Tag: angst for the memories

Existential Angst Over My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find myself really struggling with the fact that my nightmare of someone not being willing to work with me after doing due diligence on me has come true and its implications.

I keep wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake by having my heroine be a part-time sex worker. Talk about self-doubt! And, yet, the key thing for me is the story is coherent and cogent. There is a logic to why I’ve decided to do this. I feel as though it makes the story really different and unique — just like me — and I feel as though fuck it, it’s the story I want to tell.

But I have to accept that between the inclinations of liberal white women — wink — and the “woke cancel culture mob” I’m not doing myself any favors by doing such a thing. It’s a risky thing to do, especially as an aspiring first-time novelist.

Mood.

And I only add to this problematic situation by using more than one POV and writing from a female POV at times.

But I have my vision for this novel and I am too stubborn to do anything about it.

I am, however, going to really begin work on my backup scifi novel. I’m proud of the main novel I’m writing — risks and all — but I’m smart enough to know maybe it’s time to accept how difficult pitching such a “racy” novel may be. I’m going to start working on the characters for the backup scifi novel ASAP.

‘I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Despite being an extrovert, I general lead a pretty isolated life. So I go about my business without a lot of interaction with people to give me some sense of how others perceive me. So, when my nightmare of someone deciding not to work with me on my novel after they did due diligence actually happened…it really rattled my cage.

I keep wondering if this is a sign that I should just give up. But the moment I think that, I am reminded that the problem probably isn’t the novel I’m working…but ME. The (young?) woman who did due diligence on me while considering being my editor probably didn’t like my musings about liberal white women or my ranting about this or that thing.

While, yes, obviously the fact that my heroine is a part-time sex worker probably made her blanch, the key issue is she thought I was a freaky weirdo. So, in a sense, there’s not much I can do — I’m going to have this particular problem no matter what type of novel I write.

So, in a sense this is kind of freeing. As long as I know the obstacles I face in my quest to get traditionally published then I can proceed as I was before. But I have to realize that, in a sense, I am creating just for the sake of creating. There’s pretty good chance that because of ME, I will never be published — ever.

Of course, despite this, I will have the personal satisfaction of having written a novel that *I* know is good, even if me being a kook prevents anyone with, like a career and shit, from ever giving me a chance. It helps that I have a huge chip on my shoulder about my writing ability and I want to prove the haters wrong.

Having said all that, I am determined to use some of my time on a backup scifi novel. Something that isn’t as “racy” as the main novel and fits the conventions of the modern novel better. It’s going to be difficult to do because, lulz, the main novel has completely consumed my life.

But, let’s rock.

Class Is A Very Corrosive Social Issue

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s very interesting how in America we’re so busy talking about racism that we are pretty oblivious to another prejudice: class. I can usually fake a similar class as the smug asshole Twitter liberals who want to sell me MeUndies on their podcast. That is, until, of course, my natural bonkers kookiness comes out and they dismiss me.

Also, I’m just too poor — at the moment — for smug Blue Check liberals to accept me in any real way, no matter how much they probably would like me if they got to know me.

And that, my friend, is why class sucks.

I could win the $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot and it wouldn’t change how old I am and it wouldn’t change my class background. I have a relative who is far more successful than I am who acts like he’s some salt of the earth red neck when, in fact, if we both went to a cocktail party with snooty wealthy people they would definitely gravitate towards him in the end.

I would, however, probably get drunk in such a situation and have very loud, very interesting conversations with the best looking woman at the party. That’s just sort of my thing.

Anyway, the older I get the more I understand the invisible power of class. When I was an expat in South Korea, there was a regular communist utopia going on because everyone was getting paid about the same amount and everyone was doing pretty much the same thing for a living. The only real differences were one of origin, which is why you often get asked, “Where you from?” when you saddle up to a bar and find yourself talking to someone new.

As I approach my 50th birthday, I’m feeling a lot of existential angst because no matter what happens to me there are some things I just can’t change because of my dissipated, squandered youth.

Strangers With Fate


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Reading the new U.S. Grant biography really resonates with me. For much of the 1850s, Grant was a big old nobody. He was a loser and a drunk. It was so bad that he didn’t even mention it in his landmark autobiography published soon after his death.

Or, more accurately, these days, I feel like the protagonist of Strangers With Candy (above). Or, at least, that how I fear people perceive me. I don’t really have a ready answer for that perception, either. If your metric is the traditional ones of mainstream success, then, well, I guess you got me figured out.

And, in all honesty, the point of life is to be the hero of your own story. That’s it. The moment you let others define you, you’ve give up. And, yet, I would take things one step further — Grant’s experiences in the 1850s prove that, as they say in Terminator II, “No fate but what we make.”

In less than 20 years, Grant went from a beaten down loser to President of the United States. This is something that literally happened. All he needed, of course, was, well, to win a civil war.

I don’t expect to win a civil war anytime soon, but I do know that I do have a unique skillset. I’m good at abstract thought. I’m good a strategic thought. I’m good in a crisis. Really, it’s just an issue of having an opportunity to use it at this point.

But I honestly can’t see how even if there was some earth shattering event how the roughly 100 million other people who would be in my way would part so I could have a fateful moment in the sun. Regardless, I have a novel to work on. I’m quite pleased with it. It’s a pretty good yarn. I just hope the planet doesn’t go tits up before I can try to sell it.