Trevor Davies
Writing my first novel. I'm 64 years young, married with two teen daughters.
After a lifetime in activism, I now imagine worlds that change me if no-one else!
Location Cape Town, South Africa
Activity
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi there! I'm Trevor. I'm based in Cape Town, South Africa. I'm learning to transfer forty years experience in face-to-face teaching of photojournalism, videography and graphic design into online learning.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Street lighting has a known impact on women’s safety. So why do city planners consider it a ‘gender-neutral’ issue? The relationship between poor street lighting and gender-based violence is global and widespread. City planners and policymakers play a critical role in curbing street harassment and gender-based street violence, and acknowledging women’s...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Trevor from Cape Town, South Africa. Keen to help myself and local non-profits learn new skills in this COVID-19 era
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Trevor Davies made a comment
We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity by bell hooks was very early reading for me! It resonates all the more today!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi, I'm Trevor from Cape Town in South Africa. We have some of the highest GBV and femicide rates in the world. I work on fatherhood issues, trying to use it as a transformation tool BUT we do have father absence rates of 56% by the time most children reach the age of 15. I have done PSAs, appeared on TV and radio and I've launched a website! Need to do it all...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi, I'm Trevor, aged 64 from Capetown, South Africa. I've nearly finished writing my first novel. I would like sell online and also develop some guidance notes and exercises around some the issues touched upon such as child rights, GBV and Hiv and AIDS.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
They drive on in silence. After a while, Clara shifts in her seat and adjusts her seatbelt.
“It’s Michael’s birthday soon.”
“I know! Clara, leave me alone about it, please!”
“Well, I …Look out, Hugh!”
The traffic lights ahead turn red and Hugh brakes quickly stalling the car.“Dammit!”
Hugh presses the sleek button to automatically roll down his window,... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Khuthala seems to live her life with an acute sense of perverse observation. She can walk into a room to meet and greet but can’t resist an immediate and penetrating audit of everything that is wrong.
“What’s that food on the floor? You’ve got sauce on that tablecloth. Why are the dishes still in the sink? You haven’t brought the washing in.”
She knows she... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Stand on your own in any neighbourhood with a football. Kick it against a wall. You won’t be on your own for long.
Before you know it there’ll be one kid joins you, you pass the ball. He shows off his best impression of Zinedine Zidane, the French master of the touch. Sixteen kids later you’ve got makeshift goalposts, two competing teams and a lot of fun. -
@DesireéBrand Ok! Great!
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Hi Desiree! I guess we all struggle. I value the feedback here, it gets me going again when procrastination rules the day! I know many writers join the NaNoWriMo writing events in November and the virtual writing camp in June/July each year. I do it! There is a CapeTown group and it could easily be a Western Cape Group? So we could post there? I've also joined...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
The driver in front of her doesn’t jump the orange light turning to red. “Bloody fool, I’m late as it is, get a move on!” Another sip from the silver flask.
A cop puts his hand up to allow a group of schoolchildren to cross. She squeals to an impatient halt.
One poor kid drops her books and scurries back onto the road, “You bloody imbecile, what’s the use... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Constable Khumalo checks the projector for her presentation. The harsh beam of white light flickers and changes to blue as it links to her computer.
Lights out, the only focus of everyone is the screen. Everyone except him. He rests his eyes on his young constable as she speaks and clicks through the power-point slides with the remote control.
In the four... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
The law, based on the UN Convention of The Rights of The Child is clear enough and he supports it. It states that if a child is in danger, he must act. But then there’s that important proviso that all actions must be “in the best interests of the child”, and he’s not so sure that's what is happening here.
He brushes away his personal feelings. He’s a cop,... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
“The WHAT demonstration yesterday morning, who gave you permission to make a statement like that? You’ve not just got the wrong end of the stick, Bukeka, you're shaking the whole damn tree! Detection, detective inspector, get your priorities right, you have a rapist out there and you want to waste police time on a tour of the rugby clubs!”
“What? WHAT can’t... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
At first light in Aunty Khuthala’s house Zee's bedroom door bursts open. A highly agitated Khuthala stands over her as she dresses. “What a night, Zee! I won't have you in that hell, you'll stay here with me.”
“I’ll get back to Dad it'll be ok and I want to see if Ayanda is all right.”
“I insist Zee, I won't allow it.”
“No, no Aunt Khuthala I'm going.”
Zee... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
“Ms. Mkentane! Zee! In here now.”
In the headmaster's office Zee sits with her Dad.
The headmaster looks over his desk. “You will fail the grade this year, young lady. Your maths and Afrikaans exam results are terrible.”
The maths, Zee gets that but the Afrikaans? Post-apartheid? The history teacher tells them about the uprisings against ‘Bantu education’.... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Have I caught up? One step forward, three steps back. I'm now fully in editing mode on what I've written but I've still so much to write!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
"When Ayanda was five, she lost a baby tooth. Benedict was working by then. He came home. We had no money for the tooth fairy.”
She glances at Menzi, twists her wedding ring, takes a deep breath and carries on.
"Benedict jumped back in the car and drove to the ATM. "Five minutes", he said. "I’ll be five minutes".
"Two guys stopped in a car alongside him... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Kids who are terrified by violence in their environment often deal with their fear by becoming violent themselves. This is nothing more than an attempt to evade his feeling of helplessness.
His mum tells him she doesn’t know what to do with him.
Problem children have no permanent structures to their lives. Instead their lives are dictated by violent events,... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
The women’s leadership in government and civil society, rapturously applaud and praise-sing fewer than ninety SUV driving, Century City shopping fashionista feminists. They are hypnotised by the knowledge that once one of their friends gets to a position of power twenty of them will join the gravy train.
Its politics, it's always been like that, whoever is... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
"Step out the front door like a ghost
into the fog where no one notices
the contrast of white on white.
And in between the moon and you
the angels get a better view
of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
I walk in the air between the rain
through myself and back again
Where? I don't know
Maria says she's dying
through the door I hear... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
Excerpt From:... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
She smiles and touches the golf tee in his hair. Her hands caress his soft, dense curls. “We need to talk about it. If I go …”
His face contorts in confusion. “No, no, Esihle! You’re not going anywhere, the right treatment, you’ll be fine.”
“We’ve always known the danger, they told us I could …”
“No, no, we just need to get you out of here and home.”
“Oh,... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Empathy expanded, the reasons:
You have explained, and State Counsel has accepted this, that when you got pregnant your parents condemned you, chased you from home and would not give you any love and support. They regarded you as a failure and a disgrace especially as the father of the child disappeared.
When you went to your granny, she too rejected you.... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
The judge summing up. "Stand up. You have been convicted of the murder of your newborn child. The bond that a mother feels for her child at the moment of birth is unique. In your case, not only did you fail to protect your child; you took it upon yourself to end his life. You were his mother, yet you strangled him with a cord and disposed of his body in a...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
The impact of Mbeki’s AIDS denialism was catastrophic. Two independent studies have estimated that delays in making antiretroviral treatment available in the public sector in South Africa resulted in more than 300,000 avoidable deaths. It also resulted in an estimated 35,000 babies being born with HIV who would not otherwise have been HIV-positive. Under...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm researching a lot - too much frankly. I'm bogged down in it all. Veracity versus simply telling a story? A critical audience who may nitpick if I get it slightly wrong? I know, it's only rock and roll!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm sixty-four. From the era when if I wrote with my left hand I got smacked by the teacher for the devil's work. I'm a clumsy right-hander now (except for cooking and ironing and, and, and). There is a heavy bias in the course so far in actually, physically writing with an old-fashioned pen or pencil and paper. It works for me! I'm psychologically damaged...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm an avid fan of using a notebook, it works for me. And ... I've just discovered Evernote, in which I can dictate a short note into my phone, a story idea, a reminder. When I get back home it syncs with my laptop and it's there in writing in front of me. I drop it into Scrivener, I feel like a cyborg!
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Trevor Davies replied to Brenda Moss
I often write stuff the delete it thinking it doesn't fit. Ages later, a penny drops or I find a place to bring it back in with a twist. Thought processes are not linear so why should writing be linear? You force it when you impose that - too much structure.
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Trevor Davies replied to Brenda Moss
@BrendaMoss Yes! Google scrivener, it will take you to their website. Check it out!
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Trevor Davies replied to Brenda Moss
I use Scrivener It's perfect if you write like you and!
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@BrendaMoss If I killed Nellie off people would slam the book down! I'm glad I hooked you! Nellie will be back, tail wagging, working away with Rob, the how she does this is the story, of course!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
When Ayanda was five, she lost a baby tooth one evening. Benedict was working by then. He came home. We had no money for the tooth fairy.”
“Benedict jumped back in the car and drove to the ATM. Five minutes, he said. I’ll be five minutes. Two guys stopped in a car alongside him and jumped out. One came behind him and grabbed his arms and the one in front... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
His air of informed informality was fireproofed.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I've spent forty years as an activist in the democracy and development sector. Profoundly disillusioned with the ability to make a positive change. So I've decided to create a world I want to see. Fiction can maybe do more than reality. The forgotten masses are our children, so I want to write something child-centred. That's my motivation.
Equally, I've a... -
Trevor Davies replied to Tsitsi Tiri
mwanasikana wangu? Good luck with the writing, we need more, many more, womens voices.
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
Asah! A follow back, bro! We need more novels from Africa! More writing from the colonies! I tried to write for Medium. They have one electronic payment solution and Africa is excluded from it! We are meant to only receive and not create! I'm looking forward to your thoughts and examples my friend!
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@LynneSalter I've a Forest Gump approach to the story! It perplexes me all the time about using real characters to spin things off, though. Maybe I'll need the lawyers. At the moment I'm just pouring it out and I'll worry later about avoiding the lawsuits.
Tiger! Yes, it is set in 2003 before the controversies. Maybe Zee's innocence is shattered, maybe... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Zuko opens the bathroom door. “Am I missing something?”
“No dad, it’s ok!”
He grumbles. “This house of women, I can never get into the bathroom, I’m always late..”
Zee grabs her bag, “Dad, we’re going without you!”
Zuko kisses them both. “Always in a rush, Esihle! You’re a whirlwind”
Esihle brushes a dab of shaving cream off his nose and fixes his golf... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Rob, youngish, tidy, slim and well dressed is blind. It's not the first thing you usually notice about him though, that's Nellie, his beautiful golden Labrador.
She is his pair of eyes when they come to the local shopping centre. Tongue lolling, tail wagging, she's adored and adores.
Rob and Nellie sit, he snacks, she is fed titbits, and he always starts... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Morning. Get kids to school, back home, coffee pot on. Write on laptop.
Afternoon, wait for kids in car outside school, jottings in notebook, listen to car radio or put some music on for inspiration.
If I'm lucky, Sunday morning before everyone else wakes up. Crazy, try to adhere to it. When the itch takes me I'll jot a sentence down.
The funniest times?... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Already added rich description to my main characters Brilliant!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
(Zee is a young girl golfer see previous post!)
She moves up the range of irons, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, and 4. Each iron descends in number but adds ten to twenty yards in distance with each change. A tight constellation of practice balls soon accumulates in front of her.
Babies sing little songs to amuse themselves, often just one note repeated over and over again.... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Zee basks in the warmth of the January sun and taps her feet by the first tee. She’s the skinny little black girl from a township in Cape Town you look at and think, ‘Shame! Her mother needs to feed her much more regularly’. She anticipates the main event of her Sunday, The Milnerton Junior Golf Open - postponed to today because of the heavy storm that...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Wide range of ages, sexes, clothing. Full on fae shots tell us much about the characters, people's backs leave us guessing. Physical journeys, everyone with bags, different bags for different purposes hint at different purposes. The bus pulls up, people embark on a journey. The classroom, taking notes, writing, talking, everyone on cell phones. Metaphorical...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
This was a good exercise for me. I'm taking real events and trying to look at them through the eyes of a young girl experiencing them as she tries to realise her dream. I'll be mixing a lot of historical reality with interpretative fiction.
Zee dreams of being the best golfer in the world. The President's Cup - America versus the Rest of The World is coming... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
3/1 Zee basks in the warmth of the January sun and taps her feet by the first tee. She’s the skinny little black girl from a township in Cape Town you look at and think, ‘Shame! Her mother needs to feed her much more regularly’. She anticipates the main event of her Sunday, The Milnerton Junior Golf Open - postponed to today because of the heavy storm that...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi from Cape Town! I'm Trevor, 64 years young and writing my first novel. I started writing at the last course presentation and I've come a long way! Now I need to finish! Looking forward to the inspiration!
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@GaelMariani When you write fiction, of course, you're making it up, constructing a deliberate lie (or a truth). Isn't any work of art a fiction - a sculpture, a painting? However, I do find two things.
The first is that when you research to back up your fiction there are widely disparate versions of the truth! What you remember about an event is widely... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi, I'm Trevor from Cape Town. I'm 64 years old and writing my first novel! Whilst much of my initial writing is 'stream of consciousness' or simply brainstorming I need to develop the skills of presenting ideas clearly and logically from my initial creativity.
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I think there are underlying assumptions about who brings the development we are supposed to manage. Then we need to unpack the development managers 'right' to manage. Power is shifting away from democratic control at all levels. The link between democracy and development has become more tenuous than ever. I think there is also a general view on the ground...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Sustainable growth that lifts people out of poverty and allows them to have more agency in their lives.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi everyone! Trevor here from Cape Town. I've had an interesting career running a media organisation servicing the development sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Semi-retired now I'm writing a novel (my first) about many issues such as governance, gender, health, HIV & AIDS. My main character is Zee a fifteen-year-old girl from the townships who wants to be the...
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@DianeSchofield A mind is subjective not objective seems to be the main point of the course. Anything that is subjective is subject to evaluation and there's the rub. We're exterminating, in a sort of holocaust, hunter-gatherer communities around the world. They must conform to our idea of what is a mind? Colloquially we describe them (their minds) as...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
As a first-time author writing a novel I am, I suppose, a confabulist! I'm struck by how the internal logic of a story I invent does not need to necessarily be consistent with 'reality' for readers to find it believable but only consistent to how my characters would behave in the invented circumstances I place them in. Memory errors seem to be the grist for...
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"The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin is a marvellous celebration of the creative minds of hunter-gatherer cultures. He was of the belief that truly original thought was only possible when people focused on abstraction instead of accumulating objects and possessions that then dominated human behaviour (as they do now). Are Jazz musicians foragers? Chatwin...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
12,000 years ago Cain works his fields, planting, irrigating, weeding, farming. Abel roams with his sheep, foraging. One morning Abel's sheep forage in the fields that Cain has worked so hard in. The crop is destroyed. Cain picks up a rock ....
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Trevor Davies made a comment
For thousands of years and across many cultures we've used mind-altering substances to generate new insights and creativity that is reflected in many art forms. In popular culture many songs, perhaps because of our propensity to view musicians as aberrant beings, are attributed to composers using LSD, marijuana etc. to aid their thought processes. 'Expand'...
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Trevor Davies replied to Astrid Thompson
Mark refers to foraging, curiosity. Maybe part of having free will to be curious is also to have the free will to thank those who satisfy curiosity! That seems possible as an external response and entirely logical, seek and ye shall find, thank and you shall find more. In a way then empathy and the seeking out and demonstration of empathy is an instinctual...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
We celebrate our autonomous mind, our sense of self over all else. Why then are we addicted to creating ourselves in hive minds? Religion, political groups, social groups? Is our so-called autonomy just a hive mind flexing, absorbing new experiences from nodes - that is us? Can we truly exclaim, "I am!"
Hive minds are both powerfully destructive and... -
Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@PriyeniMcLeod A quick one! More as the course develops. Zee's motor skills (the brain) are really important for her success in golf. There is an awful lot written about golf being a game in the mind, 90% mental and the rest is in your head! She suffers the loss of her mother, how do we process grief? How does it affect motor skills and other physical aspects?...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Memes can be created and carried by AI very powerfully as a concept, belief, or practice, that spreads from person to person in a way analogous to the transmission of genes.
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@PriyeniMcLeod Hi Priyeni. Spent most of my life as an activist writing project reports, applications for funding, evaluations etc. etc. Now I can create the world I want to see - in my mind. So much of what we take as real turns out to be fiction anyway! So Zee dreams of being the best golfer in the world but her teen years in South Africa mirror her young...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Trevor from Cape Town. Writing my first novel at age 64. Fascinated by my own mind, my trickster and also how I can invest my writing from my wells of experience, insight and memory.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
This evokes personal reflections in the mirror for me. The transient nature of our learning and expertise. "I mean, I think it’s just our whole relationship to cognitive productions is - has radically changed in the last thirty years. And it’s partly a numbers game."
I looked back at training images I'd produced for young photographers. There are the... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I love the complexity of the characters she draws. I admire her ability to describe the outer dialogue and the interactions with the inner conversations the characters have with themselves.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Intro: Paul wanders down Long Street, finishing half-empty glasses left by the tourists at the street bars and restaurants that line the busy thoroughfare. He falls down regularly when he’s drunk. He splits his eyebrow open and blood courses down his face, pooling in the crick of his neck. He’ll need stitches over his stitches.
A&E: “Where’s my bottle, you... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I always think of the transition I want first - anger to reconciliation, sadness to happiness or vice-versa. The tension or conflict, the drama - even if understated. So I suppose my characters views predominate - then where can I place them to emphasise this visually? What setting works and what in that setting is direct or metaphor? So Zee in my script runs...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Leo Demidov in Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith. We are told the external is real and our imagination and feelings are suspect. What happens when that is totally turned around? Leo is the perfect soldier of the regime. But suddenly his confidence that everything he does serves a great good is shaken. He is forced to watch a man he knows to be innocent be brutally...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Rutger Hauer, Rest in Peace
“All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Rutger Hauer added that line himself to the Blade Runner soliloquy.
Crudo's impact is to read it now, with the immediacy of relatable events. This is a major selling point. Post-Trump, (post-Boris Johnson!) will this novel be worthy or even just interesting enough to... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
See also How to Write About Africa | Binyavanga Wainaina | Granta. Much loved around the Dark Continent!
"Among your characters, you must always include The Starving African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked and waits for the benevolence of the West. Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and her breasts are flat and empty. She... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
A great week! I did this course before! Excellent improvement in multi-culturalism. Africa! Amandla! Mayibuye! Can't wait to start on Nafissa Thompson-Spires.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
In 1998, the Modern Library Board in the USA chose the 100 great books in English of the 20th century and ranked them. No African novel in the English language made the first 100 — not even Chinua Achebe’s work. Conrad's did. Was this linguistic apartheid combined with racial apartheid? The judges obviously carried a lot of baggage with them. The concept of a...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Sitting here on the pencil tip of Africa (Cape Town) this was a fascinating few hours looking at Conrad and The Heart of Darkness. Including Chinua Achebe's interview was much better than just giving us a link to his essay 'An Image of Africa' published in 1975. The repartee and counterpoint enlivened what can seem to many a hard slog.
Achebe was not alone... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Ben Elton. Writes and/or performs - (and isn't writing performing?) in a similar seat of the pants, throwaway style. He also published bang on the trend. "Dead Famous", "High Society" etc. I think he is as equally unpretentious as Olivia Laing.
Olivia Laing's and Ben Elton's fiction also takes me back to writers such as Tom Sharpe - "Riotous Assembly"... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
"There was a bell with a sign sellotaped above it saying BELL." A setting in which every minutae of ambiguity and doubt is manipulated and excised by the bureaucrats.
"NO EXIT it said in big white letters."
The narrator appears to be looking for any distractions from what is going on around her. Hyperaware of absurd little details. -
Trevor Davies made a comment
“You are never dedicated to something you have complete confidence in. No one is fanatically shouting that the sun is going to rise tomorrow. They know it's going to rise tomorrow. When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kinds of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.”
Excerpt From:... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
Yesterday's viewing. I watched the series Bodyguard created and written by Jed Mercurio. (We're a bit behind you all in southern Africa!) I was riveted by the plot but also fascinated by the gender reversal dynamics of strong female characters in leading roles.
We all love Everybody Hates Chris. How do you find the extraordinary in the ordinary? Chris Rock... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I've been fascinated by Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Hero's Journey used as a template for many blockbusters.
Maureen Murdock charts an alternative to Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey The Heroine's Journey that she believed is more appropriate for women’s life journeys. When asked whether the Hero’s Journey applied to women, ... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm Trevor from South Africa. 64 years old and writing a novel and now (hopefully) a screenplay! Zee dreams of being the best golfer in the world but her teen years in South Africa mirror her young nation’s own growing pains. Zee must learn to love what she see’s in herself and others - and change that which she doesn’t.
My favourite line? "I'll have what... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm trying to write now just letting it flow without self-editing as I go along, timing myself in thirty minutes focused work. Difficult but getting there!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Very powerful tool for change. Citizen journalism? Testimony from people directly involved can uncover the hidden facets of a story. Tightly edited they can convey a sense of drama and urgency.
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@ChrissieGale Yes! I understand. I've worked on fatherhood and parenting for many years. One of the values of fiction is in taking issues, events and attributing the responses to fictional characters -hiding, preserving and protecting identity for people at risk - including children. Anything I use from professionals I will credit with a reference. That is...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Hi from Cape Town, South Africa. I'm writing my first novel, 100,000 words in and many of the themes are around children on the move, trafficking, xenophobia. My protagonist is a teenage girl, Zee and the various children she encounters when things go wrong for her with her mum's death. I guess one of my main interests is veracity - that I get it right. I...
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Trevor Davies replied to Trevor Davies
@SVWaters It is very irritating at first, I agree! What is working for me is 1. Put on the music that suits my goal. Upbeat or downbeat. 2. Potter round making my coffee and toast - a few minutes. 3. Turn down the music volume to very low or if it has lyrics completely off. 4. Start writing. It seems the effect does last!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
The Hero's Journey by Joseph Campbell comes to mind. The point when the Hero must leave the mundane world behind and accept the challenge. Mama, just killed a man is the point of no return, the acceptance of fate and consequences. Spit in my eye, is the cry of protest, I will not let this happen. There has to be a way out.
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Trevor Davies made a comment
There's a synchronicity in my own internal dialogues and emotions that makes me receptive to the external voice of different styles of music. This might be purely in the sound of it. Uplifting and raucous or downbeat and reflective. I've many favourite songs but notice now a pattern in my selections at any given time with my prevailing mood. I'm writing a...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Really interesting, I love the way songwriters distil into 3 or 4 minutes what it can take me an age to comprehend
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I've written a screenplay and tried to market it for the last two years with one event in mind, The Presidents Cup in golf this November! Shows how narrow my vision is! Way beyond what is possible now but this course is enlightening me about how I could have 'sold the idea' earlier. I open myself up to ridicule - bring it on!
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Franchises are a youth thing! My daughters love their Marvel and DC heroes and 90% of their conversation about entertainment is about them! Indie or more specifically African productions I guess animation wins out. I loved Black Panther, it gave me the chance to engage with them about political issues on the continent! The fact that two, old, white Jewish guys...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
Each has its attractions,
Vice because we all love/hate politicians. The polarity means we want to be affirmed in our view or have it contradicted (but we hope not). Politics is Hollywood for ugly people, I forget who said that.
The Kindergarten Teacher - I'm a parent, I feel my kids are unrecognised genius', touchy, feely, 'nuff said.
The White Crow -... -
Trevor Davies made a comment
I have a script that I think is brilliant! Young heroine, sports, social commentary it's all in there but only now am I realising how tightly defined my genre and audience must be! What breaks the mould and makes it to screen is a rare gem so I'm appreciating this introduction into how I can hopefully persuade a distributor to come on at the earliest stage...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I'm Trevor, 63 years old, living in Cape Town, South Africa. I parent a thirteen-year old avid golfer, Chiedza. I want to be more informed about how she can realise her dreams of playing golf at the highest level and what opportunities might present themselves for her to advance academically and otherwise. I would also like to be involved in helping other...
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Curiosity is helping me to write more realistically. Instead of assuming a stereotypical response from one of my characters I am really finding out from various sources the range of reactions a character can experience e.g. how does a child grieve the loss of a parent, what stages do they go through and how can we positively help them through it? This, in...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
I plan to use mindfulness in giving structure to my writing sessions, turning off distractions, setting aside time. Start with a comma and perhaps end with a body scan. In between trying to be really focused and productive on the scene or chapter in hand and one aspect of my writing. For example brainstorming ideas, writing (not editing), priming, linking etc.
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I'm reflecting upon the quality of what I actually do when I'm distracted and in default mode. Reviewing my work habits is revealing. I'm often dissatisfied and tend to equate the hours put in with the outputs and rate myself badly. More focus on one task will help. I'm deleting all those marketing links, unsubscribing from numerous mail feeds that are...
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Trevor Davies made a comment
One aspect of audience and youth I think important is their active discussion with their peers to reach both consensus and dissent about celebrities. This adds enormously to define what is mutually agreed as good and bad. The waves of who is in or out are rapid. My teen daughters rave about a celebrity this week, so I research, try to stay current. Our next...
