Month: July 2020

It’s Surreal How Much My #WIP’s #MC Looks Like #Zendaya In My Imagination



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

First, let me stress I fucking hate it when aspiring novelists preen about this or that actor would be perfect for the movie adaptation of the “work in progress.” Oh, Jesus. Just shut up and write.

But, I will note, in passing that the heroine the novel I’m working on IS Zendaya in my imagination. It’s not a perfect one-to-one for a very specific reason, but it’s spooky that I would independent of being any sort of Zendaya fan come up with a character that resembles her so much.

This is a novel, not a screenplay, so lulz. And I’m just an anonymous middle-aged man in the rural part of a flyover state so the probability of selling this novel is about the same as me winning the lottery.

And, yet, it is fun to occasionally daydream about such things. It’s all very much mental masturbation, of course, but no one reads this blog an I’m just talking to myself at this point.

I Really Like Kate Beckinsale



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I first became aware of Kate Beckinsale from her role in the movie “Cold Comfort Farm.” She seemed like your run-of-the-mill British actress and that was that. I kind of lost track of her after she started doing Underworld movies for her husband-director.

She recently caught my attention again because both her cat-friendly Instagram account and her brief relationship with Pete Davidson. I think she’s about my age and all I can say is wow-we-wow-wow. She’s a real babe now!

What makes her such a hoot is she’s obviously a freak. She keeps bouncing from boytoy to boytoy and it definitely puts a grin on my face. You go girl, as they say. Ms. Beckinsale’s conspicuous consumption of younger men is something I can really get behind. If guys can do it with younger women, why not older women with younger men?

Ms. Beckinsale seems like she’d be a lot of fun to hang out with. I wish her the best.

Let’s Talk About The Election Of 1988



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It seems as though a lot of people are comparing the lead that Michael Dikukus had after the 1988 Democratic Convention with the lead that Joe Biden currently enjoys.

I was not very old at the time, but I was politically aware to know that the bump Dikukus enjoyed in late July and early August was an anomaly. Reagan was a historically popular president and Bush was seen as his third term. Dikukus was about as exciting as drying paint.

No one seriously thought he was going to win.

So, 2020 and 1988 aren’t anything like each other. Trump is going to win, of course, because he’s a fucking fascist and fascists always win in the context of a dying democracy. In real terms, Trump’s fate is one person’s hands — his own. The issue is will Trump self-own to such an extent that he loses, or will he hold it together long enough to lurch into a stolen second term?

It’s stuff like that that you simply can’t predict.

But the point is — because Trump is a very incompetent fascist everything is up in the air that literally anything is possible.

MAGA As American Fascism



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about fascism is they don’t play by the rules of democracy. Or, if they do, they use the rules for their ultimate goal — to win. So, it seems as though 100 days before the 2020 election there are two macro trends happening at the same time.

On one hand, we have about 240 years of liberal democratic tradition all pointing towards Biden having a decent shot at winning a major victory against Trump in the fall.

Meanwhile, we have the “new rules” of the fucking fascist MAGA movement, which means, lulz, fuck you Trump’s never leaving office.

So, what I guess I’m saying is, when the dust settles, Trump is going to still be in office come Jan. 20, 2021. He’s simply never leaving office. I say this with the likelihood that he’s going to demand a Constitutional Convention at some point in his stole second term in the back of my mind. He’s going to be around for the next 10-15 years being more and more crazy and more and more criminal. Then we’re going to have a series of Trumps for the next few decades until the Graying of America crosses the Browning of America and AOC, I don’t know, manages to overthrow the government about 2050.

I can’t predict the future — I don’t know exactly how this is all going to work out — but that’s definitely where the macro political trends in the United States are pointing right now. The center-Left is so busy scoring density politics points on Twitter, that they’re completely oblivious to how they might need to address the fascist infection in real life.

Real “resistance” is hard work. You have to risk things that are important to you. There’s no assurance that you will live. There’s no assurance that you won’t be anymore than a number. And, really, the actual number of people who will resist MAGA tyranny is probably going to be pretty small.

It’s kooks and cranks like me who will have to take up the burden because I have principles and will refuse — absolutely — to shut up when everyone around me tells me I had better do so “for my own good.” I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas. And I’m not going to be violent. That’s just not me. But will note that sometimes you can have a shit tone of guns and not do jack squat.

For instance, when Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815, he famously stood before a huge army and told them to shoot “their emperor” if felt so inclined. They had all those weapons. They could have killed him on the spot. But they didn’t they made him their leader and they rode to Paris, starting the 100 Days.

I’m not comparing myself to Napoleon — that would be pretty bonkers — but I am saying that history is made by people with nothing to lose. For me — a bonkers loser in the middle of nowhere — to be of note in anyway, things would have had to have grown extremely dire.

So, hopefully, while things are obviously going to get REALLY BAD in Trump’s stolen second term, they won’t get SO BAD that I have to use my native skillset for anything other than developing and writing a novel.

Ok, Back To #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have rested long enough. Today, after I do my usual Sunday morning ruminating, I’m going to sketch out some scenes and get back to writing. This is just a first draft, so I have to give myself permission to write crap.

The issue about writing a first draft is, at least for me, it helps to give later consistency to the story because once it’s done I can print it out, read it through and use the annotations to make a much better second draft. There’s a whole lot I simply don’t know when it comes to the details of all of this — how long is it really going to take to write two drafts? I’d like to wrap up the second draft by Thanksgiving, but that seems like it might be pushing it.

I have a huge amount of reading to do, as well. A lot of the reading I have to do is to flesh out characters. Right now, a number of important characters are paper thin and only by doing a significant amount of reading can I make them far better. My bad guys aren’t really all that bad and my heroes aren’t really all that deep. I have some ideas as to how to fix that issue, but it’s going to take some reading to do.

The thing that is really at the forefront of my mind with this novel is how old I am. In general, conventional wisdom is if you don’t have a career in the arts (showbiz) by your early 30s, then, lulz. So, if I somehow win the lottery with this novel and write a break out novel, my age is going to be the angle that a lot of people use.

I find this very irritating because I can’t help how old I am. I should be judged on the merits of the work, not how old I was when I wrote it. Age is much like gender or race — it’s totally out of your control. Not everyone has the luxury of living a “normal” life and, as such, you shouldn’t be judged if maybe you’re about 20 years older than you’re “supposed to be” to sell your first novel.

I also find — if what they produce on Twitter is any indication — many of my peers writing novels to be insufferable. I don’t care how many words you’ve written. I don’t care who you think should play your MC of your WIP in the movie version. Give me a fucking break.

I’d much rather hear about your personal philosophy on writing than such preening bullshit. Now, I’m the first to admit that I often do similar things on video on Instagram or on this blog, but I feel that the context is different. I’m just talking to myself because I have no friends and no one likes me. I’m operating in a vacuum and all the talking I do about the novel is out of sheer desperation, not some preening need to prove I can write 3,000 words in a day.

Also, I get the sense that a lot of the established writers out there probably wouldn’t take me very seriously, even if I did managed to sell this novel. I’m not snooty or pretentious enough. I don’t take myself very seriously and I’m an extreme extrovert. (Hence all the talking into the void about the novel.)

Anyway. I’m looking forward to getting back to writing.

Trump’s Second Term



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here are a few of the things that will happen in Trump’s stolen second term. Please remember, that even if somehow we miraculously get him out of office, any number of these things could happen later under the presidency of a “National Conservative.”

Leaving NATO
Trump has flirted with this idea repeatedly the last four years. And it seems as though once he’s safely in his stolen second term, this is something he will again turn his attention to. I could see some sort of surreal alliance with Russia taking place over the course of his second term.

Purge of Late Night Hosts
This is one of those things that will happen so quickly and ostensibly so mysteriously that the average person will be upset for a few days but ultimately go back to raising their kids and paying their mortgage. There might be a few protests in major cities, but ultimately all that will happen is the purged late night hosts will endup on a streaming service or a podcast. They will still be around, but their cultural relevancy will be greatly reduced.

Widespread Snatching of People
The snatching taking place in Portland will become common place across the country. People will simply vanish. Upon the first reports, there might be some concern, like there was with family separations at the border, but this will pass soon enough. Gradually, these abductions will become so common place that it will be just a fact of life that people accept. As Trump’s second term continues, the snatching will graduate to pushing people out of windows like they do in Russia. It will become, again, just another part of life.

Constitutional Convention
We are already extremely close to a Constitutional Convention as it is. I think it’s about five states away at this point. Trump will demand one because he believes its absolutely necessary to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. He might even sell it to liberals by saying such a convention will take up the issue of the ERA while it’s at it. Of course, the vast majority of state legislatures — the government bodies that would pick attendees to this convention — are MAGA and so the whole thing will be an excuse to pass American Enabling Acts.

‘The Vision Thing’ #AmWriting



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lot to say about the Trump Era. So much, in fact, that I’m allowing a novel I’m developing and writing that gives me about 165,000 words to vent to completely consume my life.

The thing about this novel is I feel compelled to keep working on it despite the massive amount of thinking I have to do because every day sees another enraging fascist act on the part of the Trump Administration. So every time I feel a bit discouraged at how much work I have ahead of me still, I simply look a Twitter for a few minutes and am, again, enraged.

I feel very powerless about the United States being a fascist state. I honestly can’t do much about it for various reasons. But I can tell a good story and love, love, love to write, so here I am. I have a number of decent stories I may piviot to once I finish the two books associated with this story I’ve come up with. But I have way too much invested in this specific project to look elsewhere just yet.

There are at least a half a dozen scenes that I really want to write sprinkled throughout the two novels I have planned and so I keep going. Add to this the huge fucking chip on my shoulder I have about people telling me how much I suck in general and, well, ain’t no stopping me now.

One thing I will point out is I will about once a week take a little bit of a breather from the novel to think . I’m very grateful for the opportunity I have at the moment to be able to do this. This special moment in time won’t last forever and so I need to stop dilly-dallying and start getting to work again as soon as possible whenever such a pause happens.

Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting back to actually writing the first draft again. I really need to make this thing darker, because right now it’s pretty much just The World According to Garp with guns.

There’s so much that can go wrong with this project, but as my dad says, “No one ever got anywhere in this world with taking a risk.”

‘Vichy America,’ Or: I Know Way Too Many Fucking Fascists



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarer

Repeatedly over the last few days, I’ve found myself talking to people who were American fascists. Such fascists make a point of establishing that the United States is a “constitutional republic” and not a democracy. To me, this seems a pretty obvious setup to crowing when Trump steals the election in the fall and somehow magically remains president after, on a democratic level, he loses.

Another interesting thing is how absolute these fucking fascists are in their support for Trump. They crow that we should expect “36 years” of Trump rule. They say this nearly in the same breath as the one they just used to talk about the United States not being a democracy but a “constitutional republic.” Having a family stay in power that long definitely doesn’t sound like a republic to me.

Of course, I guess these shithead fascists would would bob and weave when I pointed out that under their definition of a “constitutional republic.” Russia is one, too. Which, of course, is what they want. What I see as a tragedy, the see as “making America great again.” They want the very nightmare of a fascist America that I desperately hope to avoid.

The even greater irony is these very same people are extremely delusional (at least relative to what I find demonstrable) by saying things like I’m going to “have to learn Russian and Chinese” if Biden wins. Given what a fucking suckup Trump to both President Putin and President Xi, this seems a dubious suggestion to say the least.

But the whole point is, not since Vichy France has a democracy so willingly allowed itself to slip into tyranny. I read a lot of people talking about how the Republican Party needs to be burned to the ground after Trump (should this ever happen), but this is extremely clueless.

Trump is the Republican Party and the Republican Party is Trump. Even under the best of scenarios, neither he nor the Republican Party are going anywhere and he’s likely to continue use his absolute control over the GOP to destroy what’s left of any form of liberal democracy in the States. Instead of living in a dream world, we need to start to figure out how we’re going to survive in fascist America for the next 20 to 40 years.

The Republican Party has a bloodlust for absolute power that, to date, has been mitigated by how bonkers and incompetent The Dear Leader is. There are about a dozen would-be successors to Trump who are younger, more focused and a lot less incompetently bonkers who are comping at the bit to finish the process Trump began.

As I’ve said before, someone like Trump was bound to become president at some point between 2016 and 2024 for demographic reasons, if nothing else. Something about Obama’s second term turned the Republican Party into fascists and Trump was the vessel for our decent into fascism.

In real terms, a lot of this fascism is simply the modern equivalent of the Roman Republic becoming the Roman Empire. So, in a sense, the only thing stopping House Trump — or whomever the fuck else — from simply going full Darth Vader on us is what kept the Roman Empire from never actually having a “king” — it goes against America’s collective self-perception too much.

While it is inevitable that the 1st and 4th Amendments will be…uhh…radically reinterpreted in Trump’s stolen second term, even if he does, somehow leave office, then that very same reinterpretation will happen under a President Pompeo or President Cotton. All Trump did was slice the seal on tyranny.

On a macro demographic level we are all very much fucked and there’s nothing we can do about it but either get out of the country or think about what we’re going to say when the Little Green Men finally come for us.

Giving Myself The Right To Be Delusional With This #Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m completely delusional about this novel, at least relative to the metrics that a “normal” person would use. A “normal” person would look at what’s going on and say I’m wasting my time for a number of reasons and I should just “write a short story” to see if I can get anything published.

Those people can suck it.

Sometimes, being an eccentric is an advantage. I know I’ve come up with a really engaging, interesting conceit and I have the writing ability to pull it off. But I also have a very brutal internal editor and that slows things down a great deal because I have very exacting — if rather arbitrary — demands on how this novel is, among other things, structured.

The key thing I have to remind myself is this is a marathon, not a sprint and if I take an occasionally little break of a few days, it’s not the end of the world. I have an outline that I keep struggling with and the whole thing is very, very draining because I’m operating in a vacuum and continue to be extremely paranoid that either someone is going to “steal” my idea or someone else is going to independent of me “steal a march” on me.

But I keep going.

If I had not invested so much already in this novel and didn’t have the momentum I have, I would probably just give up and turn to a different concept. But I really like the characters, plot and canon I’ve come up with this novel and so unless some outside event occurs that proves to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this specific creative project is moot, I’m pushing forward bit by bit like I have been for about two years.

Yet More IP Paranoia



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I honestly think I’m in the clear with the specific IP issue I’m worried about with the novel I’m working on. Given the exact circumstances of what I’m developing, it would be something of a stretch to get mad about it. It’s just I know how the real world works and, lulz, people sue just because they think they can get some money out of you if you’re successful.

One of my down-the-rabbit-hole fears is that IP lawyers are monitoring this blog so they can use my public ruminations against me in a later law suit. Given that I’ve not publicly stated what my fear is all about — and I’m a nobody at this point — I honestly don’t see how that’s the case.

That’s the thing I really hate about being obsessed with Webstats — I know where someone came from, but I have no idea WHY they came to my site. I, of course, always assume the absolute worst, so I go to great lengths to justify my fears that someone is going to steal my idea or use what I’m mulling in a vague-if-public-way against me in a later lawsuit.

But, really, you have to make your decisions on what you do know, not on what you don’t know. Everything — everything! — you do creatively comes with risks. From the whole thing being a dud, to someone, somewhere finding a reason to sue you or take credit for all your hard work.

So, really, either I can stare out into space in fear of what MIGHT happen, or I can keep going as fast as I can.