Interview With Dean Davies - Author of the Anvil

Delish Fiction Creative Writing Magazine was fortunate enough to score an interview with Dean Davies, author of action/adventure novel The Anvil. Dean has been working hard on a sequel to his debut novel but was kind enough to take a few minutes away from the keyboard to sit down and have a colorful and insightful chat with us.

Delish Fiction: What got you into writing?

Dean Davies: I honestly don't know. I've have always wanted to tell stories. I wrote my first short story when I was in the second grade. I wrote it in my mother's lined linen writing tablet. Later, I graduated to the red Big Chief tablets. The first story was about a Princess who needed to be saved from a snake. Freudians would go ballistic on that one-especially from a second-grader.

When I got good and fed up with the academy and teaching the great stories of the world, I quit to write one. Those who can, do; those who teach can do, too. Writing is the hardest work you'll ever do without lifting something heavy.

Delish Fiction: Tell us about your novel, The Anvil and the main character Jake Two Feathers. Where did you come up with the ideas for them?

Dean Davies: My novel, The Anvil, and its main character, Jake Two Feathers, were gifts of the Muse. I was casting about for real, workable concepts for novels. Once I had the concept, the character appropriate for the concept came. I suppose it could just as easily work the other way, too. The point is this: once I had committed myself to writing, no matter how vague I was about doing it, the ideas came. I think commitment is one of the necessary requirements for creation. Once you become honestly and truly committed the universe- the Muse- responds.

I was once asked if I used life experience in my writing. Duh. Jake is a Lakota Indian and a retired Special Forces officer. He wants to settle somewhere after years of war, sculpt, and get the stink of war out of his soul. I have Indian blood, and military experience, and have, in my old age, rediscovered, or discovered anew, an exquisite Native American spirituality which is a constant source of strength and inspiration. These elements come out in the novel, and make it unique in thriller fiction.

How many novels do you read where the hero goes into a sweat lodge, not only for guidance with difficult problems, but for strength and inspiration? I hasten to add that whatever happens in the novel is believable, and based on phenomena I personally have experienced. It's not magic. It happens. Most non-Indians never get a chance to experience it, and most Indians won't talk openly about their spiritual experiences.

I have friends who read the novel chapter by chapter as it was written. I was often asked, "Where did you come up with that? The answer is, "It came to me as I was writing." This revelation is important; ideas don't come through the pure stream of thinking. They seem to happen when the pencil is poised above the blank page, or in the middle of a paragraph.

Delish Fiction: Did your novel end up being something different than you envisioned?

Dean Davies: Not really, no. Once I had the concept, I wrote the beginning and then I wrote the end. I always knew where I was going. What did happen, though, as I was filling in the middle, was a rather complicated plot, or complicated sub-plots that grew out of various characters around Jake. Once I planted Jake in the garden, along with various other characters, they took root and sprouted their own stories, peripheral to, and somehow involved with Jake or his world.

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