Week 7: Perfectionism: An Expensive Illusion

What’s a beat? If you don’t know, you’re in good company, because neither did we until we cracked open this chapter of Sandra Scofield’s The Scene Book. Beats are the tiny units of action and reaction that make up a scene. They’re how you control pacing, and they’re a handy way to check that your scene actually makes sense, moment to moment. True to her show-don’t-tell philosophy, Scofield teaches by example, so we dig into several book scenes, including her favorite, A Room with a View. But it really clicked when we tackled the exercises: first we hunted for beats in published work, then we used them to build scenes of our own.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

After countless episodes complaining that writing advice books skimp on examples, we may have finally found one with too many.Chapter 2 of Sandra Scofield's The Scene Book shows how to build a scene through action and how to make that action mean something. Scofield packs the chapter with examples but leaves most of the analysis to the reader. Luckily, Kim and Renee are up for the challenge. We untangle the difference between a scene's event and its occasion, hunt for what a scene actually means, and explain why dialogue alone can't carry a scene. Then we put ourselves to the test with the chapter's event and theme exercises.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

There's something about a new craft book and all its promise. Renee is so happy that she's worried she won't do anything but gush over the first chapter of Sandra Scofield's The Scene Book. We'll find out in today's episode.We start with what makes a scene powerful, both in general and in specifics — anyone out there into Outlander? Renee's a fan. From there, we move on to how Scofield defines a scene, with comparisons to how past books have approached the concept, and then tackle the four elements Scofield claims every scene contains. But honestly, the most useful part of this chapter is what we learned from the exercise we chose: writing a memory as a scene. Kim reached for her high school bike accident, while Renee reminisced about the time she and her grandfather traded lemons for donuts.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

We're saying goodbye to The Artist's Way — and honestly, good riddance. We're recapping our favorite quotes, the insights that actually landed, and the many, many reasons this was the most frustrating craft book we've covered on this show.Would we recommend it? Hard no. Curious about Morning Pages? Google it — someone's written a better explainer than this book ever managed.Then we pivot hard: no more process, just craft. Enter The Scene Book by Sandra Scofield — composition-notebook cover included, so you know it means business. End-of-chapter exercises and everything. We're digging into the introduction and what we're hoping this one delivers that the last one didn't.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

We finally finished The Artist's Way—Julia Cameron's self-help bible for unlocking your creative potential. Spoiler: our potential remains firmly locked. Was it a lack of faith? Of confidence? Of cognitive dissonance? All we know for sure: the Morning Pages did not save us.But even in defeat, the final chapter gave us something to chew on. We talk hobbies as a backdoor into fun and focus. We put "Escape Velocity" — Cameron's theory that success can sabotage your creativity — on trial. And we tackle the eternal question: what do you do with a Wet Blanket Friend when you're about to do something a little unhinged?Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Week 10 of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way finally tackles the elephant in every writer's room: creative block. And Cameron's fix isn't the standard "butt in chair, write daily" gospel (morning pages notwithstanding). No, she goes bigger, blaming workaholism, distraction, fame-chasing, and our need to compare ourselves to everyone else. Classic Cameron: heavy on the diagnosis, light on the cure.Lucky for you, listener, we like useful advice. This episode: boundaries that stick, carving out time and headspace to write, prompts that don't feel like homework, and how to enjoy the process of daily writing. Plus a detour into dopamine, because apparently we can't discuss creativity without getting a little sciency about it.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

f you listen to this podcast, you probably dream of becoming a successful writer. But what happens when you actually get there—and find yourself flailing and blocked anyway? Sounds like a best-selling-author problem, the kind that shouldn't have a place in Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist's Way. And yet as we take a closer look at our own writing journeys, we find a certain truth to this. Even modest success can curdle into a total lack of enthusiasm. This week, we talk about what happens when your art stops feeling novel and exciting, and all those beginner get-your-butt-in-the-chair techniques stop working. Cameron's solutions involve spiritual electricity and artistic alters, which read exactly as hokey as they sound. Luckily, our discussion resulted in more practical benefits of exercise and daily rituals. And the best part? We're one chapter away from finishing this book.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

What causes writer's block? According to Julia Cameron, it's not laziness—it's fear. This week's chapter of The Artist's Way goes deep on identifying what keeps writers from writing, even if the solutions are a little thin on the ground. Cameron argues that blocked writers don't need more discipline; they need more enthusiasm and to treat the work like play. And how, exactly, do we do that?She also introduces the concept of Creative U-turns, where otherwise successful artists seem to sabotage their own careers right at the threshold of success. The concepts are genuinely intriguing, enough that we stuck around to find the solutions Cameron didn't.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

A funny thing happened while we were reading the latest chapter of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. She actually had some good advice. That line about how making art is less about "thinking it up than getting it down" that’s simple, but completely true. And her description of perfectionism as "an expensive illusion of safety" hit even harder. Unpacking that idea led us somewhere unexpected: why we cling to perfectionism even when we know it's killing our productivity, where jealousy fits in, and how jealousy might be at the root of the whole problem.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.

Making art can hurt — even when you're fully bought into The Artist's Way. This week Cameron tackles criticism and toxic teachers, and we suspect she's drawing from some personal experience. Her descriptions of creative wounds ring painfully true; her solutions, less so. We dig into her motives, push back on her advice, and have some fun with her mad-libs exercise.Remember, we have a Writers Process meetup every Tuesday. Check us out.