Evon Davis

  ‘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.

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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.

NaNoWriMo has been such an incredible experience. There are only 5 days left and I’m on target to finish on time. I’m 42,500 words into the new book, so only need another 7,500 to finish.

Yesterday I went to 24-Hour Fitness and I was reading Tales of Power by Castaneda. I like to read something thought-provoking while working out; otherwise it’s kind of boring. Anyway, don Juan said to be a warrior, “You must push yourself beyond your limits all the time.” Castaneda said that was “insane.” But don Juan said, “There are lots of things that you do now which would have seemed insane to you ten years ago. Those things themselves did not change, but your idea of yourself changed; what was impossible before is perfectly possible now.”

It struck me how true that is. This writing marathon has really shown me something about myself that I wouldn’t have believed even a year ago. I suppose I had enough belief in myself at the beginning of the month to commit myself to writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. But it’s only now on the 25th day, five days to go and I’m on target to finish, that I know I was capable to doing it.

Now it makes me curious. Well, if I could do that, what else could I do? Then I started thinking back on things I’ve done, that at one time I didn’t believe I was capable of, but it turns out I was. Not sure what I’ll do next, but it’s got me thinking about it.

I often have dreams so powerful that when I wake up, I write them down, turning them into miniature stories. This morning when I awoke, I had been dreaming that I was diving into a pool. There were some very interesting elements about the dream. One was that I was wearing a skimpy red string bikini. (Fortunately in the dream I had a nice body! )

So there was something about the dream that had to do with revealing myself in public (though I was dressed okay for a swimming pool; it wasn’t one of those naked dreams, but it was still very revealing). Secondly the bikini was red, indicating an erotic quality. (duh!)

Thirdly I was diving into the water. The water was dark, like it was deep, not dirty. I was being scored for my dives on how straight and true they were. In other words, I had to reveal myself, then dive into the deep waters straight and true (no covering up, no bending the truth).

But the last dive I was to perform had to be between two walls so close together, I thought for sure I’d smash my body against at least one of the walls if I tried to dive into the narrow space, so I didn’t do it. I’m not quite sure what that part of the dream was hinting at. Maybe it was telling me I need to eliminate the barriers if I really hope to dive in deep.

There was a man at the edge of the pool coaxing me to dive between the walls, but I wouldn’t do it. This is so in alignment with the novel I’m writing for NaNoWriMo, I think I’ll put this dream into the story.

Dreams can say a lot about your character’s state of mind; they can foreshadow your character’s journey. Pay attention to them and see if you can weave them into your story in some way.

On Monday morning I needed to write 4,981 words for NaNoWriMo by midnight to get caught up. I started by brainstorming the elements of each stage for my character. For example, I asked myself, What are the elements of her ordinary world? I came up with a list of 15 things that describe my character in her ordinary world. So as I’m writing her ordinary world, I need to make sure I show all of these elements.

I also came up with an idea I call “Traveling NaNoWriMo.” The way this works is I can’t leave a location and go somewhere else until I’ve written at least 100 words. I couldn’t leave my house this morning until I’d written at least 100 words. Then I went to the library downtown and I couldn’t leave until I wrote 100 words.

Now I’m at Souper Salad. After eating lunch, I set up my laptop computer and started writing. I got my word count up to 23,808.

Now I’m at the post office, sitting in my car with the laptop open. It’s cold outside and my fingers are a bit stiff, but I’m going for it. Can’t leave the post office until I’ve written at least 100 words. When I finally close the computer, I’m up to 24,022 words!

My final writing stop that day was the public library at University Hills. I wanted to finish my words there because I didn’t want to have to write in my car again if I went to the grocery store or the health club. I wrote until the battery in my laptop died, but I hadn’t reached 25,000 words yet, so I wandered around the library until I found a small conference room that was empty and had a table, chair, and an electrical outlet. I plugged my computer in and wrote until I reached 25,181 words!

Now if I can just do that one more time, write another 25.000 words in 15 days, I’ll finish the marathon. This has been quite an experience. Next month I’ll sleep.

In Stage 2 of the mythic structure, the main character receives a call to adventure. For example, in The Odyssey, Odysseus is called to war against Troy. In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker receives a message from Princess Leia. This is also known as the “inciting incident.” It is the event that sets the story in motion. It sets the main character on a journey, whether that be an inward journey of discovery, or an outward journey. Often it is a combination of the two.

Let’s look at this stage in some popular novels and films like Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (page 16), The Alchemist, and Avatar.

In Harry Potter 5, the call to adventure occurs when the Dementors show up. Everything up to that point was ordinary and nothing unusual would have come from it. It is only when the Dementors arrive on the scene that things become extraordinary (even for Harry). He is forced to use magic to fight them off, calling forth his patronis, the white stag. Not only is it unusual for him to see the Dementors in Little Whinging, but the fact he has used magic means he has broken the rule against “the underage use of magic” and he used magic in front of muggles. Now he may end up being expelled from Hogwarts.

In The Alchemist, the call to adventure comes when Santiago has a recurring dream of a child telling him that he has to go to where the pyramids are and find his treasure there.

In Avatar, the call to adventure comes when Jake is placed in his Avatar body. He goes out on a reconnaissance mission with the science team and ends up separated from his group. It’s really the event of being separated that sets him on his journey because that’s what leads him to meeting Netyri and the other Nav’i.

Ever since I developed a workshop on the 12-Stage Mythic Structure in 2007, I always use it to write my novels. I’m now writing my third novel using that structure. The reason I like it is because it tells you where the story needs to go, yet it’s flexible enough that the novel can grow organically so it doesn’t become formulaic.

I started NaNoWriMo by plotting out my novel using the Mythic Structure, creating an outline that provided me with a path upon which I could lay the story. For a while I just wrote whatever came into my mind and didn’t worry about where in the novel that piece of information would show up.

Things were going along well, but then life got in the way. You know, the elections totally absorbed a few days in early November. Then I’ve had other projects to contend with. And I have a social life that I don’t want to eliminate for an entire month. All sorts of things drew on my time and attention. Then it was suddenly the 10th, one third of the way through NaNoWriMo and I realized I wasn’t one third of the way through writing my 50,000-word novel. I told myself I was going to catch up, yet I just kept getting farther behind.

Finally I reached a point where I realized that if I hoped to have 25,000 words, half the goal by the 15th, I would have to write 5,000 words per day for 3 days in a row. So here it is, the 14th, and I’ve got a little over 16,000 words. I want to have at least 20,000 before midnight.

So I came up with a little trick that has been really effective. It goes like this:

1) Pull up the manuscript (assuming you’re typing). I keep it in one file; that makes it easier to do the word count.

2) Put in the Mythic Structure headings so that you know where each stage begins in your novel.

3) Start at Stage One and write 100 words for that stage as fast as you can. 

4) Then go to Stage Two and write 100 words for that stage as fast as you can. The key is to write as fast as you can. It doesn’t matter because you should already know that this is going to be a shitty first draft, but your goal is simply to get it on the page as quickly as possible. You’ll have to rewrite and revise anyway. But by writing so fast, you bypass your internal critic and discover things you never could have imagined. That just happened to me a few seconds ago!

5) Each time you get your hundred words, move on to the next stage and write 100 words in that stage as quickly as you can.

6) Exactitude isn’t the issue. I’m now at 16,221. All I really care about is getting it up to 16,300. So I start writing and the next time I check I’m at 16,324. I wrote 103. Now I’m on to the next stage and my goal is to get to 16,400 as fast as I can. I keep going like this until I get to 17,000.

7) Sometimes I get in the flow and the story just takes over. That just happened and when I had stopped and checked my word count again, I had 17,373 words.

I’m up to 20,000 words now, but it took four hours. I still have 5,000 to go if I hope to reach 25,000 by the mid-way mark, midnight on the 15th. I’ll just keep running through the stages, 100 words at each one until I get up to 25,000.

For now I’m going to break for the day and focus on something else.

It’s day 10 and at this moment I’ve only reached 7,500 words. I’m hoping to get another 2,500 words before I fall into bed tonight and go unconscious. That will still require 2,000 words per day for the next 20 days, unless I somehow manage to pull ahead of schedule.

This makes me realize that NaNoWriMo requires near-total devotion. If you’re in the shower, think about one of your characters taking a shower. Remember Psycho? Or I’m thinking of a scene, I believe it was in Yes, Man! with Jim Carey. He’s afraid of slipping in the shower so he puts himself in a harness, but when he drops the soap and bends over pick it up, he gets turned upside down in the harness and can’t get himself up right again.

If you’re eating, think about your character eating. What does she eat? Where does she like to eat (I’m thinking of Diane Lane eating chicken standing up at the kitchen sink in Must Love Dogs), why does your character have these particular tastes or habits? Jeez, Elizabeth Gilbert managed to write a third of her memoir about eating.

Today I’m going to the cinema to see a film so as I was pumping out some of my words for today, I… can you guess… I put my character on the Underground waiting for a train because she’s going to the cinema to see a film. Of course I’ll make it interesting. Just putting your character through the mechanics of daily life isn’t enough, in itself. There has to be something unique and telling about it that makes it worth putting in your novel.

While I’m sitting in the theater, I’ll have my pen and notebook ready to keep pumping out my words for today.

I ended up seeing Fair Game, which not only gave me a lot to think about, it also helped me decide that my character’s lover will live in Washington DC and work for the State Department (I actually have an ex who lives in DC and works for the State Department, but I’ll change his name and the identifying details obviously). I was just thinking that DC is a place that could easily stimulate my imagination.