Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 125
July 12, 2017
Lifting The Curtain Dept.
I dropped a hint earlier that I was going to be unveiling a revamped version of the Genji Press site. Some more notes on that, then.
July 8, 2017
We Have To Go Deeper Dept.
Steve, expanding on my previous post:
A Writer's View: Complexity And Convolution - Steven Savage
What I realized in my writing is that��complexity and��convolution are��not the same thing, and separating them in your mind is valuable for a writer for several reasons.
First, to separate them is to ask what you���re wanting to write. ��Do you want to challenge the audience with double-backs and twists or do you want them to experience richness? ��Or both? ��To separate complexity and convolut...
July 6, 2017
Not The Bookish Type Dept.
It's weird. I went looking for books in my personal library that are about the craft of writing, and realized I could barely find any. Strunk & White's The Elements Of Style, and Lawrence Block's book on storytelling, and that's about it. I know I still have my copy of Peter Elbow's Writing Without Teachers lurking around somewhere, but I can't find it. (Maybe it fell down behind something else. This happens constantly when you have books stacked two and three deep in a shelf.)
A lot of advic...
July 5, 2017
Do-It-Yourselfer Helper Dept.
Greetings, fellow Americans! I hope your July 4th was better than mine. I spent most of it being sick to my stomach and beyond, with some kind of gastric virus that produced symptoms not suitable for discussion in a family publication. Eventually, I felt okay enough to pull up a chair and begin prepping Welcome To The Fold for (self-)publication.
July 3, 2017
Post First Draft Blues (And Greens) Dept.
Some more detailed thoughts on having finished Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.
Finishing the first draft of any book is always a weird experience. You're elated that you got it done; you're exhausted from the work required; you're full of both apprehension and anticipation at having to go back and face your own words again.
Finish Lines Are Just New Starting Guns Dept.
I finished Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned draft 1 last evening.
July 2, 2017
I'm Just Here For The Beer Dept.
Chuck Klosterman once made a point that I think has a lot more importance than it might seem at first. His thought was that any given piece of creative work only has a limited number of people who will really, really care about it in a personal way. Everyone else is just ... there for the beer, I guess you could say.
July 1, 2017
Pretty Things Dept.
You've probably read the Neil Gaiman essay about making good art. If not, go read it, or go check out this great cartoon adaptation of it.��
I'm reminded of something Jonas Mekas once said, which I paraphrase here. He was disgusted by the cult of ugliness in art, the need to show ugly things as a way to confront them or to neutralize them. This he did not believe in. The best way to confront or neutralize ugliness in the world was to create beauty; that way you had one more beautiful thing in...
June 29, 2017
Unfinished Business Dept.
Back at the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016 I mentioned I was working on a novel entitled��The Palace Of The Red Desert. Right as I was about to start on it in earnest, I shelved it and pivoted very quickly to working on��Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned (which is VERY close to having its first draft finished, time keeps on slippin'��slippin'��slippin'). The big reason I ditched out on��Palace and moved to��AONO was because I didn't have a story, but it took some time for me to nail...
June 26, 2017
Faith Some More Dept.
It's a kind of ... synaesthesia?, I guess.
But before I can explain what I mean by that, I need first to make a confession about how perennially late to the party I am.
See, I only just this past month or so��finally twigged to the full flowering of the fiery genius that is Faith No More and Mike Patton.
