV show or novel simply from an inputted logline.

But anyway, wish me luck. I wish I could stop myself from writing and about writing all the time but I’m 100% extroverted and whatever happens to be on my mind at any particular moment is going to somehow, someway pop out.

Paranoia Will Destroya

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve been feeling pretty paranoid since I saw someone from Hollywood snooping around this blog in my Webstats interested in how long it’s going to take me to start querying my first novel. My fear is that when I sent my outline to a manuscript consultant, she sent it to someone she knows in Hollywood and they’re going to use it as the basis of a screenplay.

This is completely bonkers for a number of reasons.

One, I’m making a connection that I just have no idea is there. Just because I sent the outline to her, doesn’t mean she took the next step of sending it to someone else. And I have no idea if she has any connections in Hollywood she could send it to in the first place. I do know, however, from personal experience that the moment you send something to someone, it inevitably gets passed around.

But, still, I’m giving the two events a connection and a narrative that just doesn’t exist in real life. I can’t let my personal insecurities about such things overwhelm me.

I guess some of it is what happened with ROKon Magazine. Annie Shapiro really did “steal” the magazine from me, bringing it back in secret behind my back, so once bitten twice shy and all that. And I suppose I just have to process the possibility that Hollywood might “steal” my idea, even though it’s definitely just a “possibility” and not a “probability.”

I just can’t let this irrational fear consume me. It’s embarrassing how much time I’ve thought about this the last few days. But I just can’t allow such an irrational fear stop me from moving forward. As I keep saying — make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know.

And I think I’m probably be a bit full of myself to even think it’s possible that Hollywood would “steal” my idea in the first place. I know how hard it is to get ANYTHING produced and my outline wasn’t THAT good.

It’s possible that the person I saw in my Webstats from LA was simply curious when the novel I’m working on might come out and that’s it. No nefarious plot against me. That definitely seems to make a lot more sense than my paranoid delusions.

Just The Usual Paranoia

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, someone from LA seemingly randomly popped up in my Webstats. They looked at the post about my hope to wrap up the first draft of the novel starting December 1st then vanished.

My fear, of course, is somehow they’re using the fleshed out outline I sent a manuscript consultant once to write a screenplay based on the cherry picked best bits.

While this is possible, it’s not very probably.

I suppose you could use the seed of my novel for a screenplay, but the story is so personal and specific to things I know that the end result wouldn’t be anything like what my vision is. So, I suppose the worst viable case is they my use the names I’ve thought up — which are pretty good — to populate their own universe.

Or something. Something like that.

But as I keep saying, you have to make decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know. At the moment, I have no reason to believe any of these fears are real. But SOMEONE from LA is interested in the state of this novel, which leaves me with lingering questions.

All Systems Go, Redux

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m feeling pretty good about the state of this first draft at the moment. I just about to reach the denouncement of the story and once I do that, I will have just a few more scenes to write before I finish up.

Then, once I am done, I’m going to distract myself for a few weeks. Then, with fresh eyes, I’m going to read the whole first draft. THEN I’m going to futz with the outline some before I sit down and rewrite the whole thing and as such, produce the second (Beta) draft.

That’s the plan, at least.

A whole lot of things could go wrong, but all systems are go at the moment for me to be in a position to query this novel as part of the autumn 2023 querying season. That’s the dream.

It would help a great deal, of course, if I had a Reader. Or if I could prove myself worthy to literary types who might allow me to pay them so I could take things to the next level. I may try to save up the money necessary to get an editor of some sort of the beta draft so I can make the story as good as possible before I query.

At a minimum, I feel safe in believing I at least won’t embarrass myself. I have a huge amount of work to still do, but if I can just meet the metric of not embarrassing myself, I’ll be quite content.