> “Not in the mood? Mood’s a thing for cattle, and love-play, not fighting!” > —Gurney Halleck, Dune (1984) The real challenge is writing when you’re not on fire. Steven Pressfield calls doing this “turning pro.” I call it “time to fire up Netflix with a large bowl

In response to the last Maven Game [http://mavengame.com/2016/11/12/factiness-truthiness-and-baudrillard/] on “factiness,” Marina Krakovsky pointed me to Adam Gopnik’s essay collection Paris to the Moon. Gopnik explains the difference in how Americans and the French see facts. I found it relevant to The Situation. Not

> Luke: “Is the dark side stronger?” Yoda: “No, no, no. Quicker, easier, more seductive.” —The Empire Strikes Back (1980) In a post on his personal website about the election—this is not about the election—social media theorist Nathan Jurgenson coins a useful term: > On the right, they

Writing, we’re tapping directly into the unconscious. It’s weird: “you” are up here, above the water. What you need is down there, below the black and rippling surface. You have no idea what’s down there, but you want it anyway. As writers, we’re all just fishing,

You know how I told you to stop recommending this newsletter [http://mavengame.com/2016/09/25/maven-trap/] last week? I was joking. That was a rhetorical device. Listen ? to ? my ? words: don’t ? listen ? to ? my ? words. OK, let’s put it behind us. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New topic: go elsewhere

How’d you like my can’t-skip subject line? I algorithmically optimized it…just for you. It’s not click bait, though! I really do want you to stop telling everybody about the Maven Game. (That means you, Mommy.) So no more tweets, pins, posts, regards, or (shudder) LinkedIn updates.

I’ve previously crossed swords with my frenemesis, typographer and public intellectual Matthew Butterick [http://typographyforlawyers.com/], here [http://mavengame.com/2015/09/22/new-media-is-not-a-cargo-cult/], here [http://mavengame.com/2015/09/29/does-tree-go-viral/], and here [http://mavengame.com/2016/07/31/against-fortune-cookie-writing/]. Matthew is the Moriarty to my Holmes, the

This article appeared in modified form in the Maven Game newsletter. Sign up here [http://mavengame.com]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You ever read something that just kind of rambles around endlessly without any respect for your time or level of interest? Check out Josh Bernoff’s Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career

A book proposal about dirt changed the way I think about writing online…forever. Don’t you hate it when something starts that way? Well, as that girl who kissed me in high school told herself, you have to start somewhere. A few years ago, my colleague Courtney Young and

You ever have that morning at the keyboard? “Why am I doing this? Is anybody out there?” You ever not have that morning? Sure, this isn’t a problem for the popular kids with all the eyeballs. They just write and write la la la basking in the instant feedback