Had A Successful Personal Writer’s Retreat In #Atlanta This Weekend


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner


Since I couldn’t go where I wanted to go — New York City — I went somewhere totally different — Atlanta. It was a lot of fun, though I found the city so huge that I just stayed in my hotel room and worked on novel development.

Anyway, I just got back and now I’m going to relax and read just a tick before I throw myself back into development. I’m tired from all the driving. But I think I understand the story even better than I did before.

Hopefully, things will move significantly faster now. My only concern right now is that the election — one way or another — is going to change the national zeitgeist to such an extent as to make my allegorical thriller about the Trump Era seem quaint.

And, yet, you can’t edit a blank page. And, really, writing your first novel is aspirational by definition. Writing a novel gives me hope. If something really dramatic happens and changes things so much as to make the story moot, I can probably turn around and write a new novel using what I’ve learned over the last two years very easily.

After I stop sulking, I can probably turn around and write that scifi novel I have in my mind these days.

But that’s a worst case scenario.

I think I can get back to writing past the midpoint of the first draft pretty quick now. I hope.