One More Thing About Scene

Exclusive Writing Lab on the Butler Method

Hi and welcome:

This is a nearly abandoned beach and this four by four foot sign makes the rules pretty clear:

Yet, as I walk on the wet sand, I take note of truck tire tracks, bike tracks, and what else do I see up ahead in the bear grass…is that a woman trudging through the dry sand (in the nesting area of the endangered birds)…with a dog that is off leash?

Indeed.

Indeed.

Indeed.

It’s not my business, right? Who cares, really?

But there’s a lesson here, and I think it through during the entirety of my stroll past the fifty smaller signs posted with the same instructions (Yes, they are posted every fifteen feet). Stay on the wet sand, no dogs, no trucks, no bikes…blah blah blah…

Do people really not see the postings? Or can’t they see? Are they so up in their own heads, so trapped in their own stories, that they are blind?

I believe yes, and yes, and yes.

And that brings me to my teaching on scene. A student recently said, “I can’t believe you are posting all these amazing teachings on Substack..for FREE…I mean, why?”

I tried to explain that it doesn’t matter if I charge or don’t charge. People still won’t write scene for a long while. They can’t. Like those truckers, bicyclists, and dog walking ladies ignore the signs and the sanctuary and do their own thing, writers are—for now anyway—slaves to their thoughts. Only repetition, and reading work in class with a coach all up in their business (like my teacher was up in my mine, and I’m up in the business of my writers) will scene finally be written.

Sorry…that’s just the way it goes. We live in a time when the mind; ordinary, rationalizing, and swift, rules. This is the human condition. Our thoughts move at something like 170 MPH. We cannot help ourselves. We are hostages, in a way. the speed of our thinking.

A few things you might have thought about this teaching:

The Willful Response: “Don’t tell me what to do. I’m an artist and I’ll do as I please.”

The Disbelieving Response: “What does she know? I read tons of books that are all up in the mind and they are fan-tabulous.”

The Stubborn Response: “I read books like that all the time and I LOVE THEM. I’m doing it my way.”

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