Something extraordinary takes place in an episode of Hoarders, the long-running reality series about people with hoarding disorder. After getting the preliminaries out of the way, the therapist calls the hoarder’s attention to the gorilla in the room. Except, in this case, the gorilla is a pumpkin. “What pumpkin?

Writing in England in the first half of the 19th century, Thomas Babington Macaulay was a glass-half-full kind of guy. In his History, he wrote: > The history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement.

Before you begin work on your next major creative project, let it simmer. Days, weeks, months. Wait until the urge to begin becomes an obsession. Then, go to sleep. So argues surrealist painter Salvador Dalí in his very strange book, 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship [https://bookshop.org/books/50-secrets-of-magic-craftsmanship/

In reference to last week’s essay [https://mavengame.com/2021/07/second-chapter-syndrome/], Maven Game reader and knitting enthusiast Zahava Shapiro [https://quotationmarkers.blogspot.com/] wrote to say that she’s experienced second-sock syndrome herself. According to Zahava, most sock patterns put the hard part—heel and toe—last. “This

> I can eat fifty eggs. —Cool Hand Luke Knitters dread “second sock syndrome” [https://sheepamongwolves.net/2018/09/second-sock-syndrome-what-it-is-and-how-to-fight-it/] : > Knitting the first sock usually goes quickly. But the second one seems to drag on, never gets completed or even cast on in the first place. Why does SSS

I’m enjoying Lawrence Block’s memoir, A Writer Prepares, [https://smile.amazon.com/Writer-Prepares-Lawrence-Block/dp/195193993X/] which came highly recommended by author and editor Ed Park [http://www.ed-park.com/about_ed_park.html]. (If Ed says read the book, I read the book.) Block is an enormously prolific

If starting work is hard, why not start less? That’s the advice Nasir Kharma, a grad student in London, offers: He studies in four-hour blocks without a break [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NSkk31vFbU]. I’m not sure what to think. Don’t we need frequent breaks to

This newsletter serves as a weekly reminder of just how much I hate sitting down to write. It’s a useful exercise in personal development. Think G. Gordon Liddy holding his hand over a candle [https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1980/05/18/gordon-liddy-spills-his-guts/aeb77942-67e2-4c39-b249-c5628100ac1a/] : “Suffering. That was

Wilf Davies has been a farmer in Wales all his life. Even as his friends left to find work in big cities, he stuck around the Teifi valley, growing food and tending sheep. Today, he’s 72 and still at it. “This valley is cut in the shape of my

Struggling with productivity, Ingrid Rojas Contreras created a morning writing ritual [https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/magazine/productivity-self-mesmerism.html]. Inspired by the 18th-century German physician Franz Anton Mesmer, Contreras designed “a choreography of visuals and touch” to put herself into a writing trance. This ritual included putting on