 In this unflinching Writing Day Workshops Q&A, playwright, novelist, and Appalachian State University professor Derek Davidson pulls back the curtain on the inner life of a working writer. With characteristic Celtic darkness, wry humor, and hard-earned honesty, Derek confronts the harshest voices of his inner critic and the ache of feeling “not enough,” while digging into the ornery persistence that keeps him returning to the page. From defiant responses to self-loathing to the quiet comfort of claiming his literary found family—Borges, Eco, McCarthy, and the rest—this conversation is a raw, reassuring reminder that even in the darkest seasons, we can still create our own lineage, persist with cussed grace, and discover that the writing life, for all its grit, is deeply meaningful and worth every hard-earned word.  What’s the harshest thing your inner critic has ever said to you? What have you learned to say back to it? “You are garbage.” My inner critic is a terrible, terrible person. What do I say? “So what,” I say. “So what? That’s not going to stop me from writing. I’m garbage, so be it; this garbage-person is still going to write.” Then I say “And anyway, look at this lumpen mass of refuse (pointing to some lumpen mass of refuse in a bookstore, published by a major publishing house)—if they are allowed to do it, so am I. Take THAT, inner critic.” Yes, yes, I know: what I should say is “I’m not garbage.” But I haven’t achieved that level of self-respect, or haven’t allowed myself to embrace the current self-care-become-self-indulgence wave, I don’t know. So: No, I don’t wink in the mirror, finger gun at my reflection and sing “you’re perfect in every way, dude…” A Celtic darkness or creeping strain of nihilism inhabits too much of my body for that. Don’t be like me, friends. Which part of yourself feels most exposed or “not enough” when you write, and how do you keep going anyway? I would say my general sense of self-loathing and mediocrity get most in the way. That is, the “not enough” feeling you ask about is not some buggy part of me but a systemic feature, an all-pervasive sense within my DNA that I struggle with daily. (See above: “Celtic darkness, strain of nihilism,” etc.) I keep writing out of sheer cussedness, because I may be mediocre, but I’m also really ornery. And I like doing it. Also, I remind myself that writing isn’t magic; it’s work. Work I like to do, but work nonetheless. And work isn’t always fun, or inspired, or supernatural, or whatever other misimpressions about the creation of art people (including artists) often cling to dearly. It can on occasion be all of these things, but most of the time it’s labor. Ditch-digging, ceiling-painting, dishwashing work requiring you to get from the beginning of a sentence to the end. And doing that about a thousand-bahillion times. But meanwhile, I console myself with the fact that there are like 3.6 billion prime numbers in 1 trillion, and there are at least as many opportunities for fun, inspiration, even the supernatural in the making of all those sentences. A good statistic for dark times, yeah? Have you ever felt ashamed of how long your WIP is taking? What shifted that shame for you? I have. I’m slow at so many things: eating, falling asleep, thinking, improving (as a musician, as a writer). And that slowness, especially as I move into my later years, wears on me. Will I live long enough to finish my planned projects? Will I have the mental acuity, the physical stamina to do it? My family has a history of Alzheimer’s; the thought of losing one of my greatest assets—my memory—terrifies me. Please, I shout to the heavens, conscious of the embarrassing melodrama of it all, please let me live long enough to see the completion of these projects; please let me keep my mind long enough to be able to see them through. Nothing has “shifted that shame” as you say here, but I’m finding anymore I just don’t have the time for that particular flavor of shame. Shame and its companions Depression, creative paralysis, and despair can eat up so much energy and hours in the day.  Need an expert critique of your query letter, synopsis, novel/manuscript, or nonfiction book proposal? We have you covered. Check out our critique options and many success stories who found literary agents after working with us. What’s the loneliest moment you’ve had as an unpublished writer, and what (or who) helped you through it? I struggle with a pervasive sense of loneliness every day. I feel like some Dickensian urchin with his grimy face smooshed against a window, looking in at the sumptuous and laden literary tables, barred from entry. Often at my most intense moments of self-pity I turn to what has historically proven the most effective way for me to feel better about things: I do something for others. Sometimes it’s for family or friends—I write someone a note of thanks or give them flowers or take them food—but sometimes it’s for a stranger. So badly self-medicating, I know, but it helps me break out of my unattractive self-absorption. Oh, and in terms of who “helps me through it,” I have to credit my wife for being eternally patient with me, while administering sufficient doses of hard love when I need snatching from my darkest Celtic funks. She saves my life pretty much every other week. How has this long writing journey affected your closest relationships (for better or for worse)? I grow surly if I spend too much time in the company of others and too little time reading and writing. My friends and family don’t always understand why I get cranky and irritable; they just see me cranky and irritable. (I can be pretty grouchy, just ask em.) So they know I can be this way and sort of suspect it’s because of my introverted personality—which has something to do with it, sure—but they don’t know that it’s ALSO because I’m not writing and am growing increasingly frustrated that I’m not doing what I think I should be doing. What do you grieve about the writing life that most people don’t see or talk about? I am embarrassed to admit this: lack of recognition from the writing/publishing community. I can’t self-promote, it’s genetically outside my capabilities, something I’m working on changing. I think that if only enough folks knew about my work, I would receive some modicum of recognition. Unattractive thing for me to admit, but there you are. Related to this: I grieve with gnashing of teeth the amount of time artists in the twenty-first century are forced to do so much promotional stuff (especially social media), spending an inordinate amount of time learning technology, then working with that technology to create and maintain websites and generate material for social media platforms in order to develop a devoted following for the writing we’re not doing because we’re spending so much time creating and maintaining etc. (see above). I am getting better, but the good hours stolen by technology chews up and spits out my soul.  Want to sell more books and market yourself? Check out the guide CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM. The book explains how to build an audience, understand social media basics, sell more books, increase promotion & publicity, get engaged online, and much more. At what point did you first allow yourself to call yourself a writer? Did that feel scary or presumptuous? How do you combat those feelings of imposter syndrome when they try to creep up again? It was only about a decade ago, although I have been writing steadily since around 1991. And with the realization—that when I called myself a writer I was acknowledging the most authentic version of myself—came no feelings of fear or presumptuousness but rather something more akin to: relief. At around eleven or twelve years old I had begun considering myself (and being called by others) an “actor,” even though I had been writing stories since eight or nine. During my twenties I expanded my self-definition to include “musician,” knowing I would never be legit enough to deserve that title professionally. In the 1990s I went back to school (for reasons that included hazy and neurotic worries over self-identity), and spent the next two decades in a kind of emo schizophrenia over whether I was an academic or a working actor (I was both). Then in 2016, I was working on some writing (a play and a screenplay for what became my first novel) and in a sudden, pellucid epiphany I recognized and called myself a writer. It was a popping thunderclap realization worthy of a Joyce short story (only much happier). Oedipus discovering his true identity but unlike Oedipus (thankfully—a life trajectory I would not recommend), actually a good thing. Writing suits me, to paraphrase Brandy Vallance. Oh, and the whole imposter syndrome thing. Yeah, I haven’t figured that part out yet. If your value as a writer wasn’t measured by publication, queries, or word count, how would you describe your worth right now? Do you have a personal mantra that helps? I subscribe to no mantras (sorry), and don’t know how to speak about myself regarding ‘worth,’ but something I enjoy doing is stepping back and cataloguing my writing ancestry, as it were, what Borges described as one’s literary forebears: I love charting the genealogy my reading, research, writing predilections and practices have forged over the years, starting with Tolkien when I was a kid, moving to Thoreau, Shakespeare, Camus, Dostoevsky, Dillard, McCullers, Joyce, Eco, McCarthy, and yes, Borges. We create our own lineage, Borges says. Sometimes—the darker times—I gather this family to me, do a rundown of our common features, much as one would look at old photos and comment: 'Oh, you have granddad’s nose,' or 'Look at the shape of your eyes, you definitely take after the Stewart side.' I do this with my literary found family: 'Oh, you have Borges’ and Eco’s fondness for labyrinths,' or 'Look at the shape of your sentences, your preference for polysyndeton, you definitely take after McCarthy.' This cheers me. No, I can’t measure up to these my literary progenitors, but I take small reassurance that I’m a distant relation, a little more than kind, to reverse the Bard, if less than kin. What’s one way this manuscript has forced you to face something painful about yourself or your past? The book I’m currently in thrall to (working title: Trace) is revealing to me that I’m not as quick as I was (I was never a speedy writer), and that I have more trouble keeping many things in my head at once. This loss of mental dexterity terrifies me. If I was slow before, I’m becoming positively glacial.  Learn secrets and proven paths to finding an agent with the book GET A LITERARY AGENT. The guide explains query letter writing, submission dos and don'ts, how to craft engaging opening pages, synopsis FAQs, nonfiction proposal tips, literary agent pet peeves, and much more. Looking at the writer you are today versus when you began, what unexpected strength or softness have you discovered in yourself? The last nearly four decades I have practiced writing more than anything else (other than brushing my teeth, maybe) and am only realizing these last few years that I’m actually pretty good. I had ever in the past only allowed myself discrete and modest successes—'This play turned out well,' or 'I liked this or that short story'—without crediting my own abilities; as if whatever of my own work I deemed satisfactory was accidental and not risen from any skill I possessed (rather similar to the 1000 monkeys at typewriters idea). But recently I’ve accepted that maybe my successes happen because I’m a good writer. I don’t know, small discovery, I guess. Also, I realize I work harder than many do—I’m useless with administrative tasks and can’t fix anything on houses or cars, but I write a lot. That’s cool. And I read—actual books!—more than anyone I have ever known, a habit which powers my writing ability. If you could go back and spare your younger writing self from one specific pain on this journey, would you? Why or why not? This is a complicated question, which I can’t answer completely, because my writing self is my emotional self, my artist-in-becoming self. And there are numerous traumatic moments in my past that I would love to have avoided, moments that doubtless affected the kind of writer I am now but that I wish not to have experienced. And I can think of many actions and behaviors I would prefer were not part of my biography, so many choices I made that I wish I had not (or things I did without making any thoughtful choices whatsoever, at least consciously). Actions I should have taken but didn’t . . . I’m reminded of William Kennedy’s Francis Phelan, trudging through a lifetime of regret; and although my past weighs upon me less heavily (and Francis is fictional, after all), it does carry a heaviness, and parts of it shame me. So I won’t speak of those parts here. I guess what I mean to say is that I would, indeed, undo pain I endured and (more importantly) caused others, and would accept the changes to my artistic sensibility, changes I can neither predict nor, were my life differently led, know how they impacted me or my writing. What has this book taught you about patience, surrender, or acceptance? Surrender to the uncertainty, accept the difficulty. I have given myself some mighty challenges—structural, historical, philosophical—and am unsure of my own ability to meet those challenges so as to create the work I am imagining.  Chuck Sambuchino's new Pickleball books are out (and they make great gifts)! One is a picture book from Running Press Kids, the other a calendar from Sellers Publishing. Thank you for considering getting a copy for yourself or friends. Every sale and review truly helps. They make great holiday gifts. GOODNIGHT, PICKLEBALL got a buy from Target and is a USA Today best-selling book. Find GOODNIGHT, PICKLEBALL on Amazon here. When you imagine the person you’ll be after this manuscript is truly finished (regardless of publication), what do you hope has changed inside you? I hope I will have learned to stress less. I’m getting too old and my body too frail to worry so much. I need the sleep. I also wonder if after I have completed this one (my second novel) I will feel more at home as a writer. I hope so, but this is an ongoing struggle. What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about love—love of story, love of self, or love of the work—through this season? Love of place. Love of the good sentence. Love of the hidden, especially the “in-plain-sight” kind. Related: love of the unknowable, which I am trying to make the delicious, chewy center of my current book. I am thinking of that extraordinary last page of Poe’s Arthur Gordon Pym—the last sentence, now I think of it!—introducing (and at the same time concluding with) the unforgettable image of the looming, shrouded form. We never learn what (or who) it is, what it means, how it affects Pym. We learn nothing whatsoever about it. Poe presents us with the ineffable vision, specter, who knows? And leaves us there, facing the horizon of human knowing, the limit of understanding. What greater horror can we experience than confronting this limit—what, other than the greatest horror, can such confrontation be? Or hmmm . . .is that strange white from a blank page? That is scary . . . What’s a fear about your writing that you’ve never told anyone before? That it’s banal. Amateurish. Mediocre. Not worthy of being read by anyone.  This is a special two-day “How to Get Published” writing workshop on July 24-25, 2026. In other words, it’s two days full of classes and advice designed to give you the best instruction concerning how to get your writing & books published. We’ll discuss your publishing opportunities today, how to write queries & pitches, how to market yourself and your books, what makes an agent/editor stop reading your manuscript, and more. No matter what you’re writing — fiction or nonfiction — the day’s classes will help point you in the right direction. Writers of all genres are welcome. And even though this is the “New England” Writing Workshop, make no mistake — writers from everywhere are welcome to attend virtually. Our WDW writers conferences have helped dozens of writers find literary agent representation. Register here: https://thenewenglandwritingworkshop.com/ If this book remains unpublished forever, what would you need to believe to still feel you had spent your life well? I have two responses to this question. First: I believe that humans share a profound desire—manifesting itself in greater and lesser degrees in all of us—to be seen. I won’t go into the tendrils of philosophical thought related to the arguments around ‘being’ and ‘representation’ here (who wants that? Y’all can read Schopenhauer on your own time), but will say that the act of bearing ‘witness’ and of being witnessed—especially when we are present for, or are performing, actions of great moment, is exceedingly important. The presence of a witness grants our actions additional gravitas, meaning. It is why, in fact, we require witnesses for certain meaningful events in order to be properly recognized by the rest of society: rites of passage such as communions, Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, funerals, the conferring of honors and titles, the like. Well, publishing—as is inherent in the word itself—performs this kind of public witness, the acknowledgement that Yes, I did this thing, and it has been ‘seen’ and taken in by my community. A rude, psychologically simplistic kind of validation, but—in terms of how an individual has been incorporated into their chosen community (Latin: in corpore, in the substance, in the body of the larger entity)—nonetheless significant. Second (contra the first): while I actually have difficulty with the way the question is stated—“what would you need to believe to still feel you had spent your life well . . .” yeah, problematic, from “needing to believe” something to “feeling” I had spent my life well to actually thinking I have “spent my life well” which I don’t think I have, if by “well” one means I have lived up to my potential (I have not)—anyway, what I wish to say is that I am not defined by my second novel’s being published. I’m not defined by anything of mine being published. I’m not even solely defined by my writing. I am more than the things I do—and at the same time less—and “I” am more than any essentialization. This of course is true of all of us: we are icebergs and even more than that, more than an iceberg metaphor would point to. We are, each to each, unsummarizable. By the end of it (whenever that end may come), I will have spent my life. I will have done some good things, some not-so-good things; I will have enjoyed myself occasionally, will have suffered occasionally—already have, all of this!—and whether “well” is a question I can’t entertain; I must leave at “spent” and hope in the aggregate of my life, my being was better than had it not been at all. I doubt I’ll ever possess sufficient knowledge to answer that question . . . But in all the swirl and hurly-burly that is any life, a second novel, published or not, is a small thing. All that said, I do, I do want it to be published. (I have to finish it first!) If you could go back to your early writing days, what one piece of advice would you give your beginner self? Write more. Daily. Say ‘No’ more often: be more selfish about my writing time. Believe that the time I spend writing is worthwhile and not wasted time. What rituals or tools help you stay productive without burning out? Before sleep I often go over whatever writing project I happen to be in the middle of. Sometimes I focus on a character; I tease out all that I know so far about them, what I think I will have to learn to proceed with my narrative/drama, that sort of thing. I think about ways to complicate their personality, or how to fill holes in their backstory. Or I focus on the story’s plot (not my strength): what is happening? How can I introduce more action into the chapters or sections I have roughed out? This ritual fulfills two functions: it habituates me to thinking and writing about this character every day; and it almost always helps me fall asleep more easily. What's one book (or author) that transformed your writing? Up in the Old Hotel by Joseph Mitchell. It was here I first met the immortal Joe Gould, that Manhattan ‘poet of the people’ who inspired the central character in Jack of Dover, the first play I ever wrote, which won some awards and received performances in Chicago, DC, elsewhere, and clinched in my mind the notion that I could actually be a writer. By the way, if you haven’t read anything by Joseph Mitchell, I urge you to read anything by Joseph Mitchell. If you could leave one word of advice for future writers, what would it be? Persist. Accrete artistically, culturally. Love and consume. Awaken to nature. Watch, listen, smell more. Forgive everything you can; what you can’t forgive, fight to transform—in yourself, in the world. Keep only what is necessary; find what is beautiful. Let those two binary stars flex, revolve around, feed and draw from one another. Sorry: fifty-three words, not one. That’s how I do.  Derek Davidson teaches playwriting and theatre history at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. His play So This Happened received a staged reading at The Tank in NYC in February 2025. His Appalachian ghost story with music, Mauzy, received its New York premiere at Off the Lane in May 2026. His short play Blackjack has been performed internationally and was published in Lighting the Way: An Anthology of Short Plays about the Climate Crisis. His articles and poems have appeared in Grey Sparrow, Indelible, Jalmurra, Iron Mountain Review, and Southern Theatre Magazine. His poems were nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2024.  This post was complied by Brandy Vallance, a literary agent with Barbara Bova Literary Agency, an award-winning author, and a Story Consultant for Writing Day Workshops. Brandy is the winner of two national writing awards, one of which included a $20,000 prize. Her novel, THE COVERED DEEP, has been featured in USA Today & Writer’s Digest. WITHIN THE VEIL has been called “passionate and riveting” and Publisher’s Weekly encourages those who like sweeping Scottish sagas to dive in because “the journey is wonderful.” Brandy loves helping writers break the chains of fear and self-doubt. You can find out more at brandyvallance.com.  Pitch Agents at a Writers Conference in 2026:
Check Out Other Great WDW Articles & Resources:
Comments are closed.
|