We caught up with the brilliant and insightful David Buzan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

David, appreciate you joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

It was in 1989. I was a junior in high school. Had a short story published in “This Week Magazine” that won an award which included four movie tickets and a $25.00 check.

David, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My interest in writing began when I was still in grade school. It was something I continued to pursue throughout many different creative stages in my life. I sold my first short story when I was still in high school. Later, in college, I had articles and other stories published in various publications. After graduating from film school, I spent two decades working with different agents and becoming an optioned screenwriter. Recently, I had my debut action/adventure novel (“In the Lair of Legends”) published by Black Rose Writing.

I believe that hope is a super power. I encourage anyone struggling to achieve a goal to NEVER take off that cape. To that end, I have a personal motto:

No Surrender.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

For non-creatives, I think it’s very difficult to understand just how crucial it is to uncover a doorway into a particular idea. For a writer, having the idea is actually the easy part. The difficulty arises in finding the best way into the characters.

To this end, my absolute favorite story centers around Oscar-winning composer John Barry and his early struggles with “Out of Africa.” He said he had watched the workprint twice through and found himself totally devoid of musical inspiration. He knew early on that his score wouldn’t be focused on the locale of the film, but he didn’t know where to begin. Upon the third viewing, Barry said something immediately struck him. It was an early scene with Meryl Streep’s character riding the train. She was looking out the window at the scenery, and it was this forlorn expression she had that provided him with the emotional gateway into the film. Barry said the main theme he wrote stemmed directly from that expression.

Well, that’s how so much of writing is actually accomplished!

For my debut novel, for example, the gateway into the story began after I had read a local newspaper article about the Nez Perce reclaiming their land after two centuries. There was almost a throwaway line in that same article referencing the fact that members of the Nez Perce had been among the nearly quarter-million Native Americans who had served during the Civil War. That sentence became the entire doorway into my novel.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

After enduring years of creative heartache and the (false) promise of each new opportunity as being “the big one” in terms of achieving success, I walked away from the industry for a decade. I had truly given it my all, and felt I had nothing more left in the tank.

Fade up to October of 2020. I was a general manager for an essential business. While the Covid-19 pandemic had gripped the globe, Oregon was also experiencing its worse fire season in many years. It was a Sunday. I was understaffed during a busy shift, masked up, and could hardly see through all the wildfire smoke that had been pervasive throughout the region. That day, two different cousins of mine had to evacuate their homes because the the fire threats. It truly felt like the end of the world to me. And then, I felt a sense of shame overcome me. It stemmed from the simple fact that, as a writer, I didn’t achieve what I had set out to do. Much like Rocky Balboa, I felt like I had something more in the basement.

On that day, I committed myself to writing my novel. And over the next 17 months, I did. Nearly three years later, it was published.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.davidbuzan.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davebuzan/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dave.buzan
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-buzan-6435a249/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaveBuzan

Image Credits
Author photos: Troutman Photography: Albany, Oregon. Cover Design: Black Rose Writing