Thanks, Scott. Excellent post. Got that dose of writing inspiration I was needing!!

My wife grew up in Decorah, Iowa, a few clicks north of Dyersville, where the Field of Dreams set is located. We've been to the site a couple of times, once with my son during the magical days of 10-11 years old, when a bat, a ball and a glove are all a kid needs to attain bliss. As the NYT article underscores, the magic of the setting is still intact. It's a rewarding, authentic shrine to the experience the film and story created. But not for long, it seems. The plans for developing an entire baseball complex around the field will destroy that shrine. Unlike The Alamo, where you can step within its walls and almost physically feel the present day reality of traffic and noise that is downtown San Antonio fade away, as history and heroism comes to the fore, much of the magic of that field is held in place by the corn itself, and the fields beyond, and the early evening mist rising into a changing sky. It cannot be walled in, bottled or sold. One of my favorite screenwriting mantras is: "Remember, you're creating an experience, not a conversation." In the case of the sale of the property to developers -- albeit self-professed well-intentioned ones -- I'm afraid the universal and timeless experience created by W.P. Kinsella and Phil Alden Robinson will not longer be accessible to pilgrims traveling U.S. 20 west out of Dubuque.

Yes, John, it does seem a bit worrisome re the complex they're building. Thanks for that line: "Remember, you're creating an experience, not a conversation." BTW I have a new writing mantra coming up at the top of the hour!

"Watch out for in your ear!"

I sniffled reading about the tough crowd weeping through the credits, remembering field moment myself. Potent moment. I'm struck by the mashup of the universal and mundane in the moment. They don't often reside at same time, one all cerebral, the other all messy and here and now. Unless it's a movie and your dad's a ghost in a corn field. Then it's a thoroughly engaging and deeply satisfying moment for every human being watching. Interesting book I came across, Emotion and Psyche, amazon here, guy offers fresh way to consider emotions. One observation he makes, the more emotionally connected we are to something, the more we can imagine. And since we are all emotionally connected to our dad, our ability to imagine that moment on the screen was huge. And meaningful. Add a dollop of being able to say hey to someone you lost, and it's guaranteed tissue time. Emotions, heart of art and our connection to stories, our ability to be transported by them.

Scott—Your readers may be interested to know that before W.P. Kinesella first wrote the short story "Shoeless Joe Jackson Comes to Iowa," and before he got an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he didn't even start attending college until he was 35 years old. He was 42 years old when the novel "Shoeless Joe" was published and its success allowed him to write full-time for the first time in his life. Just a little history that set the stage for screenwriter/director Phil Alden Robinson to work his magic on what would become the movie "Field of Dreams."

Thanks for that background, Scott. I read "Shoeless Joe" and "The Iowa Baseball Confederacy" years before Field of Dreams came out. Knew Kinsella had gone to IWW, but did not know how late he was getting his academic / writing start. Just goes to show - yet again - there is no one way to a writing career.

[...] A couple of days ago Scott Myers at Go Into The Story wrote a post about the farm where they shot The Field of Dreams being recently sold. He wrote about [...]