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

> You wanna know how I did it? This is how I did it, Anton. I never saved anything for the swim back.Vincent, Gattaca Watch this 10-minute video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvHM7H_hh80] about Westside Barbell, the controversial powerlifting gym in Columbus, Ohio. Run by iconoclastic

It occurred to me the other day—for the very first time!—that “author” and “authority” must derive from the same root. Isn’t it funny how something so obvious can stare you right in the face? As I discovered, both words derive from the Latin verb augēre, meaning “to

In this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awce_j2myQw], Francis Ford Coppola explains how he approached directing The Godfather. (Thanks for the link, Ozan [https://bookshop.org/books/think-like-a-rocket-scientist-simple-strategies-you-can-use-to-make-giant-leaps-in-work-and-life-9781541762596/9781541762596] !) Remember the previous essay about Stanley Kubrick’s boxes [https://mavengame.com/2020/11/worth-the-fuss/]? Coppola did something

John Gruber recently posted [https://daringfireball.net/linked/2021/04/18/ellison-gates] the following excerpt from a biography of Oracle founder Larry Ellison [https://smile.amazon.com/Softwar-Intimate-Portrait-Ellison-Oracle/dp/0743225058/] , in which Ellison recalls an encounter with Bill Gates: > It was around eleven o’clock in the morning, and

Yesterday, my contractual copy of another published book arrived in the mail. It’s solid, heavy—no pamphlet. Looks like I’ve accomplished the feat yet again. At this point, I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out the trick to writing books. Let me tell you what it is