Author: Davis Bunn

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

Concept 8: You Never can tell

Building your creative space

“I’ve been able to work for so long because I think next time, I’ll finally make something good.”

Alira Kurosawa, film producer and director

Several years ago, my younger brother and his wife sold their Raleigh home, where they raised their three beautiful children, and moved to another state.  In the midst of this hectic and somewhat traumatic period, his wife came upon one of my earliest manuscripts.  It was entitled The Quilt, and this is its story.

Twenty-seven years ago, my mother’s mother started work on a quilt for us as a wedding present.  But then she had her stroke, and sewing became impossible.  Someone from her home town of Smithfield heard about this, and volunteered to help.  Over the next several months my grandmother’s last work was passed from one quilting group to another, until it was finished and sent to us three weeks after our wedding.

When the gift arrived in Germany and Isabella – my new wife – started to open the box, I told her she had to stop, there was such an intense feeling of having my grandmother there in the room with us.  I wanted to capture this on the page.  I took the unopened box into my study, and spent the next six weeks writing the story.  Only when The Quilt was finished did I let Isabella see our wedding gift.

We had to postpone our honeymoon because we were both working on very tight schedules.  Three months later, we flew first to Minneapolis and met with the publishers of my first book.  Then we flew to Hawaii.

On the flight from Europe, I gave Isabella this very same copy of The Quilt that my sister-in-law had recently sent us. 

Isabella just bawled. 

The stewardess knew we were going on our honeymoon, and assumed I had done something awful to upset my new bride.  They gave Isabella several bottles of champagne and refused to speak to me for the rest of the transatlantic flight.

When we landed in Minneapolis, Isabella insisted that I send my grandmother the story.  She refused to wait until we arrived in North Carolina, the last stop on our journey, and allow me to hand-deliver it.  She was absolutely certain that my grandmother needed to see this now.

Then on our return from Hawaii, at a stopover in Saint Louis, I phoned my sister to say that our flight had been delayed.  She told me that my grandmother had passed on, and the funeral was that very day. 

We went straight from the Raleigh airport to the church.

After the service, people started coming up to us, embracing us both, and telling us how  The Quilt had become the last thing my grandmother read before she passed on.  In her final days speech became quite difficult.  So when friends and family came to visit, she asked them to read to her from this very manuscript. 

I’m holding the manuscript now, as I write these words. 

There are coffee-cup stains and smudge marks on almost every page.  These people, many of whom I had never met, kept hugging Isabella and myself, telling us that they had become our friends through those hours, and how much it had meant to share that story with my grandmother.

The story might well have ended here.  And it did, for five long years.

The Quilt was too short to be published as a novel, and too long to sell as a short story.  It occupied a nebulous world of strong emotions and sentimentality, and I was developing a reputation as a writer of mysteries and contemporary drama.

Five years.

Soon after the Iron Curtain came crashing down, my wife and I traveled to Eastern Europe so that I might research the second of a trilogy based in Poland, the former East Germany, and the Ukraine.  I came down with an amoebic infection of my liver and gall bladder that rendered me exhausted for almost three months.  During that time, my new British publisher came for the weekend, and since I was going to bed around five in the afternoon, I gave them this manuscript to read.  Why exactly I chose this story, I have no idea.

Two days later, they called and offered me a contract. 

The Quilt went on to become the first novel in almost forty years to be selected as the Book of Lent for the Anglican church.

As often happens in this strange business, once interest was shown by somebody else, US publishers were swift to climb on board.  The Quilt went on to become a national bestseller.  There are more than four hundred thousand copies in print.  Most recently Hallmark republished it as a coffee-table giftbook, with original photography.

The reason I wanted to share this with you is as an example of what you may also very well face.  Entering into the commercial world of art virtually guarantees periods of uncertainty and upheaval.  In the midst of such chaos and mixed emotions there are so many opportunities to quit, and so many good reasons to justify that step. 

I would like to tell you that The Quilt was the last of my books to be rejected, only to later become a bestseller.  I would like even more to say that once I achieved national recognition the process went a lot more smoothly.

But here and now we are dealing with truth.

Do This Now:

  • See yourself as building a foundation upon solid rock. 
  • Your aim is not merely to develop a space and discipline that promotes creative productivity.  You are establishing a sense of vision.
  • Today, in this brief moment, look beyond the immediate.  Capture a brief hint of the horizon.  The goals are there.  They can be achieved.
  • Seize the day.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

Concept 7: Dealing with fear

Building your creative space

“We promise according to our hopes, and perform according to our fears.”

Rochefoucauld 

You have every reason to be afraid. In fact, if you’re not scared, you’re probably nuts. Some would say that being monumentally skewed is helpful to becoming a successful writer. But for those of us burdened with sanity, we must learn how to deal with our fears.

You would think that after a while this whole fear thing might fade into the background. Maybe for some people this happens, but for myself, and other writers, the struggle is real.

When I started work on the first book in my current series, Miramar Bay, I had three very real bugaboos staring me in the face—like returning to the childhood era of waking up knowing there was a monster under my bed. Only in this case, I knew the monsters were real, because I made them.

Monster One

I was writing for a new publisher. And a new editor, whom I liked. A lot. And I really, really wanted to impress her.

Monster Two

I had a secret hope that this new story would frame the direction of my writing for years to come, possibly the rest of my career. Which meant I had to get it right. 

Monster Three  

I was writing a new story. Fear doesn’t vanish because I’ve written a book before. Nor does it matter much that currently I’m writing the fifth book in this series. I’ve just learned Publishers Weekly and Coming Home magazines are both doing articles on the fourth book, due for release in April–and the initial reviews are great. Okay, this helps. But now Monster Three is even bigger, because I need to make book five better than previous books.

Monster Four

I’m co-authoring a new suspense series, with a great young author and, on the script side, working with a new film agent.

Monster Five

The UK Covid crisis has added its own set of monsters. Its impact on both publishing and the film-production world cannot be overstated.

Then last week I heard this story. Actually, I’d heard it long before, and forgotten it. This time, the hearing was a true gift.

One of my absolute favorite actors is Laurence Olivier, whose ability to lose himself in a role was so great I often found myself becoming lost with him. The power he had to ensnare and captivate has remained an inspiration and challenge to me throughout my career. 

Olivier often suffered from such intense bouts of terror, he was bodily forced on stage. He once confessed to being afraid for five years. This was at the height of his worldwide fame. Beloved by millions around the globe, yet so terrified of standing in front of a camera he would beg, plead, and fight not to perform.

Fear and doubt plagues us all, even successful people. As long as you aspire to grow, do better, aim higher, these barriers remain a part of your creative life. In my experience, fighting them is almost as futile as pretending they don’t exist. 

What should an author do?

Doubt, fear, and tension are very much a part of you and the creative process. A vital part.

It might help to build a segment of your creative world where these elements are granted space and are accepted, then you can use them, allow them to push you beyond your comfort zone. Grow. Question. Develop. Become the best author possible.

How I both distill and utilize these energies.

My top creative period is the early morning. I will explore exactly what this means in another concept. For now, I want to talk about the rest of the day.

When a free ten minutes (or less) appears, I sketch. I carry a pad with me everywhere.  Supermarket.  Walks.  Even when I go for my bike rides or to the gym. The aim is to explore.  Free thinking. No holds barred. I write whatever comes to me. And gradually the next scene unfolds.

I give all the monsters free reign. What if I change this?  Do away with that. Worry over not making this segment fit. Action that doesn’t hold enough tension. All these things. Over and over and over.

Two amazing results come from granting space to doubt and fear.

First, the next morning I approach my writing desk, and the fragments spin together. Tight, concise, powerful.  Over and over and over.  Day after day.

Second, my productivity soars. I began applying this process twelve years ago, and since then my creative drive has accelerated.

What does this mean? 

In the past twelve months I have written two full-length novels and half a new Christmas novella, a feature-film screenplay, a season-one streaming series overview, a new pilot episode, and two magazine articles.

This process works. The energy contained within your doubts and fears is explosive. If you break free of the need to fight against them, but embrace them and grow.

Try This:

  • Name your monsters.
  • If it helps, go buy some stuffed animals, line them up, and name them.
  • Accept that they are, in a strange way, your allies. Because, if you let them, they can be the voices that spur you on to great and courageous deeds.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages. The sequel, entitled Rare Earth, won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013. In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges. His recent title Trial Run  has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, haw been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University.  

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

How a Novel Came to Be, Part Two

Building your creative space

Read the first half of the story here to learn how hopes were raised and then dashed.

In the dark weeks that followed, some unexpected glimmers of light appeared.  Producer-director Bart Gavigan (End of the Spear, Luther) and Emmy and Bafta-winning writer-director Norman Stone (Shadowlands) read my unpublished manuscript.  Film executives at this level are inundated with scripts.  For them to take the time to read a novel – five times the length of a feature-film screenplay – was a huge gift.  As was their response.  Both were unreservedly positive and urged me to begin work on the script.  Bart went so far as to offer detailed notes on how he felt the screenplay should be shaped; I liked these so much I decided to incorporate them into the novel.

A few months later, my newly-completed screenplay was passed to Ileen Maisel, producer of Golden Compass and many others.  She invited me to a meeting at Claridges, where she had taken up temporary station.  She informed me that it was impossible for her to take the project herself, as she was fully committed to a new series (The Dresden Files, soon to be aired on ABC).  But she liked my work, and wanted to remain in contact.

As a result of this meeting, Island of Time then journeyed to Los Angeles.  Soon after, so did I.

My third Hollywood meeting was with David Lipman (producer of Shrek and Ironman), then president of Starlings Entertainment, and his DD Emily Gottlich.  They both were the exact opposite of everything I’d been led to believe about top-tier Hollywood executives.  They were soft-spoken, highly intelligent, and as gentle as they were intense.  Because they had simply asked to meet, without any actual response to my story, I had been warned by others that they probably liked my writing but were not interested in that particular script.  So I had practiced pitching two other stories.  For days.

Their offices were in a brand new building on the corner where Wiltshire Boulevard met the Pacific Ocean.  Not really.  Wiltshire actually dead-ends into Ocean Avenue, which then fronts a narrow park, then the cliff which drops down to the PCH, then the beach and the Santa Monica Pier.  But when I exited the elevator and entered the Starlings penthouse offices, all I could see through the wall of glass was…

Blue.

And storm clouds.  And rain.  Because it was a freezing rain-swept February day in Los Angeles.  For which David and Emily apologized.  Like I was expected to be seriously bothered by the weather. 

So I there I was, poised on the edge of their designer sofa, with the two of them seated with their backs to the Pacific.  Ready for them to ask if I had anything else I could offer…

The words they spoke just didn’t seem to fit inside my head. 

It actually took a while for their news to register.  Probably thirty seconds.  Less.  But it felt like hours.  Then…

They loved my script.  They wanted to buy it.  Not option.  Buy.  Put it into production.  Immediately.  They had decided to approach David Womark, producer of such hits as Deepwater Horizon, to run the project. 

Boom.

I have flashing images of what happened after.  They wanted to know if I had a sequel.  Thankfully, I was so deeply engaged with the story that I already had an idea.  I pitched that, scarcely believing what I was hearing from them. 

Sometime later, I left.  Floated down the park.  Called my wife.  Drove to the hotel.  Too excited.  Walked through the wind and the rain.  For hours.

The next thing I heard was, their legal department would not get around to sending me the T&C Sheet (contractual terms and conditions, negotiated before the contract itself is penned) until after Cannes.  At the time, the news was mildly hilarious – my project was delayed because of something they needed to get ready for presenting in France, and the same should happen to my film the following year. 

My film.

The next four months seemed endless.  A few high notes were reached; film budgeted at thirty million, my payment upon first day of filming was to be six hundred thousand dollars, and so forth.  But mostly it was a time of tension, and trying to stay patient, and unanswered phone calls to the legal department. 

Like I said, endless.

Four months stretched to five, then six, and suddenly the summer was over and autumn had started, and then autumn was winding into winter, and I still did not have the actual contract. 

When the phone call finally came, it almost felt like I knew what had happened before the connection was made.  Karine Martin, CEO of Starlings, told me in our first-ever conversation that Starlings was being sold.  And the buyers only wanted their television division and their film-investment fund.  And all of the current film projects were being dropped.  And earlier that day, David Lipman had been fired.

Those words still weigh several thousand pounds.  Each.

I actually don’t think the acquisition ever went through.  Covid was probably the reason.  In any case, Starlings is still an indie production group, and Karine Martin is still CEO.  But what I think happened was this.  And David Lipman, now a personal friend, agrees.

The acquirer was probably Lionsgate.  And this illustrates a major issue I’ve faced from the beginning with Island of Time.  And a barrier that David has confronted his entire career.

The standard tracks expected within contemporary fantasy run one of two ways.  Either they hold to the teenage-angst-and-romance structure (Buffy, Twilight), or they are very dark indeed (World War Z).  There are huge hits within both directions; and these structures represent common threads in contemporary entertainment. 

And then there are people who seek a different path. 

But current themes and directions in entertainment are not the topic here.  So I will close with three possible takeaways for all you future creative stars.

First, my aim from the beginning was to apply a classical heroic structure to neartime fantasy.  Use the naturally occurring elements of light and dark, good and evil, and magnify them by adding magic to this world.  This core concept was a vague hope when I began writing.  It came naturally; it is in some respects who I am as an artist.  But it was only through this trial by fire that I started drawing this into crystalline focus.

If or when you face your own impossible delays, ask yourself this question.  What lies at the very deepest level of my creative urge?  What is it that drives me to create?  What is most important?  And how is it represented in this specific work? 

Which brings us to the second takeaway, which is:

Beyond these core elements, do your best to remain open to critiques, and flexible to what needs improvement.  Or change.  Or cutting out entirely.  This disciplined balance is crucial to your future.  And your success.

And finally, accept the risk that such experiences may indeed be part of your own future. 

When I speak with other full-time artists, particularly those working in Hollywood, and tell them about these events, there is a been-there-done-that element to their sympathy.  It is, I’m sorry to say, part of the profession. 

Last month my wife and I were invited to the premier of the new theater-musical, Back To The Future.  Robert Zemeckis and his writing partner, Bob Gates, were there and spoke to the audience at its conclusion.  They described the trials and hardship they went through to get the film done; it took them seven years from the completion of the script to the first day of principal photography. 

I wish you every success. 

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Watch for Davis Bunn’s novel, Island of Time, to be released by Severn House/Cannondale UK in April 2022

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

How a Novel Came to Be, Part One

Building your creative space

Four and a half years ago, I was approached by the Director of Development for Gil Netter, who won an Oscar for ‘Life of Pi’.  For those readers who do not know the film industry, a development director (DD) plays an enormously important and complex role.  First of all, they choose the stories or scripts that could potentially be shaped into new projects.  Once this process is complete and the screenplay receives a green-light from the board, the DD then handles all preliminary casting and contracts.  Once everything is in place and the stars align, the DD passes the project over to the chief producer and newly hired director, and they start principle photography. 

Like I said, a big job.

This DD contacted me to say he had become a fan of my work; did I have a concept that was big enough, and original enough, to become their next feature?

The answer was yes, maybe, I had a new idea I was playing around with that might fit the bill.  Even so, it took me almost a month to respond. 

The very idea of pitching a story to someone in his position was terrifying.  Finally my wife put her foot down and ordered me, then and there, to make the call. 

She knew if I waited I would successfully manage to delay things another month.  Or year.  This was my first-ever contact with top-tier Hollywood.  I’ll never forget that moment when the phone started ringing…

We were seated in our car in the central-England market town of Witney.  Rain pelted the roof.  Five o’clock on a Friday afternoon, nine in the morning LA time.  A perfect moment for him to not be available.  Which of course I was desperately hoping would happen.

Instead, he answered.  And to make matters worse, he said he had time to hear my pitch.

With my wife listening over the car’s speakers, I laid it out.  Tried to keep my voice steady by keeping a white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel. 

I described an alternative world where magic was real, and Interpol was tasked with the global policing of Talents – my word for people with magical powers.  The word Talent worked because, except for a very small group of Adepts, wizards generally possessed just one magical ability. 

These Talents loathed Interpol.  The very idea of wizards being policed by the mundane, their powers kept in check by the same laws and principles that were applied to the ungifted, drove them to a constant and never-ending fury.  They used all the money and power at their disposal to have Interpol disbanded.

And then rumors began to surface, of a centuries-old power that had been relegated to the realm of fables, now whispered to be both real and available.  Spells which granted the user the ability to go back in time, remember everything from their previous existence, and change the course of events.  Reshape the global order. 

Two agents were tasked with tracking down the rumors.  Risking their own lives in the process.  Keeping the spells out of the hands of renegade Talents and government agencies who might seek this ultimate weapon for themselves. 

My pitch lasted seven minutes. 

When I was done, there was a long moment of silence, then the words that every author on earth, every artist, dreams of hearing. 

WOW.  I LOVE IT.

He probably didn’t shout the words.  But that was how it sounded inside my head. 

Isabella pried one of my hands off the wheel and pulled it over where she could hold it with both of hers.  We listened to him take this feeble pitch and turn it into something concrete – in his words, a mature fantasy for adults, one that avoided the multitude of cartoonish super-hero stories and the current wave of zombies and vampires.  He urged me to write the novel first, let him go through it, then together we would shape the script. 

Needless to say, the sun came out during our conversation.  No, really.

Further deliberations and long conversations followed, first with Isabella (my wife) and then including my literary agent, Chip MacGregor.  Together we decided it would be best to hold back on pitching the novel, for two reasons.  First, the book’s final shape should fit the actual movie, because the Development Director saw this as the first of several films.  Having the two stories move in tandem was crucial.

Second, we wanted to do what had only happened a few times in history – have the publishing campaign for a new novel work in tandem with the film’s publicity machine.

Only this created a problem.  Because I was already under contract for other books, I needed to somehow squeeze this writing into an already full schedule.

Fourteen months later, I called the film company with the happy news.  The book was completed.  Ready for their first read.  So excited, so utterly thrilled. 

Only there was a problem.  The director, my advocate in the company, had moved on.  And the new director was completely and utterly disinterested in my project. 

I was new to this game, but I’ve since learned this is a common tactic in LA.  Projects started by an ousted executive are almost never taken on by their replacement.  The new guy wants to imprint his or her vision on the group.  Continuing with an early-stage project means burnishing someone else’s image. 

All those hopes and dreams.  Gone. 

Come back tomorrow for the rest of the story.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

The Day After The Day

Building your creative space

“Each of us have moments when we are swept away by an inner sense of excitement about something we are doing or want to do.  In this state, whatever we are working on seems to come alive with significance and even necessity, and our contribution seems to validate who we are or, perhaps more accurately, who we can be.”

Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer

Say you have a truly perfect day. 

Your art sings with such passionate ease you feel it flowing with your breath.  Time becomes a measurement applied to mere mortals.  You become genuinely united with the creative moment.  The heavens open, the angels descend, and they sing with you.  It is, in a word, glorious. 

Then there is the next day. 

Because you have returned to the mortal realm, your first temptation is to review the previous day’s work.  But let’s be honest here.  You’re not doing this because you actually want to change anything. 

You’re after a cheap high. 

You want to feel that same incredible union, without the blood and sweat and tears.

But then you realize that the product of your intense experience is not quite perfect.  What you created has a flaw.  You pluck at this tiny imperfect strand, and gradually your beautiful work becomes shredded. 

The result is inevitable.  All the glorious emotional impact fades away.

You doubt it ever happened.  You become tempted to dismiss the entire experience as a passing illusion. 

There is a scene in my recent novel, Miramar Bay, when the main character goes racing off on his motorcycle in the dark with the headlights off.  How I happened to write it goes like this:

I was at the end of a very long day.  Tired, strung out, a lot going on, and I was running away from two half-finished scenes that I simply could not get right.  So I went to the gym.  And there in the middle of my workout…

The main character, a man named Connor, talked to me. 

It was just so incredible, hearing this guy confess his deepest secret.  I felt so moved.  I borrowed a pen and pad from the gym’s manager and scribbled out the entire scene, like I was listening to Connor confess.  Broken, afraid, totally uncertain as to what he should do next.  But it was this moment that propelled him to do what he did.  Take the midnight bus to Miramar Bay.

Connor raced bikes.  His own ride of choice was the fastest street-legal bike in the world, a Ducatti.  And while Connor had been rising up the impossible glass mountain of LA fame, his escape had been rides through desert hideaways with outlaw buddies. 

But that night Connor had been alone.

He pushed his bike up the desert cliffs north of Palm Springs, one switchback after another, and did so with his lights off.  The motor screaming, his blood pumping, illuminated by the moon.  Why?

Because he did not care whether he lived or he died. 

That was the confession he shared with me.  I wrote it down, and when I was finished, I felt as though I had been given an incredible gift by a guy who was a lot better, and far greater, than he gave himself credit for.

Welcome to Miramar Bay.

So why am I sharing this with you?

Because of the next day. 

When I sat down at my desk the following morning, I faced the same quandary as I had before I left for the gym.  The same two unfinished scenes.  The same imperfect structure that I had to get right.  The same doubts, the same fears, the same…

Do This Now:

  • The issue here, the crux to arriving at the point when inspiration happens, is this:  Work through the hours of drudgery. 
  • You need to fashion a means of maintaining this discipline when the hour is hardest.  Not when it comes easy.  You must do this.  You must.
  • For myself, the answer has come through not allowing myself to reread what I have written until the first draft is completed.  I want to go back.  I hunger to see what I am creating.  But I don’t give in.  I can’t, and maintain my daily productivity, my drive.  I just can’t.
  • You must design your own method for making it through the slog.  I suggest you start with my concept, and hold to it until you fashion your own. 
  • Whatever it is, however you make this work, consider this one of the most vital steps you will ever take as an artist.
  • Do this now.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

The Day, The Hour

Building your creative space

“Each of us have moments when we are swept away by an inner sense of excitement about something we are doing or want to do.  In this state, whatever we are working on seems to come alive with significance and even necessity, and our contribution seems to validate who we are or, perhaps more accurately, who we can be.”

Martha Graham, dancer and choreographer

Moments of inspiration cannot be forced into being.  They cannot even be awaited.  Instead, for the artist to truly be an artist, the creative work must continue despite this inspiration being absent.

But why bother?

There are so many other demands upon our time and energy.  Why put up a fight against the incoming tide?  I mean, let’s face facts here.  There is so little chance we’ll succeed. 

And another thing.  What about everything we have to give up in order to make this creative dream reality? 

I’m so glad you asked. 

The life well lived is a search for identity, priorities, peace, wholeness.  I’m not saying you’ll ever find them.  But having the courage to even speak the words, especially to yourself, is a victory in and of itself.

Then one day, we fortunate few discover something we can give our total allegiance to.  We identify a creative purpose that creates harmony from all the impossible elements and all the past pains.

Even speaking this new intent to ourselves is terrifying.  What if we’re wrong?  What if we get halfway down this road, and discover that we don’t have what it takes?  What about the sacrifices?

The risks are huge.  Of course we’re confused.  And scared.  We’d have to be nuts not to feel terrified.

The only answer I’ve found is to be honest about the alternative.  Which is to coast through life. 

Taking the easy road does not mean giving up on the creative dream.  At least, not immediately.  Instead, we tell ourselves that we’re simply waiting for that perfect solution. 

Taking the easy road means, we expect – we demand – an opportunity that ties our sense of calling to the commercial realm.  We want it to arrive risk-free, tied in a lovely blue ribbon. 

Until that happens, we have a safe little excuse for not taking the leap and committing fully. 

The problem is, you never grow beyond the delusion that life should deliver your dream on comfortable terms.

Don’t make that mistake.

You can’t attach a dollar value to this truth.  If you go with the easier alternative, if you give into whatever stress life pummels you with, sooner or later you will be confronted with the sorrowful absence of what you gave up.

Okay, so now you have committed.  Your creative efforts, your compass heading, are now part of your daily existence.  How do you rise beyond this struggle.  How do you find…

Bliss.

We cannot declare when the moment shall arise, when we cast off the chains of mundane existence and rise up to that incredible, exalted state.  We can’t fashion the hour that our wings will unfold, and we fly off, and glimpse a brief fragment of creative bliss.  We can’t, we just can’t.

But we can most certainly name it.

“Everything flows and nothing stays,” said Heraclitus, the fifth-century BCE Greek philospher, speaking of how time constantly moves us forward, and change is life’s only constant.  But these days there is another meaning given to this word.  And it is by this term that we will begin to take aim.

Flow.

Why call it this?  Well, we need to call it something.  And naming that moment when we become one with the practice of our art is sort of like trying to name a vacuum.  In that instant, we simply are not there.  So in naming it, we instead need to look at the process that brings us to that point.

Flow.  It works as good as anything else.

I am not alone in this choice of a name.  A number of sociologists, medical doctors, and psychologists are now studying the process by which an individual rises above themselves.  Firsthand accounts of such experiences—from sports figures, martial arts experts, artists, and many others—say the same:  It is marked by intense focus, heightened involvement in the action at hand, and two other elements.

First, the experience comes when the practice of this craft or art is so regular that it is natural.  It is a disciplined component of every day.

The second factor is derived from the first.  Because it is natural, we are able to gradually reduce our iron-clad grip upon the work, and through the very intensity of the creative act, we…

Flow.

In his book The Life We Are Given, George Leonard uses the term ‘focused surrender’ to describe the paradox of flow.  Again, the term works as well as any.  The aim is to both try and not try.  To focus intently and at the same time surrender the will. 

Remember what I said in an earlier Concept.  The aim is not discipline. 

The aim is balance. 

The only reason discipline is mentioned so often is because for many creative types, this is the muscle that most needs work.

In achieving a personal sense of balance between the passion and the discipline, the artist can begin to let go.

And flow. 

Flow where, you ask?  Well now.  That is for you to answer.  Not me.

DO THIS NOW:

  • Take careful aim at your creative dream.  Commit.  Grab hold with both hands. Get ready for the fight of your life.
  • Visualize this commitment as a portal.  And through this you can enter into that moment of true creative freedom.  Sometimes.  Not often enough, of course.  But still.
  • On your idea board, place a new card or slip of paper.  On it write the one word: BALANCE
  • Sometimes taking aim is, in itself, a magnificent achievement.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

Moving From Dream to Deal

Building your creative space

“I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.”  

Estée Lauder

“People don’t ask for facts in making up their minds. They would rather have one good, soul-satisfying emotion than a dozen facts.”

            Robert Keith Leavit, author and historian

Preparing an overview has proven time and time again to be a challenge that stumps even the most experienced of writers. How do you take this massive idea for a story and condense it down to a page?

Somewhere out there is an author for whom writing a commercial overview is a piece of cake. They sit down, the concept is hovering in the air over their computer, they type it out, done and dusted. I haven’t met them, but I’m sure they exist. If you happen to be that lone individual, I’d advise you not to tell other authors. Your end will be swift and certain.

For the rest of us, the story overview is a beast.

You have all these ideas that are swarming around in your head. You have a huge cast of characters, a growing storm of events, and three or four hundred pages later, you’ve created a fabulous tale.

How on earth do you distill all this down to one page? How can you tell your story in just a few paragraphs, create in that tiny space a vision that is so compelling the gatekeepers will fall over themselves in their haste to offer you a publishing contract, a film deal, the keys to the kingdom, whatever?

After twenty-five years as a published author, the simple answer is, it doesn’t come easy.  

For my latest story, I worked on the overview for seven weeks. 

All through the initial phase of shaping the characters and the story, I returned over and over to this daunting task.  I knew I had something great here.  The challenge was, creating an overview that made other people feel the same way.

I am going to offer you a few simple steps that will help deconstruct the project, and hopefully guide you towards a synopsis that is magnetic in its appeal.

Do This Now:

  • Start with the question, so what’s your story about? Imagine you are seated in a television studio.  The cameras swish around on silent rubber wheels.  The lights are intense and aimed at you.  The much-loved interviewer shows you that world-famous smile, and then asks you that question.  What is your story about?

How do you respond? You have the live audience on the other side of the camera,  and they’re genuinely eager for you to tell them what they’re going to go out and buy the very next day.      

Write out what you would say.  Limit yourself to just one paragraph.      

Then set it aside.

  • Accept that it is a gradual process. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that this first effort is going to be your finished project. Creating the winning overview is done through trial and error. A few days later, write your first paragraph again.

Keep a notebook just for the overview. If you’re like me, most of these early attempts are not going to fit. But gradually you come to terms with the key element to the successful overview, which is:

  • Your job is not to tell your story. Your goal is to SELL your story. At some point there will come that moment when you discover the amazing concept, the emotional foundation that fuels your quest to write this story. When that happens…
  • Focus on that silver thread. Usually this emotional punch will help you identify the key plot line and characters that drive the story. The entire overview must center upon this one element. This time, when you write the paragraph, you will discover that the entire concept is real in a new sense. The paragraph that results is often called the story’s hook.
  • Begin with the hook, end with the climax. Gradually you develop a story concept that was not there before. As a result, you will often perceive your story’sclimax in a new light. Write this final paragraph next. Remember, you are not entering into a contract. You are not required to actually keep this climax. You are selling.
  • Develop a log-line. The log-line is a Hollywood term, signifying the one sentence or even just a phrase that shouts to the world: This is unique, this is great, come join me on this amazing ride. At some point during the writing of my overview, I will go to the movies and walk down the line of posters for coming attractions. I visualize my story up there as a poster, and sketch out ideas for what this log-line might be. My goal is to come up with two, and I place one at the beginning and another at the end of my overview. These help the editor sell the story to the pub board, and the sales staff place your book with buyers. Oftentimes they also appear on the book’s back cover.
  • Polish and distill. Only at this point do I begin to concern myself with length. Because I want my overview to work with Hollywood, I must limit myself to one page. It is very rare for anything longer to be considered by senior executives. If an overview gets that far up the food chain, a junior exec will trim the longer structures. I much prefer to do that myself.

A final bit of advice: Refrain from speaking with anyone about your work until your overview is complete.

This serves two purposes. First, you have created a commercial structure, and that is what outside readers are really all about. They respond to your project, not to the tender seed of creative fire that exists at heart level.

Second, you now have a means by which you can present your story in a brief and concise fashion. When someone asks what the story is about, you actually know what to say.

I wish you every triumph in making a winning transition from creative project to commercial success.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

Making It Natural

Building your creative space

“You have to play a long time to be able to play like yourself.”

Miles Davis

A dear friend in France, a gastric surgeon, is the son and grandson and great-grandson of taxi drivers.  Being French, the fact that his ancestors were both uneducated and dirt poor did not reduce their passion for art.  They also desired to be collectors, even though they could not afford the art they liked.  But as so often happens in that amazing country, they found a way around their limitations.

Although my friend has become fairly well-off, he has never been bitten by the acquisative bug.  The irony of his complete and utter disinterest in buying anything is also very French.  

In his case, the reason for not wanting to buy more art is because he already has too much.  He claims the burden of inheritance has scalded him so bad he has lost his taste to acquire anything.  If his wife wants new furniture, new kitchen utensils, new clothes for the kids, new anything, she just goes and buys it.  Because she also handles their household accounts, I am not certain he even notices.

To enter their home is to pass through a rambling black and white museum.  Because his ancestors could not afford paintings, they bought sketches.  Many of the artists whose work they loved were starving.  As a result, these artists were often willing to sell their sketchbooks for pennies.

Their home has so many framed sketches, you can hardly tell what color the walls are.  Hundreds and hundreds of sketches.  

Degas.  Van Gogh.  Pissaro.  Picasso.  Renoir.  On and on the names parade with the sketches.

My favorite wall leads to the daughters’ bedroom, and shows four different artists designing a method to draw life-like angelic beings.  Forty-seven sketches in all.  

Every time I visit them, I am struck anew by the difference between what I see on their walls and what I find in the museums.  Impressionist art remains a personal favorite.  One aspect that I find so remarkable is the, for lack of a better word, naturalness.  The flow is smooth, easy.  The emotional empathy is magnetic.  The world they create on the canvas is so reflective of the time, the place, and the artist.  As I said, natural.

Only it is not natural at all.  The evidence is there on my friends’ walls.  

DO THIS NOW:

  • Stop viewing practice as unrewarded effort.  If you’ve realized this already, give yourself a gold star.
  • See your finished work as a final goal, not something you launch straight into.  Understand that elements like finesse and depth and layering all require very intense preliminary effort.
  • Step away from your current project.  Determine a method of sketching.  Use some medium that does not automatically translate into the project itself. For myself, this means writing out almost every scene of a new first draft by hand.  Every scene.  By hand.
  • Understand the intent of a different medium for your sketches:  You are therefore required to redraft everything when you shift to your actual project.
  • Sketch out what you want to do tomorrow.  If it requires several days to achieve this, put off tomorrow until the day after.  This is important.  No matter how strong the urge, don’t begin on the actual project’s next step until you have fully sketched.
  • When this next stage of the project is completed, take a good hard look at the difference your sketching has made to the finished result.
  • The most common fear about sketching is that it drains away the passion and emotional freedom you take into the project.  It is important that you be honest about this. If you find yourself emotionally drained, if sketching feels like the voluntary application of creative shackles, then you must stop.  But as I said, honesty here is vital.  There is a huge difference between emotional constraints and the rigor of a disciplined approach.
  • Remember this word.  It is crucial.  Balance.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.  In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus. His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest. Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University. Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing. 

Watch an excerpt from his new book The Cottage on Lighthouse Lane here.

Learn about his new home at Blenheim Castle here.

Categories
Building Your Creative Space

Peak Experience

Building your creative space

“I can be changed by what happens to me.  But I refuse to be reduced by it.”

Maya Angelou

The summer after finishing university, I left the United States.  My plan was to spend a year in London studying for a masters in economics, then return home to North Carolina.  Instead, I moved on to Switzerland, then Africa, then back to Switzerland, Italy, and finally at age twenty-eight I became a consultant in Germany.  By that point, I knew I could make a living in business.  Even so, I feared it was never going to give me the fulfillment or sense of belonging that I so craved.

Six months later, after a remarkable series of events (another story for another time), I started writing.  

I wrote for nine years and completed seven books before my first was published.  Pause here for a great deal of heartache, sweat, and struggle.  NINE YEARS.  SEVEN BOOKS.  Working a full-time day job throughout.

Six years into this struggle, I wrote two Swiss friends saying that I was on the verge of giving up.  These two guys, who did not know each other, both responded with the same message:  I needed to come smell the ice.

I had of course heard the expression before.  What they meant was, I should travel back to Switzerland and hike a glacier face.  During my five years in Switzerland, I had skied over glaciers any number of times.  But this being August, what they meant was something else entirely.

My Swiss friends insisted it was time, as they put it, for me to meet the ice on the ice’s terms.  Alone.  When the power was total, and the ice was my entire world.  The rock and the ice and the power and the solitude.  

So for my summer vacation I took the train down, and then another train, and finally arrived in Zermatt, the closest village to the Matterhorn.  Early the next morning I took the Gorner Bahn to the top station, and arrived at the trail soon after the sun crested the surrounding peaks.  Most glaciers are constantly on the move, which creates deep fissures and highly unstable surface ice.  Chasms hidden beneath what appears to be a stable ice-face can be a quarter of a mile deep.  But the Monte Rosa walk was unique.  Zermatt is home to the only Swiss glacier stable enough that I could cross alone, without being roped up or in the company of a guide.  

As I stepped onto the ice, a pair of Swiss army four-tracks slowly made their way along the perimeter trail.  They halted where a narrow tongue of earth jutted like a peninsula into the ice.  Soon as the engines died, three generations started piling out.  Mom, Dad, more kids than I could count, another older couple, and piles and piles of gear.  Only this was not mountaineering equipment.  Instead, I watched them pull out frosted wine buckets, a case of champagne, picnic hampers, bottles of lemonade for the kids, a basket that wafted the scent of fresh-baked bread, a bag from the Caviar House, a wooden bucket of butter, and an entire wheel of cheese.  Then the four adult men took hold of a padded stretcher and slowly, gently, drew out a very old lady.  

As the men started across the ice, I saw that one was limping and clearly in pain.  So I went over and asked if I could help.  They explained that their grandmother was dying with cancer, and her last wish had been to ‘smell the ice’ once last time.  

The old lady was there and not there.  She smiled whenever someone spoke to her, and had a gentle hand for every child that came within reach.  But her attention was really on the ice.  

We hiked for about an hour, out to where the entire world was white.  I left them when they stopped and began preparing their picnic feast.  As I started away, the grandmother waved me over.  She asked my name, then said in parting, ‘May you be blessed with a life of second chances.’

I left the family to their happy-sad outing and hiked  across the glacier and up to the Monte Rosa hut.  There is a healing quality to the ice in summer.  The silence is much more intense this time of year.  The mountains are very individual.  Uncovered from their uniform winter blankets, they reveal very unique characters.  The light is as glorious as the quiet.  

This hike split me away from the hurried rush of business pressures and modern life.  I was gifted a visceral bond to a very different world.  Here on the ice, time measures seasons like we do seconds.  The ice was here long before we arrived, and will remain long after we are gone.  This walk offered me a partial, momentary, imperfect glimpse into what it means to live for eternity.  At that crucial juncture in my life, this small fragment was  enough.

When I returned at sunset, the family was gone.  But the grandmother’s words held me still.  As they do now, thirty-five years later.

American psychologist Abraham Maslow defined a ‘peak experience’ as a unique moment when time loosens its hold, the self evaporates, and the individual becomes captivated by a different and ecstatic view of their world.  

In the coming posts, my aim is to examine the creative life from two perspectives.  One will focus upon the commercial.  How can the artist reach the point where they can live from their work.  What does this mean in terms of commitment, focus, and aims.

Balanced with this will be my second direction; how to create an environment where such peak experiences are welcome.   It is nigh on impossible to generate such moments at will.  But they can be encouraged.  The creative environment can actually foster their arrival.  With time.  And discipline.

Let us begin. 

DO THIS NOW:

  • Close your eyes.  Think back to an experience so beautifully intense that ‘time’ and ‘self’ were concepts that simply did not belong.
  • While in this moment, tell yourself that you invite such experiences again.  You welcome them into your life.  You are open to them, in whatever new form they care to take.

Davis Bunn’s novels have sold in excess of eight million copies in twenty-four languages.  He has appeared on numerous national bestseller lists, and his titles have been Main or Featured Selections with every major US book club.   In 2011 his novel Lion of Babylon was named Best Book of the Year by Library Journal.  The sequel, entitled Rare Earth,  won Davis his fourth Christy Award for Excellence in Fiction in 2013.  In 2014 Davis was granted the Lifetime Achievement award by the Christy board of judges.  His recent title Trial Run has been named Best Book of The Year by Suspense Magazine. Lately he has appeared on the cover of Southern Writers Magazine and Publishers Weekly, and in the past three years his titles have earned him Best Book and Top Pick awards from Library Journal, Romantic Times, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus.  His most recent series, Miramar Bay, have been acquired for world-wide condensation-books by Readers Digest.  Currently Davis serves as Writer-In-Residence at Regent’s Park College, Oxford University.  Until Covid struck, he was speaking around the world on aspects of creative writing.