Tag: existential angst

‘User Error’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that it’s clear that *I* am the problem going forward if anyone should do due diligence on me when I query the novel I’m working on, let’s go through what might be problematic.

Mood

My Comments About Transgender People
I will occasionally write something on this blog about how if I was a “twenty something undocumented transgendered woman” then selling my novel would be easier. I can see why such a quip might alarm some people who are easily “triggered” by statement that doesn’t fix the orthodox that has developed around trans people. What bothers me is that I am not being serious when I say this. I’m just pointing out the obvious — as one would-be reader of my novel (who promptly ghosted me) said, “The demographics aren’t on my side.” I’m not picking on trans people by my observation, just being realistic. And, I think, the bigger issue is that I even bring up this fact of life — even if it’s meant in jest.

My Comments on “Liberal White Women”
Another running gag on this blog is the idea that my novel will offend “liberal white women” and, as such, I’m screwed. I honestly don’t know one way or another what this mythical demographic will think. I just occasionally find myself full of angst over the part-time sex worker nature of my heroine and as part of that angst, I mention liberal white women. Just like with my comments on trans people, it’s more a testament to my sense of humor than it is me picking on the group. But we live in a humorless age without any sense of nuance, so I guess I have only myself to blame.

My Political Ranting
My politics generally fit within the center-Left “media narrative,” but I guess it’s possible that some of my edgier hot takes might alarm some people. You can never tell these days. People are just to touchy about any and everything that it could be that some people doing due diligence on me would think my political rantings are just yet another sign of what a fucking crank I am.

My Angst Over The “Woke Cancel Culture Mob”
If someone gets upset over this, then, I dunno what to say. My ranting about what I fear the “woke cancel culture mob” MIGHT think about my novel is just me being my usual angst-ridden self. And, I can see how if you were a “liberal white woman” with a clear set of goals for a story that me ranting about how much I fucking hate the Bechdel Test might be a serious turn off to the point you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.

The Part-Time Sex Worker Angle Of My Novel
This is a tough one. I find myself vacillating wildly between being overcome with self-doubt about this element of my heroine and thinking it’s pretty cool. It’s an interesting way to have built-in conflict for my heroine and helps with character development. And, yet, by definition, doing such a thing at all as a smelly middle-aged CIS white male is loaded and provocative to the tender sensibilities of some “liberal white women” who might be, in general, members of the mythical “woke cancel culture mob.” (wink.) I will note that I was doing some some editing today and re-reading the novel gave me renewed hope that maybe I’ve stumbled across a really interesting story.

Miscellaneous Kookiness On My Part
This is difficult because it’s not something I can pin down. There’s a chance that someone with, like, a career and reputation could read this blog and just blanch. They just wouldn’t like the vibe I give off. Add to this how much I retweet pictures of hot chicks on Twitter and…oh boy…I could totally see some “normal” person being turned off by…ME.

Existential Angst Over My Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I find myself really struggling with the fact that my nightmare of someone not being willing to work with me after doing due diligence on me has come true and its implications.

I keep wondering if I’ve made a huge mistake by having my heroine be a part-time sex worker. Talk about self-doubt! And, yet, the key thing for me is the story is coherent and cogent. There is a logic to why I’ve decided to do this. I feel as though it makes the story really different and unique — just like me — and I feel as though fuck it, it’s the story I want to tell.

But I have to accept that between the inclinations of liberal white women — wink — and the “woke cancel culture mob” I’m not doing myself any favors by doing such a thing. It’s a risky thing to do, especially as an aspiring first-time novelist.

Mood.

And I only add to this problematic situation by using more than one POV and writing from a female POV at times.

But I have my vision for this novel and I am too stubborn to do anything about it.

I am, however, going to really begin work on my backup scifi novel. I’m proud of the main novel I’m writing — risks and all — but I’m smart enough to know maybe it’s time to accept how difficult pitching such a “racy” novel may be. I’m going to start working on the characters for the backup scifi novel ASAP.

‘I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Despite being an extrovert, I general lead a pretty isolated life. So I go about my business without a lot of interaction with people to give me some sense of how others perceive me. So, when my nightmare of someone deciding not to work with me on my novel after they did due diligence actually happened…it really rattled my cage.

I keep wondering if this is a sign that I should just give up. But the moment I think that, I am reminded that the problem probably isn’t the novel I’m working…but ME. The (young?) woman who did due diligence on me while considering being my editor probably didn’t like my musings about liberal white women or my ranting about this or that thing.

While, yes, obviously the fact that my heroine is a part-time sex worker probably made her blanch, the key issue is she thought I was a freaky weirdo. So, in a sense, there’s not much I can do — I’m going to have this particular problem no matter what type of novel I write.

So, in a sense this is kind of freeing. As long as I know the obstacles I face in my quest to get traditionally published then I can proceed as I was before. But I have to realize that, in a sense, I am creating just for the sake of creating. There’s pretty good chance that because of ME, I will never be published — ever.

Of course, despite this, I will have the personal satisfaction of having written a novel that *I* know is good, even if me being a kook prevents anyone with, like a career and shit, from ever giving me a chance. It helps that I have a huge chip on my shoulder about my writing ability and I want to prove the haters wrong.

Having said all that, I am determined to use some of my time on a backup scifi novel. Something that isn’t as “racy” as the main novel and fits the conventions of the modern novel better. It’s going to be difficult to do because, lulz, the main novel has completely consumed my life.

But, let’s rock.

I Feel Your Pain, Catturd

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While the earnest, well-meaning nature of MAGA “thought leader” Catturd enrages me, I saw a description of him that gave me pause for thought. I’m really self-conscious about my current loser lot in life and the way some smug Twitter liberals were describing Catturd could very well be pretty much applied to me.

And, I hate to admit it, in some ways at this specific moment Catturd is actually on a personal basis a lot better off than me. And, in fact, I suspect there’s at least one smug liberal out there who uses her encounter with me in Seoul many moons ago as something of a cocktail party joke.

I’m talking, of course, of Jennifer 8. Lee.

Many moons ago, back in Seoul, Lee came to Seoul to work on a book about fortune cookies. And while she was polite to my face, I think she and her friend Tomoko thought I was completely fucking bonkers — a total fucking loser. And, occasionally, I will see in my Webstats random poking around about my various write ups over the years of that event from my point of view.

I can just imagine how much glee she gets in talking about the crazy, loser expat she met in Seoul. Her friend Tomoko, who was working for the Asian Wall Street Journal at the time, I think, really, really did not think much of me. So much so, that to this day it kind of rattles my personal self-perception.

And, going forward, if I should manage to write the Great American Pop Thriller, I think I’m going to have to prepare myself things not to be as great and wonderful as I want them to be. Any inspection of my personal life over the last 20-odd years will leave Normal Smug Wealthy Liberal Elites aghast at what a fucking loser I’ve been.

But I can’t change how old I am and I can’t change the past. All I can do is just try to write a good a novel as I possibly can.

Well, If Nothing Else, My Novel Is Getting REALLY Fucking Good

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I may have drunk myself to an early death — I still don’t know the results of some tests I got — but I am doing a first go-over of the second draft of my novel and it’s really beginning to coming unto its own.

So, while it could be that I drop dead before I can even query this novel and it never actually sees the light of day — I know I’ve come up with something that at least won’t embarrass me.

And that was, in real terms, part of the point of this endeavor from the beginning. My writing and storytelling has improved dramatically since I started this novel.

The whole thing is far more cohesive and character driven than it was begun. I’ve come up with a heroine who is strong enough that she might be compared favorably to Mare of Easttown, or maybe, in her own way a older, more mellow American iteration of the Lisbeth Salander trope.

Or something.

Won’t matter much, of course, if I’m dead.

It’s Always Something

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Some 30 years ago, the character Michael Stedman on thirtysomething said that it was official, he was “invisible to teenage girls.” Well here I am as I’m about to have my 50th birthday and twentysomething young women are actively going out of their way to avoid me.

That horrible creature on the right is me these days.

I was having dinner last night and I noticed that I waitress was attractive and I made it clear I was looking forward to talking to her as she served me. That did not go over well. She must have got spooked that some creepy old dude wanted to talk to her, because she got switched out of having to be my waitress. The replacement waitress made up some bullshit excuse, but it was clear what had happened.

Ugh.

So, here I am, daydreaming about how I’m going date hot little numbers once I Make It Big and, lulz, in reality I can’t even get a cute young waitress to be around me. This is doing wonders for my self-esteem, let me tell you.

I suppose the case could be made that once I’m some huge, bestselling author the context of me being and old coot will change and cuties will be able to overlook what a horrible oger I’ve apparently transformed into in recent years. But I think one thing I have to realize is I don’t like what I used to do. I’m now an Old and, as such, I have to start to realize what I might look like in the eyes of young people.

I hate it.

An Existential Crisis

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Something about turning 50 in just about a month is doing a real number on my mind and heart because it is really beginning to sink in that it’s kind of put up or shut up time. If I don’t do something, anything of creative note soon I’m going to be so old that whatever success I have will be framed exclusively in the context of, “how does it feel to be a success so late in life.”

I hate that.

But things kind of snuck up on me.

After Seoul, I was a changed man. I was consumed with grief over what happened with ROKon Magazine to the point that I was stuck very much in neutral. I had ambition, but no motivation. I was in something akin to a self-construction mental prison.

But now I’m free and I have a very clear focus –write the best possible first novel I can. And, if I’m really lucky, begin a career as a successfully published novelist from here on out. I have to say, though, that the limits of age are really beginning to roll around in my mind.

As I keep saying, even if I get what I want, I don’t get what I want. I want to be an overnight success and then go back to working towards making all the dreams of my 20s come true now, as someone in my 50s. Sadly, of course, that’s just not how it would happen.

Under the most ideal of circumstances, even if I am an “overnight” success by writing a really popular first novel….oh boy. I have, in real terms, just a few years to live up to my “potential.” It takes time to create things and being a success suddenly in my (mid) 50s just isn’t going to give me the same opportunities than I would have had in my 20s.

If you’re a man who’s never been married and don’t have kids, getting older kind of sneaks up on you because there are no rituals associated with zooming past your 40s. The best you have is you suddenly realize that, in real terms, you simply can not date someone in their 20s and, what’s worse, you probably don’t even really want to.

It’s not like I can somehow give my mind a hard reboot and think like I did when I was in my 20s. That’s just not how any of this works. If I’m a success in a few years, it will be in the context of being a success in my mid-50s after having done absolutely nothing with my life for the better part of 15 years. You just can’t fix that problem.

So, in real terms, I’ve made my decision and that’s that. To any “normal” person with a traditionally successful career what I want to with my life is pretty fucking bonkers. I’m being extremely and wilfully delusional.

Keep the faith.

Class Is A Very Corrosive Social Issue

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It’s very interesting how in America we’re so busy talking about racism that we are pretty oblivious to another prejudice: class. I can usually fake a similar class as the smug asshole Twitter liberals who want to sell me MeUndies on their podcast. That is, until, of course, my natural bonkers kookiness comes out and they dismiss me.

Also, I’m just too poor — at the moment — for smug Blue Check liberals to accept me in any real way, no matter how much they probably would like me if they got to know me.

And that, my friend, is why class sucks.

I could win the $1.1 billion Mega Millions jackpot and it wouldn’t change how old I am and it wouldn’t change my class background. I have a relative who is far more successful than I am who acts like he’s some salt of the earth red neck when, in fact, if we both went to a cocktail party with snooty wealthy people they would definitely gravitate towards him in the end.

I would, however, probably get drunk in such a situation and have very loud, very interesting conversations with the best looking woman at the party. That’s just sort of my thing.

Anyway, the older I get the more I understand the invisible power of class. When I was an expat in South Korea, there was a regular communist utopia going on because everyone was getting paid about the same amount and everyone was doing pretty much the same thing for a living. The only real differences were one of origin, which is why you often get asked, “Where you from?” when you saddle up to a bar and find yourself talking to someone new.

As I approach my 50th birthday, I’m feeling a lot of existential angst because no matter what happens to me there are some things I just can’t change because of my dissipated, squandered youth.

Age Isn’t Just A Number

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It took me going to South Korea for about five years for me to realize I wasn’t a journalist but rather the more nebulous “creative type.”As such, I wasted at least a decade of my life thinking I might work for, say, The Richmond Times-Dispatch.

I’m old.

In highsight, that dream was both delusional and laughable.

Age, while as immutable as sex or race, is not a metric you really think about as something you have to contend with as something that might stand in the way of your dreams.

And, yet, here I am, nearly 50, realizing that even if I get what I want — to write a breakout pop novel — I won’t get what I REALLY want, which is to be a young successful writer living in New York City chasing hot chicks. Even if I stick the landing with this first novel, I’m still going to be so old that it would be extremely creepy for me to attempt to hang out with 24 year olds. And, what’s worse, all my female peers are now too old have children.

AND, if I DID manage to be a father, I’m so old that the whole thing would be weird.

I spent way, way, way too much time grieving over a failed magazine in South Korea to the point that even if I become successful at last, it will be considered “later in life.” My age, unto itself, will be the hook that everyone mentions when talking about my career.

And that’s if I stick the landing with this first novel. It could be that a combination of me being bonkers and being extremely conspicuous online with my drunken bonkerness combined with my age will make any literary agent worth their salt turn up their nose at me. I already can’t get literary types to help me with my manuscript — even if I offer to pay them!

It’s a very disheartening.

There’s just not anything I can do about it. No matter how successful I might ultimately become, the issue of what I did for about 15 years after leaving South Korea — nothing — will be a topic of conversation.

I hate that. I want to be judged on the merits of my talent, not how old I am. But that window of opportunity is gone. If I was 20 years younger, everything would be different. I would be normal.

I don’t know — am I having a midlife crisis?

People Using Internet Archive To Read This Blog Is Both Amusing & Frustrating


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Ok, I get it. I guess I must come across as something of an Internet crank and people want to poke around this site without giving me their URL — hence the use of the Internet Achive.

This is both extremely funny and extremely frustrating to me.

I hate how snooty some people can be when I know damn well if I somehow weaseled my way into a cocktail party where they were, I could fake being “normal” enough that they would find me very memorable. I have a larger-than-life personality and you liquor me up I can be quite colorful.

Or just drunk, depending on how you look at it.

I’ll put a move on you.

As I grow older, I find that my “colorful” personality is both a boon and a bane. It’s a boon because, if nothing else, people remember me. It’s a bane because a lot of people who are successful under the normal metrics of success — who are my peers — think I’m completely bonkers and want to have nothing to do with me.

To the extent that they use the Internet Archive as some sort of propylitic so my kooties don’t get on their computer. Ugh. Fuck that and fuck them. The worst thing anyone has every said about me was I was a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

I can see what someone would think that. But I would stress the “good heart” part of that statement. I’m well aware that I can be very, very annoying — hence my lack of friends — but I mean well.