by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
The novel I’m developing is turning out to be be really, really good — at least in my eyes. Yes, there’s that Jessica Alba vehicle Trigger Warning lurking out there, but the more I think about it, it seems any resemblance between it and what I’m working on comes more from where my head is as I develop my novel than anything else. Or something.
I guess, in a sense, all that is first child jitters. Though I will admit that now that I finally have the hang of writing a novel, I’m likely to just keep writing them no matter what. All I want is to write a novel where someone who doesn’t know me reads it and asks, “So what happens next?”
The novel I’m developing definitely has franchise written all over it. Though, if I did manage to sell the first two books, I would go back in time and write two prequels. Those two stories are pretty well thought out in my mind and would be pretty easy to write given how much I had to think them to through to write the novels I’m working on now.
But a lot of all of this comes from simply not only not knowing what I’m doing, but not having anyone to tell me “no.” Or, put another way, if I had, like, friends and stuff — or maybe a wife or girlfriend — it’s unlikely I would have gotten this far with this project because everyone would have gotten so frustrated with me that they would have finally successfully told me to “just write a short story.”
Fuck such thinking. Fuck short stories. I want to write a novel.
It’s wild how little support I’m getting from anyone about writing a novel. Everyone wants me to write a screenplay or a short story or whatever the fuck else they think I should write. But no one is like, “Hey! You’re writing a novel after talking about writing a novel for years, good for you!”
I can’t help how extroverted I am. That’s just who I am.