Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 139
April 13, 2016
Out From The Fold Dept.
I haven't talked much about my previous novel,Welcome to the Fold,conspicuous in its absence of detail. The reason for that is simple: over the last couple of months I've been seeking representation for it. So far, no dice, but I'm giving it a full calendar year to see if anyone shows interest. If not, I'll fall back to plan B and release it myself, so you might see it sometime in '17 if it comes to that.
I may have mentioned this before in passing, but it's worth repeating here. I'm also hol...
April 11, 2016
But That's Still Just, Like, Your Opinion, Man Dept.
It's weird. We have more, and perhaps better, critical work than ever before on popular culture, and yet people seem to be even more confused — or maybe just willfully ignorant — of what criticism is actually for and why it's performed.
April 10, 2016
Real Cool World Dept.
I spent most of the weekend, and most of last night, with machete in hand, hacking my way through the second half of the storyline forAlways Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. A couple of things snapped into place, but one thing that became quite clear is a tension I've seen within myself before when working on these projects: the urge to be cool vs. the urge to be real.
April 4, 2016
A Cue From Within Dept.
I keep coming back to the idea that some creative folks, especially those just starting off in some creative field, don't really know how to follow their hearts. They go by what other people respond to; they think,If this is likely to be popular with people, then it's worth working on.
April 2, 2016
Innovate Or Degenerate Dept.
Doug Rushkoff Says Companies Should Stop Growing | FiveThirtyEight
... as you act more according to your type, and as the marketplace becomes more and more predetermined and predictable, you actually dont get growth, you dont get innovation. ... Because now you have designers, who instead of being encouraged to come up with their own, new, crazy ideas, are being encouraged to do the things that have been proven by the data to deliver results. A lot of times, in thriving marketplaces, a lot o...
April 1, 2016
City: Works Of Fiction (Jon Hassell)
How ashamed I always feel when I encounter, for the first time, an artist who has been making his mark for decades just out of the reach of my senses. I knew nothing of trumpeter and keyboardist Jon Hassell before hearing about this three-disc, expanded reissue of his widely lauded 1991 album, and now I have an irrepressible curiosity about his work, much as how reading a single Philip K. Dick novel triggered in me a thirst for everything else he'd done.
March 31, 2016
Playing Catchup Dept.
Busy several days and weekend, not much blogging time. Some catch-up.
March 21, 2016
Snapped In Half, All Burned Up Dept.
Ever drop a plate and have it breakexactly down the middle? There's your analogy for what happened with draft 4 of the outline forAlways Outnumbered, Never Outgunned. I got to the halfway mark, and realized everything after that point had been, uh, "rendered inoperative" by all the changes I'd made.
Liberation or disaster? It's great to not have to walk around with the baggage of one's legacy decisions in a story, to be sure. It's also a mess to have to come up with something to replace it al...
March 19, 2016
Good Guys Wear Black Dept.
Fellow author Leo King posted another quick video diary, this time about the practice of "petting the dog" — that is, having a character being likable by having them do good things. I agree with this up to a point, since I think the notion that a character should belikable covers only half the territory. A character is not worth following because he is likable, or "good", but because he isfascinating, because for whatever reason we want to find out what they do next. That could be a good thin...
March 15, 2016
None-Hit Wonders Dept.
Review: In Every Song Ever, Ben Ratliff Helps the Listener Discern - The New York Times
It remains debatable whether there is a right or wrong, healthy or unhealthy way to listen to music. Being an omnivore doesnt even guarantee increased enjoyment. There are people who derive endless delight listening to just one kind of music, or even a single artist, as Mr. Ratliff acknowledges in a section about people he has encountered who have all-consuming obsessions for Frank Zappa or the Grateful D...
