Month: March 2023

I Really Need A Second And Third Creative Track

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I work my way through the second draft of my first novel, it is really beginning to dawn on me that — yikes — this novel may be existentially just too damn long for a first novel. As such, it is growing more and more urgent for me to start work on second and third novels that might fit within the roughly 100,000 word sweetspot I need.

Write write write (that’s me on the right.)

I really, really like how my first novel is shaping up. It’s really cool. It’s a nice middle-brow pop thriller that I think comes pretty close to my vision of a Stieg Larsson meets Mare of Easttown type of story. But it’s just too long. I fear it’s going to blow past the 100,000 word mark and be closer to something along the lines of 140,000.

Double yikes!

Rather than put all my eggs in the lone basket of a too-long novel, I’m going to try — try — to also work on two scifi novels that I’ve been brooding on for some time. To me, at least, both of these novels are pretty obvious concepts and I keep expecting to see a movie or novel pop out that steals a march on me. But no one ever got anywhere in this world without taking a chance, so, lulz.

I have a growing sense within myself that if I want get the thriller published, I’m going to have to first pitch one of the scifi novels. Once I sell a scifi novel, then I can say, “Oh, by the way, I have a thriller you might be interested in, too.”

Or something like that. I’m so delusional and oblivious to how publishing operates in the real world, it could be that I’m going about it the wrong way. It could be that, in the end, I’m just going to have to figure out a way to chop 40,000 words off the length of the thriller, no matter what.

But I have hope that won’t be the case.

We’re All The Villain In Someone Else’s Story

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m obsessed with my Webstats and sometimes I see things that are…curious. Like, who is the person from Denver who occasionally looks at this site? Now, given how paranoid I am, I automatically assume it’s someone connected to the late Annie Shapiro.

The late Annie Shapiro and I in the good old days.

Annie and I had some good times….and we had some bad times in Seoul. And given how God-awful secretive she was in life, I could totally see the me of 2006 -2008 being seen as something of a ghoul relative to her family. I was not exactly very nice to Annie during the height of our “divorce” because of ROKon Magazine but, in my defense, she gave as good as she got.

All I can say is, I’m sorry. I feel horrible for my poor behavior in Seoul relative to Annie. I was not in a good place mentally or emotionally and if I could somehow convince the Shapiro family not to hate me, I would. And, yet, I think this not a situation that will ever be solved.

It’s all over but the shouting, as they say, and if it is someone directly connected to Annie who is occasionally looking at this site, it’s probably just a deep echo of long ago drama. They’re just curious to see what’s on my mind. They aren’t interested in patching things up.

There are sometimes things you just have to accept as being a part of your personal history.

How ‘Vibes’ Are Causing America To Careen Towards A Dark, Turbulent Future

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve given up when it comes to trying to change the minds of the Traditionalists in my life. The sides are set. I love them and it’s time to just accept that one way or another we’re going to be on opposite ends of a great cleaving in the United States.

But the issue at hand is this — while I understand that typically civil wars start because of economic issues, it definitely seems as though there’s a good chance that the Second American Civil War could happen because of, well, vibes.

This is a prime example of what I’m talking about. The differences in how Red and Blue view things like our epidemic of gun violence boiled down to one bigoted tweet.

While people like me are outraged that YET ANOTHER mass shooting has taken place, Reds have managed to fuse to things they hate — Trans people and gun control — into one hateful message. And, what’s more, unless the mainstream media screams at the top of their lungs that the shooter was Trans, the entire Right wing bullshit echochamber will grow apoplectic…because of vibes.

They will demand that the moment Reds have control of the hard power levers of the State that, I don’t know, we’re all forced to have a chatbot implanted into a skulls that screams “anti-woke” ” propaganda into our mind at all times. I wish I was kidding.

But that’s what Republicans want. Republicans are very much like middle school nerds who get upset that the “cool kids” won’t let them sit with them at lunch. Their entire political movement is based on grievance to the point that they are willing to burn the United States to the ground — one way or another — unless they get what they want.

In short, America is being terrorized by thin-skinned crybabies who are upset with combination of the browning of America, its trending towards secularism and women having economy agency. The question for me is — do we just gradually shift into a MAGA Nazi autocracy….or do we have a civil war?

Still don’t know which one will happen yet.

You Say You Want A Revolution: Jesus Fucking Christ, What The Fuck Is Going On In Israel?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

For a variety of geopolitical reasons, Israel is the clit of America’s foreign policy — very small, but very sensitive. As such, anything that happens with Israel potentially has massive political significance in America. At the moment, it definitely seems as though Israel may be on the cusp of nothing short of a revolution.

The thing that really bothers me is It Can Happen Here. In late 2024, early 2025, America could very well see itself suffering from the same bullshit happening in Israel at the moment.

It makes you think that maybe what’s going on in Israel and France are part of a broader crisis of Western democracy. Something is wrong with the otherwise stable democracies of the West and it definitely seem as though we’re careening towards a very, very dark and disruptive future.

Anyway. I hope everything works out with Israel. I don’t want any violence. But they say you go bankrupt gradually, then all at once and so….who knows….

The Death of Mass Media: Hard Fork, You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I was listening to The New York Times’ podcast “Hard Fork” and I was startled when they came up with a scenario for AI generated music that I have already gamed out for video entertainment — the idea that AI could, on the fly, generate entertainment out of whole cloth relative to what mood you might have at any particular moment.

It was spooky who hear people that others actually listen to come up with an idea I have already mulled. I felt their vision was way, way too limited. They were talking about music and so they said, “Hey, what are we going to do when AI can generate music on the fly that sounds like our favorite artists based on biometric sources?”

Think bigger, folks.

It won’t be music, but TV and movies that will be the most consumed by generative AI. Rather than listening to hours of AI generated Radiohead songs, what happens when you sit down in front of your smart TV and it does a quick face scan of you to determine your mood — then shoots out a TV show or movie that perfectly fits your mood at that specific moment.

What’s more, it would use a licensed database of full body scans of your favor actors to do this. So, it could be 30 years from now and we could all be watching very, very personalized Indiana Jones movies or TV shows to the point that mass media as we currently conceive it no longer exists.

But that’s really the end game of all of this — if everyone is watching AI generated TV shows and movies and listening to AI generated music….the idea of any sort of shared reality grows exceedingly quaint.

We already have problems talking to strangers at a bar because of the frayed nature of our shared reality. When everyone is watching very specific AI generated entertainment…oh boy. I suppose there might be a mass market for the entertainment generated by someone who is….really interesting?

But given how fucking lazy everyone and self-absorbed everyone is, it makes a lot more sense that one day in the not-too-distant future we’ll all entertain ourselves with such specific AI generated art that….lulz…everything will change overnight and we won’t even bat an eye.

Did Reddit Kill Rock?

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I recently saw someone posit a hypothesis that the reason why rock is no longer pop music is all the punks who would otherwise pick up a guitar and write a rock standard are now Incels on Reddit. This idea has given me pause for thought because it makes a lot of sense.

“Good music”

The fact that “good” music (relative to me) evaporated just about the time the iPhone came out does seem to lend a little bit of credence to this idea. We’re over due for a third wave of punk, if nothing else, which makes you wonder if something like all the punks being keyboard warriors rather than guitar heros has merit to it.

If nothing else, the idea that maybe the nature of adolescence has changed might be to blame for the lack of pop rock. I will note that there’s something else that’s really changed in pop music — women pretty much dominate all the good mainstream pop music these days.

While I’m all for sisters doing it for themselves, it would be nice for there to be some sort of balance. But, whatever. What do I know. No one listens to me and maybe they shouldn’t.

Trump Could, Unto Himself, Spark A Second American Civil War

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a guy I know through Twitter who assures me that all my hysterical fears about the possibility of either autocracy or civil war coming to America starting in late 2024, early 2025 are just that — hysterical fears. He makes the very cogent point that demographically, MAGA is on the losing side of history and it’s inevitable that the whole fascist American Nazi project will eventually fade into oblivion.

I constantly tell him I hope he’s right — and I really do.

And, yet.

The key thing I worry about is MAGA — KNOWS — that he’s right and, as such, they want to game the system so they can at least attempt to establish permanent white minority rule where the usual rules of a liberal western democracy don’t apply anymore. MAGA wants America to be an illiberal democracy so it just doesn’t matter the demographic situation — white Christians will always, always, be in control of the United States.

My concern is — would that transition into autocratic white Christian minority rule be peaceful? If Ron “Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer” DeSantis is the Republican nominee, then, yes. It will be peaceful. He will become president, become America’s Putin and that will be that. Gradually, wealthy, smug Twitter liberals will flee the country, leaving we Poors to our own devices.

But there is the issue of Trump.

Trump is such a strange historical figure that he could, unto himself, cause the United States to descend into civil war / revolution because he bungles the otherwise peaceful transition into autocracy. It could happen in a number of different ways.

It could happen when Trump wins the 2024 election and his policies are so radical and fascist that Blue States leave the Union because they refuse to bend a knee to autocratic MAGA Nazism. Meanwhile, if he LOSES, he could start a civil war when he demands Red States leave the Union so he can be the “rightful” president of a new neo-Confederate States of America.

A lot of any potential secession crisis starting in late 2024, early 2025 would be how ripe states like Texas, South Carolina, Arizona and Florida are to leave the Union should Trump begin to rant about how Reds need their own nation if he loses.

Meanwhile, I’m at a loss to tell you if a state like California would really leave the Union if it became clear that Trump’s second term would be so radical that the state would feel it had no choice but to secede. It could be that, lulz, it’s just not collective temperament of Blues to do such a thing when they can just mass-migrate out of the country.

One thing I would suggest you keep an eye on — calls for a Constitutional Convention on the part of MAGA. This idea is floating around the Far Right, where Trump usually gets his “best” ideas and, as such, it’s entirely possible that he may spook Blue states by demanding one be called in his second term. And, remember, DeSantis is also really interested in the movement to call up a Constitutional Convention.

‘A Disturbance In The Force’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something is giving me an uneasy feeling. I don’t know what it is, but I am suffering from a downlow case of the heebeegeebees. I feel like Something Big is about to happen, or maybe has happened and i just don’t know about.

This happens every once in a while and sometimes it’s nothing.

My fear is my subconscious mind has realized that the novel is just too long on an existential basis and I need to seriously work on a second tract novel that fits the sweet spot of 100,000 words.

I have a few scifi novel ideas that fit that bill that I can start to work on alongside the main thriller I’m working on. But, I don’t know. It could be something else. Maybe it’s really sinking in that it’s just taking me too damn long to get out of the first act of the second draft of the novel?

There are a lot of darker things I can think of that might be making me feel this way. Things that a lot more existential. Whatever it is, I would prefer to find out sooner rather than later.

Why I’m Still Alarmed At The Prospect Of MAGA House Republicans Using ‘Inherent Contempt’ Against Alvin Bragg

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The only reason why I keep babbling about the arcane idea of Congressional “inherent contempt” is hysterical MAGA Republicans in Congress seem determined to abuse their “hard” power to make the life of Alvin Bragg hell just because he wants to uphold the law.

Ugh.

Their latest idea is to ban the ability of state and local prosecutors to indict — you guessed it — former presidents. This is an absolutely bonkers idea that even if it passed the House would die in the Senate or be vetoed by Biden.

But I think that may be besides the point. The point of even looking into doing such a fucking fascist thing would be to give House Republicans the cover they need to demand Bragg come before them as part of the hearing process of writing the bill in the first place. If he keeps telling them to pound sand, they subpoena him and if he still won’t come, they sick the House Sergeant at Arms on him using inherent contempt and keep him in the tiny Capitol brig until they get what they want.

I am well aware of how fucking dark and hysterical this sounds, but, fuck, have you seen how…dark and hysterical…MAGA Republicans are these days? Something’s gotta give. America continues to careen towards something jaw-dropping in late 2024, early 2025, it’s just a matter of what it is.

At the moment, it seems we face a choice between sliding peacefully into MAGA Nazi autocracy and, well, a fucking civil war. It still could go either way at the moment.

I’m Really Beginning To Flesh Out My Protagonist’s Character

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s still going to take a lot longer than I had hoped to finish the second draft of this also too long (in word count) novel, but I’m really beginning to grow pleased with certain elements of it.

A general idea of what my heroine looks like in my mind.

Whomever is playing me in the simulation we call reality is really upping their game on the novel front, is all I can say. Things keep falling into place in a way that I sit back and take notice. I have established stakes. I have given my heroine a lot more motivation for her behavior.

I’m finally — finally — beginning to feel like I might be approaching that “potential” that the late Annie Shapiro claimed I had many moons ago. What’s more, I’ve doing my best to push my heroine to her limits. Instead of her just drifting through the story towards a general goal, I am really making her suffer in various ways — some spicy — so the overall novel is thought-provoking enough that people will actually feel compelled to finish the Goddamn thing.

Or maybe she looks more like this?

That has been a real problem — to date, the few times I’ve tried to get people to read the first draft of this novel they get all excited, promise to read it…then all but ghost me. I really, really need to think of ways to engage the reader to the point that they are willing to spend the time necessary to actually finish the novel.

I’m not there yet, but I’m getting there.