by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I can begin to feel the old white hot rage against MAGA from the early days of this writing project begin to creep into my soul again. I’m livid and powerless. So, not being a violent man, I’m throwing myself back into working on my art. The first two books of this four book series are not overtly anti-MAGA and while the last two books are pointedly anti-MAGA, hopefully they won’t come across as too terribly preachy.
At the moment, I’m taken aback by how smooth things are going with the first draft of this first book in the series. I’m just trucking along, following the outline and, really, the only issue at the moment I have to worry about is keeping myself entertained. I don’t have the challenge that the struggle of the first act has associated with it.
All I have to do is, as they say, “just write.”
Of late, I’ve been jumping ahead as I work on this first novel, trying to nail down the outline of the second book. I’m really going to try to force myself to have no more than maybe 120 scenes at 1,000 average words. The first book is way too close to 200 scenes for my liking, but that’s just the first draft. I can always always trim that down some in the first draft.
You can’t edit a blank page, as they say.
And I continue to have a lingering insecurity about writing all four novels at once. I mean, I guess I could just try to get the first novel published and see how that pans out. And, yet, if Stieg Larsson can write and sell three novels, I can write and sell four novels. I have a huge ego and thinking like that is just the jitters associated with being an aspiring novelist.
Also, all four of these novels tell a compelling story. I’m going to keep going until something concrete prevents me from doing so. While it’s very possible that someone is going to steal a creative march on me and I’ll have to piviot to some other concept, you have make decisions on what you know, not on what you don’t know.
You can’t live your life in fear.
Or, as my father would say, “No one ever got anywhere in this world without taking a risk.”
