by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
I got some blood work back today and it indicated that I have high cholesterol — a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. Which, of course, makes me think of how Stieg Larsson died just as he learned he had gotten a book deal. I’m the same age he was when he died of a heart attack and I still have about a year left before I will start querying.
What gets me is that even if I stick the landing with this novel that because of post-production, I could be 55 or 56 before I’m a published author. That really gives me pause for thought when I realize I may drop dead at any moment from a heart attack or stroke.
And, what’s more, there is the issue of what the fuck is going to happen in late 2024, early 2025 just about the time I’m going to start querying my first novel aggressively. It could be that the either we’re slipping into autocracy or we are about to have a civil war or revolution just as I’m doing that.
I don’t think we’re going to have a civil war or revolution. I think Trump is going to win and that will be that. He will use Schedule F to turn us into an autocracy and I’ll have to start to seriously think about how I’m going to escape an ICE agent putting a bullet in the back of my head.
And, YET, given that it was my anger over Trump that caused me to start working on this six novel project in the first place, the case could be made that if some agent learns the nature and overarching subtext of these six novels that they might be more interested in buying the first novel.
The subtext of these six novels is I fucking hate MAGA with a white hot rage to the point that I’m willing to write six novels that let me rant about how much I hate political extremism.
Anyway, we’re totally fucked. I just don’t see any “third way” like what happened in 2020. Something really unexpected will have to happen pretty quick. Trumpism has gone septic and this is it — America is going to be an autocracy starting in 2025.
