Month: November 2022

A Novel Project Milestone

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Just today, I reached a milestone — a very viable and complete outline of a first draft of my first novel. It’s probably going to be in the 130,000 – 140,000 word range, but still. It’s at least something that’s strong enough that I can turn around and rewrite it so I can start entertaining Beta Readers in late spring 2023. This is happening in the context of having finished the writing of all but the third act of this first draft.

Obviously a huge amount could still go wrong. Or the context could change. But I’m feeling pretty good at the moment, at least. There is rhythm, and ebb and a flow to this first draft and I can really build on. I need to do a massive amount of reading, of course, if I’m going to take this thing to the next level.

I really need to flesh out some of my characters, if nothing else.

And given that this first draft is going to be too long, I’m going to have to think about how to pare back the word count some. I’m going to try — try — to get it down to as close to 100,000 words as possible for the second draft. I really don’t want to have to pay an editor to do that type of dirty work for me.

Though, to be fair, I continue to do all of this in a vacuum and I continue to flail around, not knowing exactly what the fuck I’m doing. But that’s getting better. The learning curve isn’t as bad as it has been over the years.

I can now turn my attention (some) to the other novels in the series. Though I think I may have to pay someone to talk to me about how to flesh out the second novel. It’s got a great conceit — an abducted baby — but, well, that’s pretty much all I got. But I do have a lot of established characters and an extensive canon to work with to do just that.

But it’s times like these when I sigh a huge sigh of relief. I don’t feel like I’m drifting through space, without any frame of reference with this novel project. Now I feel centered — I can now sit down and finish writing third act, which, would also mean I had finished the first draft.

Then I do a lot of reading, daydreaming and development on the other novels in the series — and begin writing the second draft so I can begin the Beta Reader process in around April – May.

That, at least, is the dream, the goal at the moment.

Mr. Smith Goes To Trumplandia

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The amount of liberal adoration that Bob Mueller got during his ill-fated investigation into Trump is embarrassing in hindsight. We were all so wrapped up in the post Watergate narrative that was solidified by Whitewater and Ken Starr that we were completely and totally oblivious to what was really going on.

Special Counsel Jack Smith

In a sense, the Mueller investigation was the best thing that could have happened to Trump because liberals were able to channel their alarm over Trumplandia into the idea that at any moment it would be “Mueller Time.”

It wasn’t until that was all over that we had to sit up and take notice as to how fucked we are. Trump was and is totally and completely above the law. He is so above the law that now that we have ANOTHER Special Counsel, we all in something of a clusterfuck.

The reason is — if Jack Smith is who we thought Bob Mueller was and indicts Trump, the “fun” has just begun. Any criminal accountability for Trump will only make the MAGA base cling to him tighter. Trump wins the nomination and, if need be, steals the 2024 election in such a brazen manner that he forces Blue States to decide, on an existential basis, if they’re going to be a knee to autocratic fascist MAGA or not.

So, in a sense, all paths in Jack Smith’s Choose Your Own Adventure future leads to Trump pretty much single-handedly either transitioning the United States into a Russia-style autocracy or causing a civil war. It’s a very damned-if-you-d0-damned-if-you-don’t situation. I suppose you could say that if Smith slow walks any indictment of Trump then there’s a chance that DeSantis might at least cause our transition into autocratic MAGA fascism to be peaceful.

That’s a very “Not great Bob,” situation all around.

I suppose the point is — as long is Trump is around, America is fucked. Or, put another way, as long as he’s around the risk of civil war is greater than it might be otherwise. We’re still fucked – and might still have a civil war with or without Trump — but even though he’s not a Great Man, he is still able to cause a lot problems. He is a chaos agent caused by the browning of America combined with GenZ’s changing views on gender and accountability. Throw in the Soft Singularity of social media….and, oh boy. Man, are we fucked.

There are just no simple answers as to what to do about Trump. Barring aliens landing on the White House front lawn, Republicans are going to win the 2024 election and we will face the choice of autocracy, civil war or military junta. We can’t just keep punting all of our problems down the road anymore. Things are going to come to a head in 2024 – 2025 one way or another.

So, in a sense, I think Smith should just go ahead and indict Trump and let the chips fall where they may. At least he would go down fighting. It’s better to metaphorically die on your feet than live on your knees a slave.

Of ‘Wokeness’ & Hollywood

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The thing about trying to understand what it means to be “woke” is the two sides see the concept so differently — and its use has become so loaded — that it’s very, very difficult to pin down exactly what the fuck it actually means in real terms.

For people on the center-Right, the term “woke” is a dog whistle used whenever they want to essentially “Red Pill” the audience into thinking the center-Left wants to “cancel” anyone white straight Christian who doesn’t want to be “submit” not just to the forces of America’s majority minority future, but be gay and secular to boot.

Meanwhile, this weird definition of what it means to be “woke” so confuses the issue that the term can pretty much mean anything it needs to mean at any particular moment for a center-Right person. For me, being “woke” is when someone from the Left of me attacks me on some cultural issue and I get really angry because we’re on the same side! The side that wants to defeat the rise of fascist, autocratic MAGA.

Generally, I believe the “woke agenda” rather pragmatic, given the changes demonstrably taking place within America’s population. So, in that sense, whenever a MAGA cocksucker starts ranting about the “woke cancel culture mob,” it’s really a rearguard action against general societal changes happening within the country at the moment.

But I even I have to admit that sometimes the center-Left is full of shit. And oversensitive shit, to boot. They can really get worked up about the minutiae of genders and pronouns, which leaves me extremely frustrated because of how democracy itself is at stake.

I’m also really annoyed with “woke Hollywood” and how they’re pretty oblivious to what audiences want at the moment. The producers of “woke” films are so busy sucking their own cocks that when they fail with yet another gay romcom they get all upset and dismayed — oblivious to the fact that MAYBE the average movie goer isn’t really all that interested in a gay romcom? I validate the gay romcom’s existence, but maybe the producers of such films should temper their expectations just A LITTLE BIT.

Meanwhile, the mood of the country is such that movies like “She Said” are dismissed by audiences as just another angry feminist “woke” movie. I say this as someone who loved the book the movie is based on and know that if the country wasn’t so fucking polarized at the moment, maybe movies like “She Said,” which apparently is a lot like the vastly more successful “Spotlight” might more mainstream success.

It is dismaying to me how the people on one of my favorite podcasts — Little Gold Men — can really be clueless as to what the average movie goer wants. I love the podcast a great deal, but, folks, did you really think Bros was going to be a mainstream hit? Really? Even if it was a regular gay Annie Hall is was going to face an upstream battle to garner any success.

Bros and other gay romcoms are coming out in the middle of the clusterfuck of the Gay Scare of 2022 and so…uhhhh….they’re probably doomed to be, like She Said, dismissed by general audiences as “too woke.”

Anyway. I think there is a media space for movies like Bros and Spoiler Alert and She Said. But maybe not right now. That’s just not the zeitgeist. The country is tearing itself apart and if you produce a movie that in any way could be thought of as “woke,” then, well, I would, like I said, temper your expectations some.

I suppose when we have a National Divorce and a Second American Civil War that the sticky wicket of what it means to be “woke” as well as “woke Hollywood” will finally get straightened out and we won’t have to worry about that anymore.

Too bad we’re going to have to bomb ourselves into the Stone Age to gain that satisfaction.

If I Get My First Novel Published, I May Start A Side Hustle As A Manuscript Consultant

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am just about to plunge into the third act of the first draft of my first novel and, as such, I find myself thinking a few steps into the future. Maybe a lot of steps into the future.

It has occured to me that if I can just get my first novel published, that will opened a lot of doors for me. The specific opportunity I’m thinking about is being able to consult OTHER people about THEIR manuscripts. I am very, very brutal with my own work — I recently restructured the novel I’m working on so I cut out about 50,000 words — and I like to think of myself as personable enough that I could pull it off.

I am a little nervous that I might hurt the tender hearted writers I would work with. As a journalist, I’m pretty used to people editing my stuff and being hateful about it…but from what I can tell from the Twitter writing community….there are a lot of writers who are so sensitive that they fold if you give them anything other than effusive praise.

I’m not going to pretend that I don’t get fucking enraged when someone gives me dumb input…that sometimes, after some though, I realize was right. But usually when that happens, it’s the person giving me the advice goes about it all wrong.

Anyway, we’ll see. I am still sad that I may begin a new career just as everyone else my age is checking their watch, thinking about what they’re going to do in retirement. I just can’t help what happened to my life up till now. All I can do is just try to be the best person I can be and squeeze as much fun — and success — out of life before I croak or otherwise become incapacitated.

Speaker Trump? Allegedly, At The Moment, Kevin McCarthy Lacks The Votes to be Speaker of The House

by Shelt Garner
@sheltganer

But for what a fucking lazy idiot Trump is, I would believe that Trump is going to swoop in and become Speaker of the House when Kevin McCarthy fails to get enough votes to get the gig.

Even I, someone who loves to speculate widely, don’t think Trump is going to be Speaker — for a number of reasons. The chief reason is while for normal people with normal abstract cognitive abilities, Trump being Speaker makes a huge amount of sense…this is Trump we’re dealing with.

Trump is so fucking lazy and stupid that I just don’t think he could wrap his little peabrain around the idea of all the damage he could do as Speaker. He has his mind and heart set on being POTUS again and that’s that. I think maybe if Ivanka were to explain how delightful the revenge of taking the Speaker’s gavel away from Nancy Pelosi would be like…maybe he might think about it?

What I think is going to happen is there will be a little bit of a kerfuffle when the vote for Speaker happens, then McCarthy gets it…and then we spend two years with the Senate standing as jury when all these people from the Biden Administration are impeached — some of them more than once!

President Biden
It’s pretty clear to me that a Republican House will be so full of spite and rage and bloodlust for revenge that it’s very possible they may accidently on purpose impeach Biden for no apparent reason in the early days of 2023. It will be so transparent as to what is going on that House Republicans are going to do severe political damage to themselves. But it won’t matter — that political damage would only matter if we were a functioning democracy. But we’re no longer a functioning democracy, we’re in between autocracy and democracy — in other words, an “anocracy.”

There are at least two reasons why Biden will be impeached. One is, of course, his wastrel son Hunter Biden. The other is the “border crisis.” The big issue is will these be two seperate impeachments so Democrats will not longer have Trump being impeached twice as a talking point, or if these two issues will be fused together into one event.

At the moment, I honestly don’t know. There’s always a chance that MAGA Republicans will impeach Biden THREE times, for two reasons. They both scream at the top of their lungs that Biden is the only president to be impeached three times and at the same time they can, expo facto say it’s no big deal that Trump was impeached twice.

Veep Harris
I have no idea why House Republicans will impeach Harris, but they’ll think of something. Just the idea that they could somehow impeach and convict Biden and Harris in quick succession is enough to give them all a boner and they have no self control so they’re going to do it at some point between 2023 and 2025.

DHS Secretary Mayorkas
As I understand it, there’s already a move afoot by House Republicans to hit the ground running impeaching Mayorkas for his handling of the “border crisis.” So, there’s every reason to believe that he’s going to be impeached at some point between 2023 and 2025.

HHS Secretary Becerra 
This is a bit more speculative, but I could see that once the impeachment counter-revolution gets going that House Republicans will set their sights on Becerra for something connected to “gender affirming” care of minors. That seems like just the type of culture war edge issue that MAGA House Republicans would want to wallow in for a few months to prove a point. I could also see a potential impeachment article surrounding the Biden Administration’s handling of COVID — even though it was Trump who fucked that particular situation up. Who cares about facts when you have lies?

Education Secretary Cardona
This is also rather speculative, but once the monster of impeachment is unleashed, House Republicans may go after Cordona on the nebulous charge of encouraging “critical race theory” in schools — even if this is total bullshit. They just want to be able to hold hearings where they rant about CRT for hours on end. It will juice the base while “owning” the libs.

FBI Director Wray
If this happens, it will be a prime example of how wrapped up in their own bullshit MAGA House Republicans will be once they have power. Wray is ON THEIR SIDE and they will still come after him because something something Deep State.

Attorney General Garland
This is obvious — MAGA Republicans are so blinded by their anger over the Mar-a-Lago raid that they want to impeach Garland for approving it, despite it being totally justified given what Trump did.

There could be a few Federal judges that spark MAGA ire that will be impeached as well.

The Challenge Of The Second Novel In This Planned Six Novel Project

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, I’ve reaffirmed to myself that I’m going to write six novels within the same universe in an open ended manner so it could be the basis of a continuing series of novels. I now have to begin working on the second novel, set in the summer of 1995.

It’s a lot of fund and huge challenge. I pretty sure things will move a lot — a lot — faster with this second novel because I know how *I* develop and write a novel. But there is the challenge of fleshing out a plot which currently consists of the longline, “A baby is abducted under mysterious circumstances.” That’s it. That’s pretty much all I know about this second novel at this point.

But, just like the first novel, I think a combination of doing a lot, A LOT, of thinking and occasionally paying someone to ask me questions about the plot will ultimately allow me to figure out how to populate a novel of 100,000 words with plot and characters that people will want to hang out with.

It’s times like these when I wish I was writing screenplays not novels, because I could probably knock out three or four screenplays in quick succession if I knew as much about writing screenplays and I currently do about writing novels. In fact, if I manage to sell my first novel, I may try to build a side hustle as a manuscript consultant.

Though, I am so brutal with my own writing, I’m afraid I would hurt people’s feelings should they come to me looking for advice.

Anyway, I have a few scifi novels rolling around in my mind, but I’m just not prepared to get too far away from the universe of this thriller series I’m working on. But, if nothing else, I’m overwhelmed with creative needs, which is exactly what I wanted when I started this project several years ago.

Hurry up!

All of my excess mental energy is now devoted to working on fleshing out the plots of six novels of about 100,000 words. But I have to hurry up. I can’t wait years and years to get this done. I need to query the first novel in fall 2023 and try to sell it as soon as possible.

I know I’ve come up with something pretty cool and not only am I not going to embarrass myself, I’m pretty sure I can even sell the first novel in this universe in less than, say….a year? Maybe. I don’t know.

All I know is I have to stop being wifully delusional. I have to start thinking about these novels in the context of the market and actually selling them to a publishing house.

Wish me luck.

The Life (And Death) Of The Heteronormative Monoculture

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I grow older,I find myself missing things like Playboy and the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show. I also miss the good old days when Hollywood told simple, heteronormative stories that were Just Movies with no “woke” agenda that was beaten into the audience’s skull.

To even talk about the existence of heteronormative monoculture in a wistful, positive way causes some cultural warriors on the Left to spit blood out of their eyes. At the risk of sounding “Red Pilled” I definitely feel as though cultural Leftists are doing themselves no favors by making people feel bad about wishing heteronormative monoculture still existed.

I am well aware of the very dark backstories of both Playboy and Victoria’s Secret, but I think there was an air of tradition about them back when they existed. They were comfort food for everyday people for decades. There was no sense that they had to feel bad for being straight and traditional.

But here we are — even things as basic as liking hot chicks in various forms of undress is a partisan issue. Yet, I think we’ve lost something with the demise of Playboy and Victoria’s Secret. I suppose, of course, that with the rise of internet porn, Playboy’s demise was inevitable.

Combine this with the collapse of the print publishing business and the shocking revelations about Hugh Hefner and, well, lulz. And, in its own way, Victoria’s Secret was just as bad. There was a lot of dirty dealing going on in the shadows when it comes to Victoria’s Secret.

But such things are inevitable when you’re dealing with the most beautiful women in the world. It’s just at some point, we as a culture decided the trade off wasn’t worth it. It’s just sad — at least to me — that gorgeous women in small towns don’t have the Playboy route to showbiz career as a viable choice anymore. And walking the Victoria’s Secret runway was a real dream for a lot of drop dead gorgeous women.

Now, it seems the “woke cancel culture mob” wants everyone to be gay, fat and ugly and they punish people who have the temerity to be anything other than that. (That is what my Traditionalist relatives seem to believe, at least.)

I just wish there was some middle ground. I think a lot of what I’m feeling is just being old. Things aren’t what they used to be and I have to accept that. Barring a Great Reset that causes us all to go back to the way things used to be….this is it. No more Playboy with cultural relevance and no more Victoria’s Secret Fashion show.

Psyching Myself Up For The Developmental Process Of This Second Novel In A Projected Six Novel Project

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

So, here we are. I haven’t even finished the first draft of the first novel and now I’m thinking seriously about development for the second novel in this massive, overwhelming six novel project.

The key things I have to think about are plot, character and character motivation. I think I’m going to re-read a number of books I’ve already read in an effort to remind myself about some of the nitty-gritty elements of how to build out a novel from the ground up.

The plot of this second novel is far similar — a baby is abducted.

In fact, I’m thinking seriously of referencing that plot point in the title. At the moment, I have no idea what the title of the second novel will be. I have an idea for the third novel, but the second novel…I dunno. And, honestly, I still have only a vague idea of the plot.

I hope to use my planned “pause” between the first and second drafts of the first novel to game out the plot and character of the second novel. Something to keep me busy developing and writing inside the already existing universe.

There is something of a trade off to all of this, of course. Even though I enjoy staying in-universe, there are a number of other stories (most of them scifi) that I’m interested in exploring. And that doesn’t even begin to address the stray screenplay that I’m interesting in writing at some point before I drop dead.

I suppose I have to just accept that I have a limited amount of time on the green earth of ours and I have to just make the best of the time I have. It is ironic, of course, that I’m struggling to sell my first novel just as a lot of other (successful) people are checking their existential watches, thinking about retiring.

Ugh. I hate being old. I hate being a late bloomer. But, I can’t help what’s happened in the past, I have to work with what I have going forward.

My Hot Take On Jonathan Chait’s Belief That Trump Won’t Burn Everything To The Ground in 2024

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find the idea that Trump, who nearly destroyed American democracy specifically because of his own vanity, will ultimately fold like a house of cards if he loses the 2024 Republican nomination to Ron DeSantis.

I read his piece on this idea and what he suggests is, in fact, compelling. Trump does have a history of unexpecting folding when he hasn’t gotten what he wanted.

Here’s what Jonathan Chait has to say on the subject:

More important, it would be uncharacteristic for Trump to allow his grudges to get in the way of his clear self-interest. Trump does lash out wildly at anybody who disrespects him, but he also turns on a dime and makes friends with his former enemies. You can see this pattern in the way he lashed out at the likes of Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio before reconciling on the basis of mutual interest.

What interests would Trump have in common with DeSantis? For one thing, DeSantis could offer Trump legal protection — either pardons or immunity from additional prosecution. Second, DeSantis already commands a massive fundraising network, and as the Republican nominee, he would hold enormous power over various revenue streams around the party, ranging from its scam PACs to its media outlets. DeSantis would be in a position to make sure Trump is very well compensated in return for an endorsement.

I suppose all of what Chait posits is credible, and, yet, Trump continues to slide into some form of deranged dementia. I’m not 100% sure that Trump is still a “rational actor.” As such, it seems possible that Trump could be so filled with narcissistic rage over losing the nomination to DeSantis that he runs under the Patriot Party rubric and splits the conservative vote to the point that a Democrat is able to win again in 2024.

But I’m not prepared to assume that it is even possible for Trump to lose the nomination. The base still loves ding-dong Trump because he continues to be an avatar for white Christian rage about how Blue states use soft power to make them feel bad for…being white Christians.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is — I wouldn’t be so sure to assume anything about malignant ding-dong Trump’s willingness to allow DeSantis to be the Republican nominee, even if he would assure he would get legal protection. I would suggest that January 6th may have been a lot more significant in Trump’s move towards being a very lazy autocrat than we might think.

In other words, if Trump is willing to destroy American democracy out of sheer vanity, there’s no reason to believe he wouldn’t at least seriously entertain the idea of destroying the Republican Party’s for the same reason. Trump is a fighter and I’m no so sure he has the complex abstract comprehension necessary to bow a knee to DeSantis in the short term for the long-term payback of not going to jail.

Trump’s political views are more of a grunt. The only thing that negates how dangerous he is, is a combination of laziness and incompetence. So, what comes across as Trump being all rhetoric is really that Trump just isn’t a “great man” like Hitler, but just an idiot ding-dong avtar for white Christian rage.

So, I dunno. I just won’t make any hard and fast predictions at the moment about Trump, the Republican Party and Ron DeSantis. Here’s why — logically, Trump would have indicted Hunter Biden in spring – summer 2020. Logically, Trump would have stolen the 2020 election well before January 6th. But….he didn’t do it. He waited until the very, very, very,very last moment in the process to try to steal the 2020 election.

As such, I have a wait and see approach. It could go either way. We won’t know until it happens.

Developing Book Two: A Tale of an Abducted Baby

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I haven’t finished the first draft of the first novel and I’m already eager to start work on the second novel in this projected six novel project. All I know at the moment is, in general, the second novel in this six novel project is about an abducted baby. That’s it. I have a general idea of what and why happened, but I have a LOT of work to do to flesh out characters, their motivation and the plot.

I’ve come up with an interesting way to flip the script on what happened in the first novel. It’s a way of keeping the universe fresh and engaging. Now, as I’ve mentioned if I actually finish this six novel project before I drop dead, the people who actually read all six novels will know a HUGE amount about me. They won’t know the context of what’s real or not, but the general story of my personal history will be conveyed.

With these six novels, I’m pretty much writing my autobiography, but in a very, very garbled manner where different eras are smashed together. And, really, my big regret is how much of a late bloomer I am. I hate that. Why did it take me 25 years longer than everyone else to go to this point? Think of all the novels I could have written just out of college.

But, come to think of it, something very different would have had to have happened in my young life for that to have happened. Something REALLY different. It took me going to South Korea to realize that I was never, ever going to be a journalist and that I was a lot more creative than I ever thought possible. So, lulz, here I am — almost 50 and struggling to write my first novel with thoughts of how I’m going to fix five more.

The key thing is, I’m going to really draw upon my experience with the first novel to speed up the process of writing the second novel. I’m hoping — hoping — that development will go far, far faster than it did when I had no idea what I was doing a few years ago.

The learning curve of writing my first novel was far, far more sharp than I could have possibly imagined. While using The Girl Who Played With Fire as my “textbook” was helpful in some ways, in other ways, it slowed me down because that novel was the second novel in a series and, as such, its structure was not ideal for a first novel.

But here I am. I now know what I’m doing (within reason) and hopefully, hopefully, things will go a lot — A LOT — faster with the development of the other novels in the project. I’m pumped, at least.

I find development a lot of fun because it requires a huge amount of dwelling on the characters and universe I’ve come up with. I think the best way to handle development this time is to plot out the stories in the context of thinking of characters and their motivation.

Anyway. Wish me luck.