by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I’m currently developing a novel that aims to be a rather physological rumination of the Trump Era in the guise of a political spy thriller. I’ve been working on it for about a year now and it’s getting really, really good.
But there’s a problem.
Given when it’s set — the immediate past — the context might be far different than I could ever otherwise imagine. If Trump bungles the response to a brief, severe pandemic outbreak in the United States, enough people will finally hate him that I might be able to use his name in the novel. Right now, the novel is something of a scenario with *A* president not *THE* president involved.
But there are a lot of known unknowns. Trump could simply use the COVID19 situation to consolidate power in a big enough manner that I’ll be lucky not to be put in prison for the novel, much less having to worry about selling it.
I do think, however, that there’s likely to be a huge glut of new content in 2021 for no other reason than a lot of writers are going to be either inspired to finally finish their passion project or they’re going to be jiggled in some way out of their usual drunken stupor. (Or is that just me?)
Anyway. The point for me is to finish a novel for myself. That’s it. If I can get one person to read it all the way through and ask, “What happens next?” then all this work will be worth it. I just don’t want to embarrass myself.
