Modern Absence of Monoculture

It is difficult to, either quantitatively (through sales, net worth, or awards) or qualitatively (through an objective hierarchisation of cultural products) provide an indisputable metric for ‘fame.’ First, there are contextually contingent variables like streaming or internet relevance preventing me from drawing transhistorical comparisons with say, The Beatles or Michael Jackson. And then there is the reality that in our postmodern, globalised world, culture has expanded, mutat...

 Discard Bad Ideas

the hard but just rule is that if the ideas don't work, you must throw them away. Don't waste neurons on what doesn't work. Devote those neurons to new ideas that better explain the data. The British physicist Michael Faraday warned of the powerful temptation to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in the favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them . . . We receive as friendly that which agrees with [us], we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the...

 ReWriting Principle: Kill Your Darlings

Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggest cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)...I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor w...