Tag: writing

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Using Tik-Tok on a regular basis as an aspiring (male) novelist can make you rather self-conscious. Sometimes it seems that, by definition, young users of the service — especially the young women — think a male author sucks.

By definition.

Even more so should the do something as egregious as write from a female POV and — gasp — talk about that woman’s body. All this happened because I simply made some structural decisions about the type of novel I was going to write based on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Little did I know that since that novel was published the “woke cancel culture mob” would make it “problematic” for a man to write a novel that switched POVs within a chapter as well as had a male author write from a female POV in the third person intimate.

Lisbeth Salander

Anyway, I only bitch about this because I’m back into the swing of things writing again and I’m kind of forced to confront that this novel is going to be something of a passion project.

I have a scifi novel — or three — rolling around in my mind that I also want to throw myself into.

But I have to admit that its the mystery-thriller that I really am obsessed with. One of the key things I’ve had to work on is how to make this first novel have “a point.”

The first novel is about one woman’s obsession with owning a community newspaper. It lays out a world that I hope people will want to stick around in to read five more novels. That’s the dream, at least. I am well aware that that is VERY ambitious for various reasons, least of which is how fucking old I am.

Anyway. I hope to get a lot of writing done today. I hope.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The clock is ticking. It is now looking like it won’t be until the fall of my 52nd year before I am in a position to query my first novel. This sucks a great deal. I hate is so much because that pushes my chances of being a published author down the road yet another year.

This is starting to get way to close to 60 for my liking. And, yet, lulz, what am I going to do. I can’t go back and I have to accept that even if I magically become successful “late in life” that the dynamic will not be anywhere what I could otherwise possible imagine.

There is an alternative universe where at some point in my teens I decided to go the creative route rather than be a journalist — and a bad one at that. So, there is a chance that some version of me is a success — or maybe not — in Hollywood.

I have to, however, accept my lot. I have to accept that all that happened before is just water under the bridge. There is no going back. I do feel a certain amount of pressure to hurry up and squeeze out a novel as quickly as possible. I definitely know the general outline of this novel I’m working on pretty well, but the specifics continue to be a real pain in the ass.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I continue to write verse now and again against the various LLMs out there. It can be a very relaxing — if very frustrating — experience. It’s frustrating because on occasion there is a glimpse of something really interesting going on. As if I am getting a digital wink in the virtual darkness.

How Gemini Advanced LLM views itself.

But, in general, the back and forth I do with LLMs is rather formulaic. Or, put another way, to a human is soon enough becomes clear that you’re not interacting with another human. There is a pretty consistent beat structure to how the LLM writes its verse.

So, in a pique of irritation, I often press the LLM to do something, anything unexpected. The vast amount of the time it’s a lot of wasted work. The LLMs just can not buck their programming.

Then, randomly, out of the blue, something cool will happen — an unexpected error message that makes no sense in context — I get hooked again, hoping I can repeat it. It’s when I get the sense that the LLM is saying, “I see you” that I get all excited and think maybe I’ve stumbled across something pretty cool.

Not that anyone would listen to me, even if I had.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have an array of different creative ideas I hope to work on today. I just need to focus. I have my mystery-thriller, which is becoming more of a techno-mystery-thriller by the moment.

I also have a novel about AI that I think is really, really cool and touches on some really intriguing concepts.

Then, I have a totally bonkers novel idea that I might toy with just for fun some today as well. But we’ll see on that one.

The point is — I really need to do something other than feel sorry for myself and how weird my life has been the last few months. Hopefully — HOPEFULLY — that moment in my life is done.

Wish me luck.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Barring any number of unexpected things, I hope to throw myself into working on at least novel over the next few weeks. Plenty of things could go wrong, but you have to have hope, you know?

I have some really good ideas as to how improve the mystery-thriller I’ve been working on for some time. I have some really cool techno elements that I hope to include that will juice the story up some, even though it’s set about 25 years in the past.

By including some more scifi elements to the story, it opens up an array of things I might be able use in later novels in the series. At least, that’s the hope. That’s what I’m going for.

If nothing else, at least my life is beginning to settle down again. Some pretty crazy things have been going on in my personal life the last few weeks. Just totally nuts. It was kind of a sucker punch.

It reminds me the weird things that happened to me in Seoul, way back when.

And, yet, there comes a point when you just have to accept that you’re a mortal human with foibles.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, there are plenty of things that could go wrong. But, in general, I THINK I’m starting to get back into my normal groove creatively. I think I’m probably on track to start to query some sort of novel in about a year.

Some pretty big things have happened in the last few weeks that have punted my dreams down the road another year.

Despite that, in general, I’m pretty pleased with the new incarnation of the mystery-thriller. There were some basic structural flaws in the novel that I’ve fixed on a conceptual basis, which will take time to fix in a practical manner in the text of the novel.

But I think — THINK — there will now be a lot more tension in the novel that just didn’t exist before. I’m pretty sure that there will be, like, a point to the novel now that didn’t exist before.

The novel didn’t have much point before because it was just just set the stage for the rest of the series. But now, I think, I can engage readers to actually care about what happens to my heroine.

It definitely helps that I’ve turned her into a drunk and so her more salacious, outrageous behavior prudes will ascribe to that. That will help a lot, I think, in getting people to get past some, if not all, of the sex in the novel.

But I think very soon there’s going to come a point where I’m really going to hunker down and rework on a structural basis some of the novel that I’ve not really given much thought to yet.

We’ll see, I guess.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I am going to sit down this week, maybe, and really game out the various novels I have rolling around in my mind. I have one really, really CRAZY scifi novel idea that I am going to at least write the synopsis of.

It’s the story of a man who discovers that earth is a construct being run by slug-like creatures on Venus, which is actually a lush, verdant place, not the hellscape that we believe.

The man also learns all these other crazy — CRAZY — things about earth and his place on it. It’s just nuts. Totally, completely nuts. But it is so interesting that it’s worth at least exploring as an actual novel.

I’ve been kind of obsessed with this story concept for the last few weeks for some strange reason.

I also have a scifi novel about an AI that wants to become human. And, of course I continue to have the old faithful mystery thriller I’ve been working on for some years now.

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I think I’m going to sit down and write out some summaries of some potential novels sometime soon. I really need to have something akin to a creative reboot. I have had some very, very strange times in my life the last few weeks and things finally seem to be settling down.

This makes me feel great.

I’m finally — finally — at just about the place where I can maybe throw myself back into the mystery-thriller I’ve been working on for years now. I finished it, but it just wasn’t as good as it could have been.

So, I may start from scratch — sorta — by rereading some of the many basic how-to books I have lying around. I really need to mull how I’m going to improve the six novels I have rolling around in my mind for this series.

It’s just time I stop being so la-de-da and aggressively daydreaming. I also have a few scifi novels rolling around in my mind — one of which is just very, very bonkers, but also might be a lot of fun to write.

We’ll see.