by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, this four novel series began as one novel that was started because of my personal white hot rage against the Trump Era. This morphed into two books because the story was just too big to be told in one novel. And then something happened that I totally did not expect — Trump lost.
As such, there came a point when I realized I needed to recalibrate the project. I was on the couch, just about asleep, when I realized something: I had a huge backstory in my mind for the two novels I was working on. So big, in fact, that I could write two novel-length stories about how we got to the opening of the first book in the two-book story.
That’s when I realized that a great way to “fix” the problem of Trump losing was to go backwards in time and tell those two “prequel” stories, then come back refreshed and with new eyes on the two modern-era books I was working on.
And that’s exactly what I’ve done.
Much to my delight, this plan has worked out quite well. I do have a lot of insecurity every once in a while about such a thing project, but the two additional prequel stories I’m working on are really strong and really compelling and so there you go.
The whole thing won’t make any sense until the whole project is finished and you can read the four novels all the way through and see my entire vision as a whole. But that comes with the territory of having a vision, I suppose. You have to have “paper” that people can read before most people are willing to accept that you know what you’re talking about.
It definitely would have helped if I had had a “muse” in my life to help guide me through this process. But, I guess, there’s just as much a chance that any woman in my life would have discouraged me from starting this whole thing to begin with. It has helped a lot, in some ways, that I have not had anyone to tell me “no.”
