David Moldawer

> Nobody calls me chicken.Marty McFly, Back to the Future Part II Our capacity to write is a precious resource. Some days a single good hour, fluid and focused, can feel like a gift from above. Of course, writing is my full-time occupation, so an hour a day won’

> Just hold that happy thought, Peter! —Tinker Bell, Hook I’d always imagined a pupa as something straight out of the original Transformer s cartoon, the caterpillar sealing itself up in its chrysalis only to BI-BUH-BO-BOO-BUH [https://youtu.be/i1Nj1pEz6A0?t=11] into a beautiful butterfly. Turns out, no.

The opera singer Farinelli [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farinelli] (1705–1782) sang comfortably in all vocal registers, tenor through soprano. He was a European celebrity of the highest order, an 18th-century Beyoncé, and while Her Beyness can sing across four octaves to Farinelli’s three, I doubt she can

First: my friend Michael Margolis has a new book coming out in October: Story 10x. It’s about getting your business’s story straight—an admirable goal. In announcing the book to his mailing list, Michael mentioned “Moldawer’s Rule” (technically, Moldawer’s Law, but I forgive you, Michael): authors

Author and productivity expert Dave Crenshaw [https://davecrenshaw.com/] and I met up the other day for a chat about writing books. We made a super-short video [https://www.linkedin.com/posts/davecrenshaw_authors-writing-publishing-activity-6557606359834198016-iJMM] . It was fun. It’s good to be reminded how weird I look on camera—it

Federico Viticci and John Voorhees of MacStories [https://www.macstories.net/] recently launched Dialog [https://dialogpodcast.net/], a podcast about creativity and technology. The first season features professional writers working across various genres: screenwriting, songwriting, etc. Since I love learning about niche writing apps, this show should be pure catnip.

That last essay, about the lost art of creative correspondence [https://mavengame.com/2019/06/the-lost-art-of-creative-correspondence/], struck a chord. I received (counting) five responses. That’s a spike, folks. Is the Maven Game finally going viral? This is probably the right time to sign with a top newsletter agent at

I miss sending and receiving letters. Lengthy, well-constructed epistles demanding careful thought and deliberation. Typed or hand-written messages of multiple paragraphs worthy of proper capitalization and punctuation. Forget paper, I even miss lengthy, properly constructed e-mails that begin Dear So-and-so. Nowadays, it’s all likes and emojis and beeps and

Strap on your leather aprons [https://mavengame.com/2019/06/stay-sharp/], guys. Time for a club meeting. There’s a new Shaft [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaft_(2019_film)] in theaters. This one, Shaft (2019), is a sequel to Shaft (2000) which, itself, was a sequel to the original

My friend Josh Bernoff, author of Writing Without Bullshit, is conducting a survey of people who have published, or are working on, nonfiction books. Since he’s asking about publishing plans, expectations, goals, and outcomes and plans to share the results with all participants, I’d fill it out [https: