──[ VOL.1 :: Devr-i Masal ]───────────────────────────────────────────────────//
───
:..........................................................................:
[>] Buy book: https://www.kitapyurdu.com/kitap/devri-masal-dunya-masallarindan-s
ecmeler/747283.html
──[ 0x00 not web ]──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
This was not a web development project.
This was a literary work.
My 11 friends and I made it together.
But still... It shows my ability to lead.
And work in harmony with my group.
This is the story of
how we wrote and published Devr-i Masal.
──[ 0x01 why ]──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
I am studying English Translation.
I wish I was studying engineering,
but my chaotic past life and
the mental instability this type of life caused
(paired with adolescence and its surreal state)
caused me to fail tremendously in college entrance exams.
And I didn't have the luxury to play around.
I had to start earning money and
gain independence as soon as possible.
My passion and (at this point) platonic love for CS
was... well, let's say torture.
I had never fallen in love before.
But I understand those Romantic era writers
and the pain their yearnings caused them.
That burning yet cold emptiness.
The weird euphoria of wanting something you cannot attain
(or think you cannot attain).
It was physical and brutal.
My mistake was that I thought this love was impossible.
That's what my elders told me.
If you don't study engineering, you cannot become an engineer.
And if you are not rich, you cannot elongate your "teenage years."
You have to earn money as soon as possible,
get a government job, and try to find happiness
in your small amount of free time.
Get a family and play a gamble by
trusting people and putting them in charge of your feelings.
──[ 0x02 axioms ]───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
At this point, I had two axioms in my mind.
One I still think is correct (maybe I am mistaken).
One I definitely know was incorrect.
First one being:
I won't be happy if I follow the route that was drawn for me, blindly.
I won't be happy if I follow the route that was blindly drawn for me(!)
I know the odds of the gamble my family played themselves
by trusting people.
I know how existentially painful a government job
you are not passionate about could be,
yet how comfortable it seemed due to a
"regular" paycheck and a tolerable work environment.
(I still think this assumption is correct.)
Second one being:
I cannot be an engineer.
(This is definitely wrong.)
So having these values in my equation of life
caused me to have this plan after
a grueling first year college experience:
"If I wanted to be happy,
I needed to find something I enjoyed in my area."
"Work with what you have," I thought to myself.
So at the end of the second semester, right before summer break,
I asked my children's literature teacher a question.
She was wearing her green scarf, getting ready to leave class,
when I asked, "If I were to improve myself this summer, what can I do?"
She said, "Oh, you could translate a children's book, I guess."
She said it in a way that was not exactly dismissive,
but not hopeful either.
My instincts told me that she didn't believe
I would actually execute on this thought.
This hopelessness was caused by two reasons, I reckon:
First, the repeated disappointment a teacher feels when dealing with
student projects they start with promises of competence and passion,
but that passion dies as fast as a hay fire.
Second, me being an irregular student who often missed class,
didn't listen to most lessons, and had poor grades.
It was obvious I had zero(!) passion for my area of study.
(This was happening at the same time as the "A Scenic Way to CS" story.)
The thing she didn't know, however,
is that I had an unending obsession with promises.
Like OCD levels of obsession.
If I cannot fulfill a promise,
I fall into a deep depression,
no matter how small the promise is.
In the heat of the moment, I happened to say,
"I will come to your desk with a book next year!"
Now I had to keep my promise.
Aside from my obsession, there was another reason why I had to do it.
I couldn't be one of the data points in her mind
that caused the hopelessness in her tone of voice.
Me executing my promise correctly wouldn't change
her mental image of the entirety of humanity, of course,
but it could be an instance that gives her an
emotional push further down the road, when needed (maybe!).
──[ 0x03 start ]────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
So my journey began...
The initial plan was simple.
Like all initial plans are:
Find a book to translate.
I knew a translator from Armenia.
We talked about it, and
I noticed it wasn't something feasible.
Of course, I didn't give up easily.
I wouldn't throw an idea in the trash based just on theory.
We had to test our hypothesis,
but unfortunately(!), we were right.
Believe me, the world of translation is
even more depressing than software engineering.
AI affected them worse.
The pay was an insult to humanity after
the collapse of the feudal system.
The job was grueling and soulless at this point.
Translators were seen as tools.
The industry clashed with artistic realities.
The way a work gets translated can
change the target text a whole lot.
The translator should also act as an artist.
But again, no one was trying to create art.
Everyone was trying to sell a product.
This is the private sector for you.
So, I noticed no one would provide the source text for me.
So I said, "Screw this! If no one provides the lemons for my lemonade,
I will make the lemons myself!"
(Humans actually invented lemons, you can look it up!)
──[ 0x04 write ]────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
And I decided to write and publish my own book.
Like I mentioned in other stories in other volumes,
I don't prefer to socialize a lot.
I much prefer my own company.
But this didn't mean I was bad at it.
A person can be good at something they despise.
I was pretty skilled at socializing,
even though I used Arch & Vim. :)
So meanwhile, my brain was searching for ideas by casting
its rod into the sea of random thoughts that is my brain.
It stumbled upon something with people in it.
I had a lot of friends from entirely different countries.
They each had their own childhood, of course.
(IDK, I am still suspicious a couple of them were lab made!!)
Anyhow, I thought that we could collect
those childhood fairy tales from each culture
and translate them, making a book
that will be art, a commercial product,
a portfolio piece, and an academic resource.
I built the team over a week.
And I started to work on it that summer
(the summer in which the BSOYD stuff happened).
──[ 0x05 collect ]──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
First phase was collecting the source material...
I collected an initial database of source materials
from my friends and other resources.
Filtered it down from 1,600 to 180, and finally 56 in production.
(I might use software development terms here
because I am more used to them in English, sorry...)
I had some biases toward the tales when filtering as well.
I used the pedagogy knowledge my teacher gave me
to filter out tales with inappropriate content.
You should have seen what was in those tales:
Violence, drug abuse, selfharm, suicide, sexual themes, incest.
Like, everything a Netflix special has as a warning was included here.
I filtered out all of them and was left with 180.
Now, if I gave the order to translate all of them,
it would be enough content for 3 books,
but that didn't make sense on a logistical level.
First, even publishing a single book was an issue.
Publishing three books? No way!
Secondly, the amount of work necessary could be a lot for my friends.
Me choosing not to have a social life does
not mean others should choose that as well.
Everyone has their right to choose a lifestyle best suited for them.
And this difference is what actually makes life fun.
Diversity is fun (I know it sounds cheesy, but it's true!).
So I didn't want to invade my friends' valuable summer time
by creating unnecessary work with vague result expectations.
Summertime sadness was just meant for me (goated reference!).
So the last filtration process happened here.
What was it based upon?
My personal preferences, of course. :)
Some notable choice patterns though:
I removed tales with the main idea of "keeping secrets."
I knew how child abuse worked.
That is a BAD BAD BAD message to give a child.
I included a lot of tales with main ideas of
independence, speaking out, and solving your own problems.
I think these messages carry more importance than simply being kind
or respecting adults in this society
(of course, those messages were prevalent as well).
(Side note: Watching the movie Coraline and seeing her save herself
when I was a little child legitimately changed where my life went positively.
It's still my favorite movie.)
The last 56, I ain't even gonna lie, were really solid.
Some patterns I noticed before the translation started:
Some archetypes and story patterns existed across all of the cultures.
Some cultural objects were shared between cultures
that were geographically close to each other (or shared trade routes).
And I actually enjoyed this process. The joy of creation was the
joy of CREATION not just software development.
I mean, I enjoyed CS wayyy more, but this was cool as well.
──[ 0x06 translate ]────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
Now the translation process began...
I know, I know—using a Waterfall project management methodology
even for a book is highly inefficient.
I know that if I used a more agile (PUN INTENDED!!!) methodology,
the project could have taken less time,
and maybe even could have been done before Q3,
where the highest amount of children's books are sold.
But this was the first time I did project management
(aside from the research project and debate team I managed in high school;
might mention them in Volume 3),
so Waterfall it was.
Firstly, I trusted my friends in terms of translation.
They were the best in their classes.
While I was running around chasing my CS dream,
skipping school, and being a generally bad student,
they were studying relentlessly.
I respected them for that.
They were clearly better at translation than me.
So I left the process of translation entirely to them.
I just handled the I/O of the documents,
and I analyzed the final translation output.
Needless to say, they didn't disappoint me.
Output was great. I didn't have to do a lot of work.
I didn't pressure them to be fast, either.
We didn't have an exact deadline,
but they were quick as well.
As a "project manager," I had to put little effort into HR.
But the business side and editorial side were hard.
I formatted the book in Adobe InDesign in five days
(again, another FNAF reference).
Also, our illustrator (İdil, who has an entire volume entry
for the portfolio website)
did such a good job at illustration it was the
first thing people noticed about the book.
Our illustrations were great.
So, I could say luck was on my side in this project.
──[ 0x07 business ]─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
Now the boring business side of things...
UHHHHH, this was booooring.
I had contacts even before starting
the project in the publishing business,
thanks to my software adventures and contacts
I gained in some of my previous contracts.
The publishing house was in a whole different city.
I think before moving on to what I did,
it's best to explain the "game."
In my country, publishing a book for an author
means an initial financial loss of a huge degree.
Also, if they are not a popular author,
it means a net financial loss.
But due to my work ethic and previous work,
I managed to publish it for free.
It took me 5 trips to a different city
and countless business meetings.
I will spare you the details,
but I managed to publish the book.
Also, I wrote the contract the translators signed myself.
It was a great exercise and
taught me a lot about financial law.
This project is still young,
so I will probably post about the results a year later.
I would like to write and publish more books in the future.
I really enjoy literature.
──[ 0x08 after ]────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────//──
─
P.S. The effects of this on my personal life:
This improved my mental health in a huge way.
I am more open to socializing now, which is odd to even say.
I just need to remember to NOT approach a heuristic system
the way I approach a deterministic system.
I mean, my hypothesis was that it should work as deterministic.
We exist on a physical plane, after all.
Chemistry and biology ruled over us, I thought.
I believe there was a variable I missed
that exists outside of the physical plane,
that caused a bunch of entropy in our existence.
Both good and bad. Both beautiful and ugly.
Some might call it a soul, but I truly don't know.
It is the single most unique,
confusing, and beautiful thing I have encountered.
A truly paranormal thing.
Overall, GREAT experience would do it again...
:..........................................................................:
──[ EOF :: vol.1 / Devr-i Masal ]────────────────────────────────────────────//─
──