Evon Davis

An on-going workshop that guides students who are working on specific projects or just want to improve their writing. The workshop covers all aspects related to the craft of writing, including structure, the elements of compelling stories and characters, and scene writing, so you’re able to accomplish a major writing project such as a novel or memoir. Free-writing exercises help stimulate creativity, as each week you’ll write new scenes and watch your manuscript grow. To get your creative energies flowing, you are welcome to read scenes aloud and get feedback on your writing.

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I knew I had to write from the time I was fifteen, but I didn’t know why.  Perhaps it came from an intuition — a need to make sense of this human experience.  Now it’s clear to me.  By putting my thoughts, feelings, and experiences down in writing, I begin to see a pattern; I see meaning.

Before I have pulled specific details from the current of my life and put them down in some order, none of it makes sense to me.  Maybe it’s pleasurable; maybe it’s not.  If it’s pleasurable, I might not care about the meaning.  I can just accept it for its own sake.  But when something painful occurs, I need to understand its meaning, even if I am the one creating the meaning.  Then I can take it in and embrace it.

I suspect people write for many reasons.  I do not know what they are, but I’d guess that for many of them, it is the same as with me.  There is something inside them that believes if they could put the right words down, they could unlock the magic of their experience.

Is it true?  I think it is.  I have often be stunned when I show up at a writers workshop feeling tired and uninspired.  I think it will be a waste of time.  But I have to show up because I’ve made a commitment.  My students are expecting me, counting on me.  I will fake it if I have to. 

We start by talking a bit; then it’s time to write.  I pour out words.  All of us in the room are writing because that’s what we’ve come to do.  When the timed writing is up, we go around the room, each reading what we wrote.  There’s no judgment.  It’s about sharing and maybe finding out how others were affected by it.

I read.  I am stunned.

I didn’t want to show up.  I did it anyway.  I wrote.  I wrote something magical.  I am stunned.  Where did this incredible writing come from?  I don’t know.  But it has taught me to trust the process.

Every week I show up whether I feel good about it or not.  I show up anyway.  Sometimes I write something incredible, others times not.  But it doesn’t matter.  What matters is that I show up.  I trust the process. 

Occasionally a student comes into class the first day and then disappears. 

Why?

I can only guess it’s because they don’t yet trust the process.  They believe that if they feel uninspired, they won’t be able to write.  This is not true.  I have learned over the years that there is no such thing as writer’s block.  There is only showing up or not showing up.  There is brilliant, magical writing and shitty first-draft writing.  You’re going to get both and they are both good in the overall scheme of things.

What is not good — if you want to write — is not showing up.  If you don’t show up to write, you get nothing.  You don’t get a shitty rough draft.  You don’t get brilliant imagery and succulent prose.  You get nothing.

Except perhaps the fantasy of being a writer.  I honestly believe that some people prefer to wrap themselves in the comforting blanket of fantasy than expose themselves to the true adventure.  But don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s the same thing.  It doesn’t even come close.

In Stage 3 of the mythic structure, the main character refuses the call to adventure, or is blocked in some way.  This sets up the beginning of conflict in the novel. Why doesn’t the character want to accept the call? Is it fear? Is there something in the character’s past that is holding him or her back?

There may also be factors outside the character that are standing in the way. For example, a character falls in love, but is already married. This character must then deal with a whole range of emotional and ethical issues.

Let’s look at this stage in some popular novels and films like Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (page 26), The Alchemist, and Avatar.

In Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is forced to use magic to fight off the Dementors, calling forth his patronis, the white stag.  As soon as he and Dudley return home, an owl shows up with a letter from the Ministry of Magic telling him that he will have to relinquish his wand and appear at a hearing in which they may decide to expel him from Hogwarts.  This is an example where the main character isn’t refusing the call, himself, but is being blocked.

In The Alchemist, Santiago receives the call to adventure when a fortune-teller tries to convince him that his recurring dream is true.  But he refuses to believe her and dismisses the dream.

In Avatar, the refusal of the call manifests in a unique way.  Jake Sully isn’t refusing the call (it’s too late; he’s already in the midst of his adventure), nor is he being blocked from the adventure.  Rather, what we see in the scene after he is separated from his own people, but before he meets Netyri, is a seasoned soldier who is truly terrified and vulnerable.  He’s doing his best to protect himself, but he and everyone else believes he will be dead before sunrise.

So, in these three examples, we see three ways that Refusing the Call can express itself.  One way is to block the character, another is for the character to simply refuse to answer the call, and a third way is for the character to be completely overwhelmed by his (or her) circumstances, such that he surrenders to his fate.

I just read the Sunday Book Review in The New York Times online,” The Problem With Memoirs” by Neil Genzlinger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/books/review/Genzlinger-t.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=books

In his approach to reviewing four memoirs, he states that most people shouldn’t even attempt to write a memoir, and I must say that I strongly disagree.  First of all, writing and publishing are two different things.  If someone wants to write a memoir, they most certainly should.  There is much to be gained in the act of writing itself.

Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”  Writing a memoir is a way to examine one’s life; it’s also a way to share your own unique story; and it’s writing practice (which is beneficial in any form). 

Many people write memoirs for personal reasons, not necessarily to get published.  But even if they do seek publication, who’s to say there aren’t thousands or milions of people who’d be interested in reading it? 

I personally might not be interested in reading any of the memoirs he mentioned, but that doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t be interested.  So,tell us why it did or did not draw you in, but keep whether it should have been published to yourself. 

I did see the film “127 Hours,” based on the memoir by Aron Ralston, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” .  Ironically the film was also reviewed in The New York Times online:  http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/movies/05one.html

I thought it was a fascinating story and well worth the time and money I spent. 

Having battled depression (one of the topics he says “have been disgorged by virtually every­one who has ever had cancer, been anorexic, battled depression, lost weight” that have caused the “memoir-eligible” to be ”lost in a sea of people you’ve never heard of, writing uninterestingly about the unexceptional, apparently not realizing how commonplace their little wrinkle is or how many other people have already written about it.”), I am so grateful to those people who did tell their stories and those who published them so that I could read them and come to understand what was happening to me and that I wasn’t alone.

He suggests that these people should just blog about it, but blogging and memoir-writing are two very different media.  It’s like comparing crumbs to the full-course meal.  Not only is the memoir going to be more complete, nutritious and satisfying, the author can also get paid for all of his or her hard work.  Blogging doesn’t pay, so it’s unlikely to ever be as good as the book.

I recently read two memoirs:  Bird Cloud by Annie Proulx (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/books/review/Fuller-t.html) and Faery Tale by Signe Pike (http://faerytalebook.blogspot.com/), and although Annie Proulx is an award-winning author, The New York Times reviewer Alexandra Fuller called Bird Cloud “something of a letdown,” which sums up what I and everyone in my memoir class thought.

Now according the Genzlinger’s standards, Annie Prouxl is memoir-eligible.  Her second novel, The Shipping News (1993), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for fiction in 1994, and was made into a film in 2001. Her short story Brokeback Mountain was adapted as an Academy Award, BAFTA and Golden Globe Award-winning major motion picture released in 2005. She won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for her first novel, Postcards.

He says, “There was a time when you had to earn the right to draft a memoir, by accomplishing something noteworthy or having an extremely unusual experience or being such a brilliant writer that you could turn relatively ordinary occur­rences into a snapshot of a broader historical moment. Anyone who didn’t fit one of those categories was obliged to keep quiet. Unremarkable lives went unremarked upon, the way God intended.”

But who decides who and what is remarkable or unremarkable?  If Bird Cloud hadn’t had the name Annie Proulx attached to it, it probably wouldn’t have been published.  On the other hand, Faery Tale is the story of a 28-year-old woman, no more remarkable than any other, who wrote a memoir about her search for enchantment.  She sees enchantment in the mundane, like a robin who lands at her feet three times with a different insect in its mouth each time, and it’s utterly delightful.

I found Signe Pike’s descriptions of nature in Faery Tale far more engaging than those of Annie Proulx in Bird Cloud.

I’m just saying that if publishers only published what Genzlinger considers “memoir-eligible,” we’d miss out on a great deal of beautifully-written stories, some about suffering, some about the mundane, all of them remarkable in their own unique ways.

Mike Shevdon is the author of Sixty-One Nails and The Road to Bedlam.  I owe him for his inspiration and admire him for his writing. 

Hi Mike,

I first saw your book, Sixty-One Nails, on Jennifer Jackson’s website/blog, then I saw it one day while browsing in the bookstore. It looked interesting so I bought it and read it. I was hugely impressed!

I’m drawn into the world of magic that you create.  Because I live in a magical world and see it all around me, when I read stories with magic in them, I expect to see the core truths about magic.  That tells me the author knows what he or she is talking about.  I definitely see that in your writing. 

As soon as Road to Bedlam came out I bought it and started reading it, but had to put it aside while I focused on NaNoWriMo and then revising the novel I’ve been writing this year.  When I went back to it, I couldn’t put it down!  I stayed up late last night, way past my bedtime, to finish it.   

You are definitely on my list of favorite writers. I’m a huge fan of yours now and can’t wait to read your future books.   What I find appealing about your writing is that the characters feel so real to me.  Niall Peterson comes across as a very real person.  It’s been gripping watching him deal with the problems he’s had to confront, and I’m looking forward to seeing how he deals with his children and their powers, not to mention how the Seven Courts and humanity will resolve their conflicts. 

Along with Niall, Blackbird is one of my favorite characters.  She is a strong female (which appeals to me).  I was surprised that when you took away her magical powers in the second book, it didn’t diminish her at all.  It showed us that her power isn’t really in her magic; it’s much deeper.  (I think the same is true of Niall.)

The settings are intriguing as well.  Of course that’s expected as part of urban fantasy where settings are integral to the story, but you do an excellent job of bringing them to life.  The fishing village of Ravensby is as vivid as anything in real life.

We all have some kind of power (or what I would call magic).  One of your powers is writing.  I was pleased to read that you got a contract for two more books.  I hope there will be many more after that!

I’m sure I will enjoy reading them, and continue recommending your books to my creative writing students.  Thank you so much for the wonderful stories :)

Evon

I’ve been suspecting it for about a week now, but I fully realized today, that my latest novel has reached the point of being over-workshopped.

I’m a firm believer in getting feedback, especially from people who know something about writing (others you have to take with a grain of salt).  It helps to know if a piece of writing is having the intended effect.  But at some point it crosses a line from suggestions that can truly improve the novel, to suggestions that have nothing to do with the craft and are only the reader’s personal opinion about how the story and characters should be written.

At that point, it’s a matter of splitting hairs and workshop feedback has diminishing returns.  Here’s an example:  my novel is set in the UK and one of the characters sometimes says, “Bloody hell,” which people in the UK really say, but one (american) reader thinks it sounds silly and I should take it out.

Secondly, although one of the rules is “show, don’t tell,” sometimes you just have to say, “she was frightened.”  I mean, you can only have a character’s heart racing and pounding so many times in a novel until they start to sound like they’ve got a congenital heart defect.

Although we want to know the character’s emotions and bodily reactions, some of that should be obvious from the situation.  If the character is fidgeting in her seat, craning her neck to look out the window, and asking about the dancing lights in the sky, it should be obvious that she’s curious.  We don’t need the author to then tell us that she’s curious about the dancing lights.

I’ve finished revising of the first 9 chapters… 33 to go.  And I’m seeing that there’s still room for improvement, but not every suggestion that’s been offered is useful at this point.  One person likes it one way; another likes it the way it is.  Who decides?  Uh… I guess that would be me.

And I’ve decided I am not going to have my characters emoting in every other sentence.  That, in my mind, is excessive.

For those who have never reached the point of being overworkshopped, the simple realization doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes easier.  I’ve made up my mind that this novel won’t be workshopped anymore, but I still have to decide which of the suggestions to take seriously, and which ones to ignore.  That comes down to confidence and that’s something most writers struggle with.

But at some point an author has to be able to look at his or her writing and believe that it’s good.  I’ve got too many voices in my head right now.  Time to shut some of them up.

  ‘Nuf said.  I’m gonna take a nap for a little while.  Maybe later when I get a some of my energy back, I’ll say more about it.

Actually, I just want to say one thing before I toddle off to bed (though I doubt I’ll really sleep), I’ve learned things about myself and writing that I didn’t know on October 31st.  I’m capable of a lot more than I believed about myself.  I think we all are.  I haven’t quite figured out how to tap into that unused potential, but I hope to see a lot more of it in 2011.

I just ran across this new blog:  http://www.deadlinedames.com

I was reading a post about rejections and how to respond to them.  Getting published seems to be a cut-throat business, yet I’ve read that 60,000 new books are published every year, many of those are first-time authors, so it is possible to get published. 

I’ve often compared it to gambling in Las Vegas or on Wall Street.  I think it comes down to luck, numbers, and skill (oh, and perseverence).  I’ve wondered why some people seem to “get lucky,” like JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer.  Rowling sent her manuscript to two agents; one rejected it; one picked it up. 

Now I’m willing to believe that Rowling’s manuscript was spotted for its writing and story.  I love Harry Potter.  I loved the seventh book.  But to be completely honest, I couldn’t read the first 6.  I’ve tried, but I can’t do it. 

I suspect I was able to read the seventh book because it was the most adult of the series, and also because I wanted to find out if Snape was good or evil.  Now that I’ve taken the time to really study her books and her work habits, I’ve come to appreciate a great deal about her and her writing.  But something about getting picked up after two submissions seems lucky to me.

Is it really true that Harry Potter 1 was so much better than all those other manuscripts getting rejected?  Hmmmm, my honest opinion is that it’s good, but it’s not that much better. 

I do think luck is involved.  Unfortunately there may not be anything we can do to make ourselves more lucky (though I will certainly try).  These are the areas we can impact:  numbers, skill, and perseverence.

(more…)

Don Juan said, “A warrior takes his lot, whatever it may be, and accepts it in ultimate humbleness.  He accepts in humbleness what he is, not as grounds for regret but as a living challenge.  It takes time for every one of us to understand that point and fully live it.”  (Tales of Power, page 19)

This passage felt relevant to me this evening.  I’m sitting at a friend’s house on the south side of town waiting to pick up my daughter at 9:00pm.  My friend’s home is beautiful, but I’m cold (I’m always cold) and I’m tired, looking forward to getting home so I can go into my bedroom, turn on the radiator, crawl into bed, and fall asleep.  How lovely that would be.

But that’s not my lot at the moment.  I’ve been thinking lately of the winter cold as warrior’s training.  An impeccable warrior doesn’t complain; she accepts her lot in all humbleness.  I think there are a few reasons for this.  One is that complaining does no good.  It only drains us of energy.  It’s less energy- consuming to be at peace. 

Another is that an impeccable warrior is always conscious not to take anything for granted.  I am so blessed.  How could I possibly complain? 

Finally, to accept the present reality helps us to become stronger.  It’s not about being a prisoner.  It’s about being free.  I am free to be here or leave.  If I choose to stay, then I take full responsibility for that.  There is no room left for complaining. 

“To change our idea of the world is the crux of sorcery.” (Tales of Power, page 13)

When we change our idea of the world, we change ourselves.  And when we change ourselves, we change our idea of the world.

He also said, “If one is to succeed in anything, the success must come gently, with a great deal of effort but with no stress or obession.” (Tales of Power, page 12)

I remind myself of this as I work through the revisions of my latest novel.  Obviously I want to be finished, so when I get feedback saying that I need to work on the relationship between my main character, Trinity, and her mentor, Artemis, I feel frustrated because I think it’s fine the way it is.  Am I missing something?  If so, what is it, and why can’t I see it?  Am I blind to my own writing or does the reader just not get the relationship I’m trying to create?  (I was going for the sort of feeling like that between Ged and Arren in The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. LeGuin). 

So it’s back to the basics.  I need to read The Farthest Shore again while reading my own manuscript and see if I got the feeling I was striving for.  Even so, it’s possible it could be better.  I just need to be patient, put in a great deal of effort, and not get stressed out or obsess about it.  That’s how an impeccable warrior moves through her world. 

For more on The Warrior-Goddess Chronicles, please visit: http://www.thewarrior-goddess.blogspot.com/

As a creative writing workshop leader, I meet many aspiring writers, some who stick with it and complete the first draft of a manuscript, then go on to revise it, and will have a good chance of getting published.  Others languish and then give up.  I’m sure that some of these would-be writers are just in love with the idea of being a published author, but don’t have the skill-set of writers who actually get that far.  As I once heard it described, “They want to be authors, not writers.” 

Those dreamers will give up eventually when they find out that writing takes tremendous discipline, but I feel compassion for those who just need help figuring out what’s missing because I see myself in them. 

I believe one of the essential ingredients is being in love with your characters.  If you love your characters, you’ll stick with them through thick and thin; you won’t give up so easily.

If you’re deeply, passionately in love with your characters, you’ll have the energy and desire to stay with them for the long haul; you’ll care enough about them to find out who they are, and to tell their stories.

If you love them, your readers are likely to fall in love with them as well.  My characters are usually inspired by other characters, people I know, and aspects of myself (all well-disguise of course.)

I often fall in love with characters in novels I’ve read.  If there are no more books to read with that character, it makes me so sad, I sometimes cry at the end of a novel because I know I’m saying goodbye to this person I’ve come to love.  Sometimes I find it so unbearable that I have to reincarnate them in one of my own characters.  That’s the way I felt about Ged (The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin), Joseph Knecht (The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse) and Sabriel (Sabriel by Garth Nix), just to name a few.

And of course if you’ve read many of my blogs, you know that don Juan lives a rich life inside my imagination.  These characters keep me company, help me solve problems in my own life, and entertain me with their delightful stories, which I hope will someday entertain and touch you as well.