Subtle Maneuvers
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A pretty good maxim for all artists
From the visionary composer Terry Riley
Sep 16
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Mason Currey
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Scrivener Workshop
With novelist Jennifer S. Brown
Sep 16
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Mason Currey
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When writing your book takes thirty-eight years (and counting)
Solvej Balle’s very gradual creative process. Plus: Announcing the Subtle Maneuvers Book Club—and a workshop for the Scrivener-curious
Sep 2
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Mason Currey
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New to Subtle Maneuvers? Start here
Links for the newsletter curious
Jul 25, 2024
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Worm Zoom
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Jun 16, 2024
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Calendar
Upcoming events and subscriber perks
Jul 21
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Book Club
Sept/Oct title: ART WORK by Sally Mann
Jul 21
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Filmmakers
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The Fassbinder Method
“So: completion come what may.”
Dec 16, 2024
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Mason Currey
72
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David Milch’s disembodied writing process
“I lie there on the floor and I talk and the words come up on the screen.”
Feb 5, 2024
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Get rid of what your project needs
A peek into Céline Sciamma’s desire-driven process
Jan 22, 2024
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Mason Currey
182
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Mike Leigh’s gloriously inefficient filmmaking process
“I can’t tell you about the character because there is no character.”
Nov 13, 2023
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Mason Currey
114
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Musicians & composers
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A pretty good maxim for all artists
From the visionary composer Terry Riley
Sep 16
•
Mason Currey
92
18
Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed’s rules for living
“The first one is: Don’t be afraid of anyone.”
Jul 8
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Mason Currey
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Courtney Love’s excellent advice for young artists
"It's really the truth."
Jun 24
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What artists really do
John Cage on the whole job, in a nutshell
Feb 24
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Mason Currey
139
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Novelists
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When writing your book takes thirty-eight years (and counting)
Solvej Balle’s very gradual creative process. Plus: Announcing the Subtle Maneuvers Book Club—and a workshop for the Scrivener-curious
Sep 2
•
Mason Currey
93
26
A touching story of writer-to-writer support
“It was only then that he ceased to look upon his novels as youthful mistakes.”
Aug 5
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104
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Robert Plunket on the “big secret” of making art
“Every artist does it.”
Jul 22
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138
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Françoise Sagan on the power of laziness
A timely reminder from the author of Bonjour Tristesse
May 27
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Mason Currey
145
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New issues are free for all. Paid subscribers get Zoom coworking sessions, the group chat, the book club, subscriber-only bonus posts, the full archive of 150+ back issues, and my sincere gratitude for your support—thank you!
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Painters & sculptors
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Faith Ringgold’s exuberant pragmatism
Portable paintings—and a very expensive mistake for artists
Apr 29, 2024
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Mason Currey
148
34
Melly Shum Forever
“Every city needs a monument to the problem of hating one’s job.”
Mar 4, 2024
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Mason Currey
121
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Living with art stops one wilting!
Letters from the late Austrian artist Maria Lassnig
Aug 21, 2023
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Van Gogh’s advice to a young artist
“In order to write a book, do a deed, paint a picture with some life in it, one has to be alive oneself.”
Aug 7, 2023
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Poets
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My Baudelaire Summer
“How difficult it is to do as one ought every day.”
Sep 9, 2024
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Mason Currey
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Petrarch got up every morning at midnight
“I regard sleep as a kind of death, my bed as a tomb.”
Apr 15, 2024
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Mason Currey
145
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Sharon Olds’s huge archive of thinking and feeling
“Clouds of meaning were rolling this way and that.”
Nov 27, 2023
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Mason Currey
173
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Louise Glück on writer’s block
“I think everything good in my own work I owe to endurance.”
Oct 16, 2023
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Mason Currey
144
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Making art is like setting a trap
Philip Larkin on constructing “the device”
Sep 18, 2023
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Mason Currey
181
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Henri Cole on the enemies within
And why they’re a gift
May 1, 2023
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Mason Currey
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Alice Notley on getting things to come easily
Here’s the secret, if you can bear it
Mar 20, 2023
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Bernadette Mayer will give you ideas
On the late American poet’s irrepressible confident weirdness
Mar 6, 2023
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Mason Currey
176
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“Productivity”
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John Cage on the true meaning of discipline
I've been thinking about it all wrong.
Jun 10
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Mason Currey
127
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Totally insane and truly helpful
The best creativity advice I've read in ages—plus, enroll now in Worm School Extension 🪱🎓
May 13
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Mason Currey
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The Fassbinder Method
“So: completion come what may.”
Dec 16, 2024
•
Mason Currey
72
18
The Complete Worm School
My summer course on wriggling through a creative life has now concluded—read the entire series here.
Jul 23, 2024
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Mason Currey
25
Writing is bouldering, bouldering is writing
On “eking out a delicate gift laboriously”
Apr 1, 2024
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Mason Currey
94
40
The dumbest and best productivity trick
And why I’m rebelling against it anyway
Dec 11, 2023
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Mason Currey
307
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Samuel Johnson and the art of procrastination
Or how to write 1,800 words an hour
May 30, 2023
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Mason Currey
166
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Three tales of creative slowness
“A week is nothing, one thinks one can do so much in a week”
Apr 3, 2023
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Mason Currey
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