Month: July 2020

I’ll Put A Move On You, Redux


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

People are always underestimating me. Always. In large part, this comes from I’m such an extroverted daydreamer that any normal person (if they’re paying attention) sees me as little more than a fool, and a drunk fool at that.

And, yet…

Things have changed. My life has changed significantly in the last year, affording me just the right set of circumstances necessary for me to be within shouting distance of actually being able to have the time necessary to develop and write a damn good novel.

So here I am. I’m completely, totally obsessed with this novel. It has consumed my every waking moment. So much so that sometimes I need to distract myself to get any work on it done. I’m so wrapped up obsessing about the exact sequence of events in the plot that my mind grows clouded and I need to read something or go for a walk. Anything to not think about the issue at hand.

But things are moving along quickly. I’ve finished “Part 1” of the novel, and now I’m well on my way to wrapping up development on the first draft of Part 2. I’m going to give myself some wiggle room in my timetable, however. It seems as though sometimes I need to just clear my mind a little bit before I can produce my best product possible.

Anyway, once more into the breach.

Of #MeToo & The Allegorical #Thriller I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me begin by saying I’m an idiot and don’t listen to me. I don’t know anything about anything. Go read something else. Having said that, I will note that it’s interesting there is something of a #MeToo subgenre that exists. Now, the issue is, the female rage that produced that subgenre is all very valid and I validate it.

In fact, only because I’m an asshole that I’ve decided, as a man, to embrace the #MeToo movement in as empathetic a manner as possible as a plot point in the thriller I’m writing. Of course, given what this novel is meant to be — a very diffused expression of my rage against the surreal excesses of the Trump Era –my hand is pretty much forced. I feel I have to address things like #MeToo and BLM for no other reason than, well, they’re crucial to understanding the historic clusterfuck we’re living through.

The only issue is, well, ME. I’m a middle aged white male member of the patriarchy and hence need to be slayed. But, like I said, I just don’t see how I can do what I want to do without wallowing in things like #MeToo and BLM. In that respect, I feel like I’m looking to Phoebe Waller-Bridge for inspiration. She doesn’t back down. She has her truth and she’s going to tell it, damn the consquences.

Anyway, that’s where I am right now. I’ve come up with a unique way to talk about #MeToo as an existential part of the novel I’m developing. But, like I said, I’m an asshole. Or, as the late Annie Shapiro would say, “a delusional jerk with a good heart.”

My Prediction For The Republican Party In A Post-Trump America


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The issue when thinking about the extremely unlikely possibility that we’ll actually physically get Trump out of the White House (no matter the outcome in the fall) is people think anything matters.

MAGA Republicans have gotten what they have wanted for 20 years — a big tax cut and a massive influx of young, hack MAGA judges on the Federal bench for 20 to 40 years. So, really, that’s what they’re going to focus about Trump going forward. That’s what they’ll pivot to.

Remember, we have about 20 years before the Graying of America crosses the Browning of America. As such, House Trump — even if somehow the lying, cheating and stealing they plan to do in the fall isn’t enough to keep them in power — will probably bounce back quite quickly. Trump will still have a Twitter account and a Rolodex of powerful people he can use after four years in office. He will, in effect, continue to be a one man Republican primary process.

And, remember, it was only six years from Nixon leaving office in 1974 to the Reagan Revolution of 1980. Six years. So, it seems pretty logical that MAGA is here to stay on a macro level, no matter what happens. When one of a democracy’s major parties doesn’t believe in democracy, well, that’s not something that is helpful to a liberal democracy at all.

Also, lurking in the darkness is a long-term goal on the part of the far Right to call up a Constitutional Convention so they can fuck everything up for good. It’s going to happen. It’s just a matter of details at this point. Either it happens in Trump’s second term, or it happens during Tucker Carlson’s first term. Or whomever.

My absolute certainty as to how doomed we are — and my absolute inability to do anything about it — is the source of the energy needed for me to develop and write a novel about how fucked up everything is right now.

I Have No Idea What I’m Doing With This #Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m simply an aspiring novelist. I have no idea what I’m doing. It amazes me that there are people who have been writing novel after novel for decades with no sign of letting up.

Developing this novel is a huge amount of work for me. All I have is my gut, some extra time and an absolute white hot rage against the Trump Administration and MAGA. I feel like I’ve made every mistake you can possibly make when it comes to developing this novel. And, really, that may be the ultimate take away from this project, regardless of its outcome — now I know how *I* write a novel (and, by extension, I suppose a screenplay.)

All I can compare this novel to is someone deciding to become a weightlifting champion in their middle age. It simply takes time to build up the bulk to get anywhere near that. So, I’m two years into the process.

I think my writing and storytelling has improved, but I continue to operate in a vacuum so I really don’t know. Maybe? I can’t get anyone to be my “reader,” so I still have nothing to work with other than my gut.

In hindsight, the biggest structural screw up I made was throwing myself into a conceit that, at the time, I simply was not up to telling properly. It’s taken two years of thinking (and reading) to get to the point where I think I may have figured out how to tell a story I pretty much thought up over the course of a few hours one weekend.

I really need to read more.

Trump Continues To Enrage Me & Inspire Me To Write



by Shelt Garner
@shetgarner

I’m a man of peace. A man of ideas.

I also feel extremely powerless right now. Trump is burning the country I love to the ground and, really, all I got is the ability to tell a good story. That’s the origin of me working on this novel for two years.

Every time I feel a bit uninspired or discouraged, Trump and MAGA do something that so enrages me that I redouble my efforts to explicate the Trump Era in an allegorical thriller. Though, to be honest, to call this an “allegorical” thriller is more how-the-sausage-is-made talk than anything else.

I *see* it as an “allegorical thriller” when, in fact, if I do my job right you, the audience, will simply see it as a thriller with an interesting conceit and that will be that.

I do need to hurry up with this thing, though. I simply have no idea what the context will be when I try to sell it. It will be a lot different if Trump is still in office than if he’s not. And there is the issue of setting. This is not “A Confederacy of Dunces” — my sister can’t sell it 11 years after my death.

This thing needs to be sold sooner rather than later. If it isn’t, then I will simply self-publish, finish the second book in the story and then, I dunno, maybe write a screenplay?

Developing and #Writing A #Novel Is A Marathon, Not A Sprint


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It looks a though it’s going to be the rest of the week before I can finish up Part 2 of the novel I’m working on. I have suddenly flashes of inspiration here and there that help the novel lurch forward.

But it’s all very haphazard.

It just takes come — and maybe a lot of booze — to see things in a different way. I’ve been developing this thing for two years and I have a lot of scenes established in my mind that I move around as needed. It’s when I have to think up entirely new scenes that things slow down.

But I’m pretty content right now. Things are moving forward.

I simply need to do a lot of reading when I’m not developing. I find reading really forces me out of my comfort zone. It helps me look at things in a different way because it distracts me, if nothing else.

I hope to wrap up development of Part 2 by the end of the week then I’ll start writing again. Hopefully. It takes time to sketch out individual scenes once I get the macro done.

‘Believe’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While I continue to worry someone is going to cherry pick from my development on this Website, I simply don’t know how they would actually do it. I guess I’ve explained the general gist of the novel, but I’ve never explained what’s going on in detail.

I guess it’s still possible, however.

I’m more worried about someone stealing a march on me than anything else. I’m worried about someone simply doing something so close to what I’m working on that it makes my novel moot.

But I am learning a lot about how to write a novel, so even if either one of those things happens, I should be able to bounce back pretty quick and throw myself into a different novel.

Jessica Chastain & A Major Character In The #Novel I’m Developing & #Writing



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Here I am again, doing the thing I hate so much — fucking preening about who might play a character in my “WIP.” And, yet, not only does no one read this blog but in the context of what I’m writing about it’s not THAT much annoying preening.

You see, I have no idea what I’m doing with this novel. I work almost entirely in a vacuum. I just have my gut to tell me what works and what doesn’t work. In fact, that’s probably been the biggest issue when it comes to development — I sometimes have to issues of equal value in my mind and I can’t figure out which is more important.

But one thing they tell you is in the second half of the novel, after the midpoint, you need one of two things: a death or the introduction of a new character. So, for me it’s a new character.

I really like the vibe Jessica Chastain puts out in her roles. So, I’ve modeled an important character that comes into the plot in the second half after her. Or, actually, she’s actually inspired by a woman I knew once who was Perfect. In fact, she was so perfect that she was completely unrelatable to anyone else. She was simply so close to The Ideal Woman that it was off putting to everyone else around her.

What’s worse, she was completely oblivious to this and was STILL unhappy with her life.

Anyway. She was beautiful, smart and funny. And very married.

I just decided to mix her up with Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty and ta-da! Character!

I haven’t gotten to her part of the story, yet. But I am looking forward to writing that character. She’s going to give my Hero hell.

The Stuff They Never Tell You About Developing & #Writing A #Novel



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the reasons why having an endless supply of rage against the Trump Administration comes in handy is you need a lot — A LOT — of energy to develop and write a novel, at least the way I’m doing it.

I spend way too much time on simple maintenance of some pretty prosaic things. I print shit out all the times and sometimes a hole punch will malfunction on me and I have to start all over again.

I spend a lot of time staring at my printer seething with rage against the Trump Administration, believing that there’s at least a chance that my writing might make a difference in some small way.

Maybe it’s delusional, but one man’s delusion in another man’s dream, or vision.

There’s a reason why writers — and other creative types — are often pretty much just crackpots. I’m using what limited skills I have in a very focused way. So, maybe I have a shot at changing the world, maybe I don’t. I have been called both “delusional and stupid” recently. And the late Annie Shapiro called me a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

As you can tell, me being delusional is a recurring theme with my critics.

Anyway. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.

But I am very focused. I’m very focused on my dream of writing a novel good enough that someone, somewhere reads it and wants to know what happens next.

‘The Company’ & My Wild Days In Seoul



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

This is an instance of me either being extremely delusional (which is very possible) or sensing something that is true. Way back when, when I was living in Seoul, I was a man on fire. I was EXTREMELY CONSPICUOUS. So much so, that it’s probably reasonably likely that…uhhh…some spooks…in Seoul probably at least were aware of me.

I say this only because given where it is, it seems reasonable to assume that Seoul is crawling with spooks. Like a whole lot. And when I was there, there was a huge fucking military base in the middle of the city. And I was frequenting places like Haebangchon that probably had some military intelligence people living there. (At least in my fevered imagination about a decade later.)

Anyway, the only reason I bring his somewhat (ok, maybe a lot) bonkers idea up is I keep getting the occasional ping in my Webstats from people looking at this Website from Seoul. It makes no sense. None. I haven’t been in Seoul for about a decade now and, so, what? Why? I have been talking to the FBI for the novel and I even went so far as to mention “The Company” to the FBI PR guy.

I dunno. Just seems logical that some long-term spooky people in Seoul might have gotten wind of what I’m up to and thought they would take a look at my Website to see what was up.

I don’t think you can fully appreciate how insanely conspicuous I was in Seoul at my “height.” I was so balls out nuts someone even put me in a book about crazy expats.

All I can say is, I’m a changed man. I’ve learned humility.