A friend texted me the recent New York Times article about dopamine fasting. [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/07/style/dopamine-fasting.html] “This was made for you,” he added unnecessarily. (Naturally, my wife had already shared it with me. Plus, I’d seen it first. Because I’m constantly

Writer and woodworker Jim Dillon [https://thousanddollarshop.blogspot.com/] wrote to me after last week’s essay [https://mavengame.com/2019/11/robot-mode/]: > GOOD ONE! Jim has been reading the Maven Game long enough to know how to capture my attention: emphatic compliments in ALL CAPS. > My work

> I just want to be loved. Is that so wrong?Jon Lovitz (as Harvey Fierstein), Saturday Night Live Writing would be so much easier if we could only see it as a job to do: Go mop the floor. Go empty the trash can. Go polish the silverware. People

First of all, yes, I wrote “your” instead of “you’re” in last week’s essay [https://mavengame.com/2019/10/save-it-for-the-stage/]. (I’ve since corrected it on the site, of course.) Sue me, nitpicker. Second of all, I’m back to using Grammarly, which now offers “tone detection.” As

> Give ’em the old razzle-dazzle Razzle-dazzle ’em Give ’em an act with lots of flash in it And the reaction will be passionate Give ’em the old hocus-pocus Bead and feather ’em How can they see with sequins in their eyes? –Billy Flynn, Chicago People put so much thought

Take the old quote: > Perfect is the enemy of good. Voltaire might have been the one to say it in this form, but the idea of “good enough beats unattainable ideal” has been around much longer. In fact, it warrants its own Wikipedia entry [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Mark Frauenfelder and Kevin Kelly recently invited me onto the Cool Tools podcast to share some of my favorites apps and services. I’d welcome any excuse to chat with Mark, one of my favorite authors from my publishing days, and Kevin, whose work I’ve always admired. I’m

> The enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan.—Carl von Clausewitz In high school, I didn’t participate in any extracurriculars. Doom wasn’t going to play itself, after all. It was only when college applications rolled around that I realized I’d made

Last week, I misspelled meshuggaas [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meshuggaas]. It was a real meshuga thing to do. What a pisher I am.  Sure, I’ve fixed the post [https://mavengame.com/2019/09/accepting-the-mishigas/], but what’s that worth? Bupkes. I am both a shlemiel [https://www.youtube.

In response to my essay a few weeks back about how the easy way is actually the hard way [https://mavengame.com/2019/07/one-of-two-ways/], Nancy Larson, author of The PARDA Process [https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781634920315], wrote to me about the difficulty of writing and publishing her first