When a writer asks me what I can do for them as their coach, I tell them, “My work is all about your butt—and your buts.”

Your Butt

The inescapable fact is this: Nothing will happen—no great change will come to you as a writer—until you complete your screenplay or novel. And the only way to complete your screenplay or novel is to PUT YOUR BUTT IN A CHAIR AND WRITE.

Writers, regardless of what many folks may think, are human. They want to go to the beach, or to the racetrack, or to the new Italian restaurant in town just as badly as everyone else does. But more than they want those things, writers want to create. They are willing to take the risks of going deep within, and bringing to the world what they find, whether it is beautiful, or terrible, or a terrible beauty.

Did I mention that writers are human? Humans are capable of miracles of creation, endurance, innovation, and inspiration. But most of us humans, given the choice between a heroic adventure and watching what’s on TV tonight, will choose the TV.

That’s how writers are different. They choose the hero’s adventure over conformity. At least, most of the time. And when they don’t, that’s where I come in. Because sometimes all a writer needs to choose adventure over complacency, IS A GOOD SWIFT KICK IN HER BUTT.

I’ve been kicking myself and other writers in the butt for over 20 years.

In a word, kicking writers in their butts is about accountability. Often, just knowing that we are accountable to another person is all that is necessary for us to stay on track, and to stay on task. When you are accountable to me as your coach, you will discover powerful results. These results do not come from me—they come from within you! When you work with me, rather than filling desk drawers and computer files with notes, outlines, and unfinished, incomplete work, you will be the author of screenplays and novels. Your screenplays and novels will be ready to send out into the world for the next stage of your hero’s adventure: being read, being bought, being published, being produced.

Your Buts

You’ve heard other writers list their “buts.” You probably have your own cherished list of “buts.” Over my 20 years of writing novels and screenplays, and helping other writers to complete their novels and screenplays, I have heard them all.

“I really would be writing—“

• But I don’t have the time
• But I don’t have the money
• But I have kids! (Personal Note: I wrote and sold 2 screenplays while my triplet boys were infants.)
• But I don’t have screenplay software
• But I don’t have any support
• But I have a headache
• But I only write when I’m inspired (or inebriated, or depressed, or elated)
• But I can’t think of anything to write
• But I want to watch television (go to a movie, talk on the phone, surf the internet, daydream)

Here is one thing I can absolutely guarantee you, as one writer to another:

ALL OF THE ABOVE BUTS ARE FALSE. They are illusions. They are denials of the power to create that is right now inside of you.

The prime evidence that we possess free will is this: We can, at any moment of our lives, choose to watch TV. Or not.

This I believe: Each and every one of us is at heart, and in mind, and in spirit, born to create. What we create is our choice. And whether we create or not is also our choice.

Do me a favor. Do yourself a favor. Read the next two sentences slowly, and with full attention and concentration: The fact that you DESIRE to write a novel or screenplay is the Universe telling you that you CAN. The desire is all the proof you need that writing the novel or screenplay you imagine is YOUR RIGHT PATH.

Here is some very good and powerful news: You already have within you, all that you need to be successful. All it takes to go on the most thrilling and fulfilling adventure of your life is to cast aside all your BUTS, put your BUTT in a chair, and write.

The journey is the adventure.

With my guidance and encouragement, the writers I work with complete their novel or screenplay. That novel or screenplay WILL be of excellent quality, singular originality, and certain marketability.

And once you have written “The End,” you will begin to feel the deep satisfaction and the ever-deepening power of having done what you and only you could have done, and what you and only you were meant to do.

As Wallace Wattles so wisely wrote back in 1910:

Every desire is the effort of an unexpressed possibility to come into action. It is power seeking to manifest that causes desire. That which makes you want [to write] is the same as that which makes the plant grow; it is life seeking fuller expression.

When the student is truly ready, the teacher will appear. Every time.