Serdar Yegulalp's Blog, page 141
February 17, 2016
Outliners And Outliers Dept.
This weekend I filled mostly with pounding out the third end-to-end outline forAlways Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.And this time around, I cheated.
(Voices off: "It isn't cheating if it works!")
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. When you're stuck in a mud puddle, on ice, or a pile of wet leaves, stop spinning your tires. After two and a half outline drafts, I was stuck'r than ev'r, like someone trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle by throwing the pieces into a blender.
February 13, 2016
Hooked On Phonics Dept.
Brad, spot-on:
Life Does Not Work Like That. | Hardcore Zen
I meet a lot of people who ask me how to become a writer. Some of these people are serious and will eventually go on to write great stuff Im sure. But most of them want to be A Writer without actually having to write anything. They want what they imagine to be the results of having a book published without putting the work into it. I dont think most of these folks get it. To me, being a writer is almost like having a disease like al...
February 12, 2016
Hollow Men Dept.
From the archives ofHarper's comes a remarkably perceptive 1941 article, "Who Goes Nazi?" The premise is simple: those who go Nazi are people who feel, on some level, disenfranchised and dissatisfied. Levels of status or wealth have little to do with it; a frustrated sense of entitlement is everything.
February 10, 2016
Not The Smartest Guys In The Room Dept.
Not long ago, I noted to a friend how certain people with engineering and math backgrounds seem peculiarly susceptible to fringe theorizing of the most stomach-turning sort: crackpot history, conspiracy theory, antisemitism, the whole rotten tamale. What is it that takes someone whoreally ought to know better and turns them into a dolt blithering nonsense that withers under thirty seconds of critical thinking?
February 8, 2016
To Cut The Drum Open (And See What Makes It Go Bang) Dept.
The title of this post is one of my favorite metaphors about mystery in art, and how sometimes trying to explain too much is fatal to what you're trying to do.
February 6, 2016
Nightmares And Madmen Dept.
I imagine a fair number of people reading this are familiar with Shin'ya Tsukamoto'sTetsuo: The Iron Man, that grotesque little masterwork of Japanese indie cinema — "like H.R. Giger and Yukio Mishima had each other's body-horror babies," as a friend of mine once quipped. What's odd is how Tsukamoto's follow-up,Tetsuo II: Body Hammer, had a bigger budget and better production values, and yet is far inferior on almost every other level.* Thomas Weisser's capsule description of the two films in...
'Flight of the Vajra' Is In The Running In The Nerdist's Space Opera Competition At Inkshares!
ATTENTION READERS/FANS OF MY WRITING AND MOST EVERYONE ELSE TO BOOT:
I need your help!
I have just submitted my far-future SF fantasiaFlight of the VajratoThe Nerdist's new Space Opera competition over at Inkshares:
https://www.inkshares.com/books/flight-of-the-vajra
Here are the details about the competition:
https://www.inkshares.com/conte/nerdist-space-opera-contest
What do you need to do?
Simple. Pre-order the book. ($10 at the lowest tier.)
If you've considered buying a copy of this prev...
February 4, 2016
Big Wheel Turnin' Dept.
Busy week, not much time for blogging (will explain why by this weekend). News of my little world:
January 29, 2016
The Big Snub Dept.
New Details on the Kevin Smith Moose Jaws Movie & More
[Smith] talked about his approach to movies nowadays and how he isnt aiming to please general audiences anymore. Towards the end of his little spiel, Smith said: I used to want to make movies for audiences. But if youve seen Tusk, and after youve seen Yoga Hosers, youll see that I really dont give a shit about the audience anymore. After posting about this online, many people have taken it as something incendiary towards the people who g...
January 26, 2016
Eyes Wide Shut Dept.
Harlan Ellison is best known for his fantasy and SF work, but he was also responsible forThe Glass Teat, a two-volume collection of columns he ran in theL.A. Free Press from about 1969 through 1972. The subject was ostensibly television; therealsubject was The Tenor (read: Terror) Of The Times.
