Conquering Scene in Real Time

A line by line video lesson "showing" how to stay in your scene

Exclusive Writing Lab with a wintery update, a “fragility” prompt, the replay of our live teaching on scene, and a bonus line-by-line teaching that converts “telling” into “showing”

Welcome to Flight School:

It’s been a huge “back to school” week. Six classes, including one here on Flight School with a live thread. Seventy+ students. The close of our Fall Bones series and the start of the Scene/Exposition/Progression.

Then came the NW Ice-pocalypse. Power out for days, exploding pipes, flooded basements.

On the coast, I was iced, too, though I knew it was coming and stacked wood by the door. It's too bad I left it out front rather than bringing it all in. 🤦🏻‍♀️ No matter, I slid my way out, recovered the ice-encased logs and defrosted them on plastic mats. When the power predictably snapped off, I lived as they did in the olden days. Reading by candlelight. Cooking dinner on the wood stove. Off to bed by eight.

PUD restored our power the next day (those guys are rock stars) A few days later temperatures jumped to fifty and the ice melted as if it had never been.

Amazingly, the chard and the arugula survived.

How is that even possible?

A sad note is that several people in Portland lost their lives, apparently electrocuted by downed power lines. I send prayers to all those poor souls.

In weeks like these, we learn about the fragility of our lives and how—in a moment—all we love and treasure can be taken away. This leads to a great prompt, which I’ll include at the end of this post…

In the meantime, here is the replay of our live teaching (just beyond the paywall). For paid subscribers, carry on.

For those who are still testing out Flight School, I hope you agree the teachings here are worth the pennies on the dollar it costs to be a paid subscriber and will pitch in.