- Leg crushed and then eaten
by a mutated boa constrictor
(audience laughing) make good art.
I get puzzled and lost
when people start asking me
questions about what
they should be writing
for the market or whatever.
There is no market.
Saying we have enough
artists is like saying
we have enough scientists,
we have enough designers.
I tended you to do
anything as long as it felt
like an adventure and to stop
when it felt like work.
I would try and write things
that were so brilliant
that nobody could reject them.
Do lots and lots of little trial projects.
Send your trial, balloons out,
float your dandelion seeds.
- He's an English author
of novels, comic books,
and films.
He's won numerous awards for his works.
He's the first author to win the Newberry
and the Carnegie Award for the same book.
He's Neil Gaiman, and here's my take on
his top 10 rules for success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite.
And make sure to stick
around all the way to the end
for a special bonus clip.
(swoosh)
- Remember, whatever discipline you're in,
whether you're a musician
or a photographer,
a fine artist or a cartoonist,
a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer.
Whatever you do,
you have one thing that's unique.
You have the ability to make art.
And for me, and for so many of the people
that I have known,
that's been a lifesaver.
The ultimate lifesaver.
It gets you through good times,
and it gets you through the other ones.
Sometimes life is hard, things go wrong.
In life, and in love, and in business,
and in friendship, and in health,
and in all the other ways
that life can go wrong.
And when things get tough,
this is what you should do.
Make good art.
I'm serious.
(audience laughing)
Husband runs off with a
politician, make good art.
(audience laughing)
Leg crushed and then eaten
by a mutated boa constrictor,
make good art.
(audience laughing)
IRS on your trail, make good
art. (audience laughing)
Cat exploded, make good
art. (audience laughing)
Someone on the Internet
thinks that what you're doing
is stupid or evil or it's
all been done before,
make good art.
Probably things will work out somehow.
Eventually time will take the sting away.
And that doesn't even matter.
Do what only you can do best.
Make good art.
Make it on the bad days.
Make it on the good days, too.
Write things people want to read.
Write things you care about.
Don't...I get puzzled and lost
when people start asking me
questions about what
they should be writing
for the market, whatever,
there is no market.
There's nobody, there's
nobody in the whole world
of marketing, ever, would of
woken up one day and said,
"A Series of Unfortunate
Events" is exactly
what the world needs.
(audience laughing)
Nobody would have turned around and gone,
ah, your market niche
is do a sort of reply
to Kipling's "The Jungle Book"
and set it in the graveyard.
(audience laughing)
That's not, you know,
things like that happen
because somebody wants to tell a story
and because you have an idea and because
you think you can tell that
story better than anybody else.
I always mean to write sequels.
People say why don't you write sequels?
Neil Gaiman does not write sequels.
And I go, well, actually.
It's not like I'm standing up going
"I shall never write a sequel."
There are sequels that I'd love to write.
But I'm much more likely to go, oh, shiny,
(audience laughing)
when confronted by something
I have no idea how to do.
Find something over here that
I really do know how to do.
And I've figured it out, and
I've learned how to do it
the last time, and everybody loved it,
and there are people waiting.
And then over here is
something that I have
no idea what it is, and
nobody's waiting for it.
And I don't think even anybody's
going to really like it,
I will do that thing.
(audience laughing)
Because that's cool, and it's new.
When you start out in
a career in the arts,
you have no idea what you're doing.
This is great, people who
know what they're doing
know the rules, and they
know what is possible
and what is impossible, you do not.
And you should not.
The rules on what is possible
and impossible in the arts
were made by people who
had not tested the bounds
of the possible by going
beyond them, and you can.
If you don't know it's
impossible, it's easier to do.
(audience laughing)
And because nobody's done it before,
they haven't made up rules to stop anyone
from doing that particular thing again.
Saying that we have enough artists
is like saying we have enough scientists,
We have enough designers,
we have enough politicians.
We have enough politicians.
(audience laughing)
But you know...nobody
gets to be you except you.
Nobody has your point of view except you.
Nobody gets to bring to the world
the things that you get
to bring to the world,
uniquely get to bring
to the world except you.
So saying there are
enough writers out there,
enough directors out there, enough people
with points of view,
well, yeah, there are.
But none of them are you.
And none of those people
is going to make the art
that you will make.
None of them will change
people and change the world
in the way that you could change it.
So, if you believe somebody who says
no, no, we've got enough of those,
then all it means is you're
giving up your chance
to change the world in the way that
only you could change it.
- So do you have any advice
for someone who would like
to start doing creative writing
but has no idea where to start whatsoever?
- Depends.
Are you the kind of person
who... do you read a lot?
- I read a lot, yes. and
I write snarky emails, but
(audience laughing)
That's about it.
I've been told they're very good.
- When you say creative writing,
do you want to write fiction?
do you want to write humorous essays?
Do you want to, there's an awful lot
- [Young Man] Fiction I would think.
- You want to do stories.
- Yes.
- Okay. So my advice is
start writing stories.
(audience laughing)
- Just like do it?
- Really, it's almost as simple as that.
It's start writing stories,
pick a style, pick a theme
Look at the kind of, you
know, you are not expected
straight out of the hat to
be a brave and original voice
producing fine and wonderful fiction.
It's much more like the
first pancake on the griddle
which is going to be this
weird black messy thing
that you either give to
your dog or to a child.
(audience laughing)
Trying to convince them yeah, it's nice,
you know, you write, you
finish things, you start
the next thing, you write
that, you finish it,
somewhere in there you
get reasonably good, and
- [Young Man] Do you give
these to people or do you just
- Yeah, the point, I always
found that I would always
learn more about what I'd done
the moment I saw it in print
or these days probably the
moment you see things up
on the web, but yeah, show
'em to people but the most
important thing when
you're just starting out is
write the next one, assume
that you have a million
words inside you that are
absolute rubbish, and you
need to get them out before
you get to the good ones
and if you get there early, that's great,
that's really my biggest
advice, read everything
you can, read outside your
comfort zone, and write a lot.
If you have an idea of
what you want to make,
what you were put here to
do, then just go and do that,
and that's much harder than
it sounds, and sometimes
in the end, so much easier
than you might imagine,
because normally there
are things you have to do
before you can get to
the place you want to be.
I wanted to write comics and
novels and stories and films,
so I became a journalist,
because journalists are allowed
to ask questions, and to
simply go and find out
how the world works, and
besides, to do those things
I needed to write, and to write
well, and I was being paid
to learn how to write
economically, crisply, sometimes
under adverse conditions, and on deadline.
Sometimes the way to do
what you hope to do will
be clear cut, and sometimes
it'll be almost impossible
to decide whether or not
you're doing the correct thing
because you'll have to
balance your goals and hopes
with feeding yourself,
paying debts, finding work,
settling for what you can get.
Something that worked
for me was imagining that
where I wanted to be, which
was an author, primarily
of fiction, making good
books, making good comics,
making good drama, and supporting
myself through my words.
Imagining that was a mountain,
a distant mountain, my goal,
and I knew that as long
as I kept walking towards
the mountain, I'd be
alright, and when I truly was
not sure what to do I
could stop, and think about
whether it was taking me towards
or away from the mountain.
I said no to editorial jobs
on magazines, proper jobs
that would have paid proper
money, because I knew that
attractive though they
were, for me they would have
been walking away from
the mountain, and if those
job offers had come earlier
I might have taken them
because they still would have
been closer to the mountain
than I was at that time.
I learned to write by writing.
I tended to do anything as long
as it felt like an adventure
and to stop when it felt
like work, which meant
that life did not feel like work.
One of the things that
happens, especially when
you're starting out is you write stories,
and you send them out,
in my head as a young man
whenever I would send
out a story, what I would
expect to have happen
was the following morning
a limo would show up at
my house and people would
get out of it and they
would say this is yours,
we loved your story so much,
you never have to work again,
just thank you, thank you
for writing this story which
we are going to publish,
and make sure everybody in
the whole world reads,
and instead, you know, six
weeks later it would come
back with a little slip
saying not quite right
for us, or whatever,
it was okay, you know, what you do is,
I did two different things,
what I did as a very young man
was get things back and go
either I'm not very good,
which I do not choose to
believe, although probably
was kind of true, or I'm
just doing this wrong,
and I need to find out how this all works,
so that was the point where
I became a journalist,
and I became a journalist
specializing in publishing,
in books, and I found
out how it all worked,
and two months later had sold two books,
and then got a quote from
Muddy Waters which I stuck
to my typewriter, which tells
you how long ago this was,
and it just said don't let
your mouth write no check
your tail can't cash, that
was my quote, and I went,
I just sold two books,
I'd never written a book,
what am I doing?
And got through it, my tail
cashed those checks, but
really I kind of dealt with
it by just vowing to myself
that I would try and write
things that were so brilliant
that nobody could reject them.
Do lots of things, try lots
of things, the comparison
of dandelion seeds, think dandelion seeds,
dandelions, mammals
traditionally spend a lot of time
building a new mammal like
them, it's a lot of time
and investment and food, and
investment and everything.
Dandelions, they just have a
head with lots of dandelion
seeds on it and they let
them go, and the idea is that
some of them will survive,
most of them won't survive
but that's okay because a
few dandelion seeds are going
to go off, and they will
make more dandelions.
And I would counsel people
to think like that now,
starting off, in the world
that we're in, this peculiar
world where we don't
know what the rules are,
everything's changing so
do lots and lots of little
trial projects, send
your trial balloons out,
float your dandelion seeds.
Absolutely be happy for five
things that you do to fail,
if one succeeds and succeeds well.
Just try more, don't be
locked down, that would be
my big piece of advice.
So when I agreed to give
this address I thought,
what is the best piece of
advice I was ever given?
And I realized that it was
actually a piece of advice
that I had failed to follow,
and it came from Steven King,
it was 20 years ago at
the height of the success
the initial success of Sandman,
the comic I was writing
(audience applause)
Oh thank you, I was writing
a comic people loved,
and they were taking it
seriously, and Steven King
liked Sandman, and my
novel with Terry Pratchett,
Good Omens, and he saw the
madness that was going on,
the long signing lines,
all of that stuff, and his
advice to me was this, he
said this is really great,
you should enjoy it, and
I didn't, best advice
I ever got that I ignored.
Instead I worried about
it, I worried about the
next deadline, the next
idea, the next story,
there wasn't a moment for
the next 14 or 15 years
that I wasn't writing something in my head
or wondering about it, and I
didn't stop and look around
and go, this is really fun,
I wish I'd enjoyed it more,
it's been an amazing ride but
there were parts of the ride
I missed because I was
too worried about things
going wrong about what
came next to enjoy the bit
that I was on, that was
the hardest lesson for me,
to let go and enjoy the
ride, because the ride
takes you to some remarkable
and unexpected places,
and here, on this platform,
today for me, is one
of those places, and I am
enjoying myself immensely,
(swoosh)
- Thank you so much for
watching, I made this video
because Benjamin asked me
to, so if there's a famous
entrepreneur you want me
to profile next, leave it
in the comments below and
I'll see what I can do,
I'd also love to know
which of the top ten rules
had the biggest impact on you and why,
what change are you going
to make now in your business
after watching this video?
Leave it down in the
comments, and I will join
in the discussion, thank
you so much for watching,
and continue to believe, or
whatever your one word is,
and I'll see you soon.
(swoosh)
- [Audience Member] If
you're feeling particularly
at a creative low point, where
do you get your inspiration
from to come up with such
amazing tales and amazing
subject matter to write
your stories about?
- What you've actually done
there is ask the question
that must not be asked of writers,
you've rephrased it ever so
slightly, but what you've
fundamentally done is say
where do you get your ideas?
And writers are awful to
people who ask us where we get
(audience laughter) our ideas
We get mean, we don't just
get mean, we get mean in a
writer-y way, which means
we'll then make fun of you
- [Audience Member] I'm not afraid
- And we do that, the
reason we do that is because
we don't really know, and
we're terrified the ideas
will go away, and so every
writer I know has a funny
answer, and you know,
Harlan Ellison used to say
he got them from an
idea shop in Schenectady
(audience laughter)
I knew a writer who when
asked he would say he gets
them from the idea of the
month club, and people
would say oh really, he
goes oh yeah, every month
they send you an idea, oh good.
(audience laughter)
The truth is I think
for me inspiration comes
from a bunch of places,
desperation, deadlines,
a lot of times ideas
will turn up while you're
doing something else,
and most of all I think
ideas come from confluence,
they come from two things
flowing together, they
come essentially from
day-dreaming, it's that
point, and I suspect it's
something that every human being does,
writers tend to train themselves to notice
when they've had an idea,
it's not that they have
any more ideas or get inspired
more than anything else,
we just notice when it
happens a little bit more,
but you're just thinking,
you go well, you know,
everybody knows that if you
get bitten by a werewolf
when the moon is full,
you will turn into a wolf,
you know that, it's that
moment where you're sitting
thinking, so what happens if
a werewolf bites a goldfish?
(audience laughter)
Or that moment where you
start thinking well actually,
what happens if a werewolf
sinks its fangs into a chair,
and what if you're sitting
in that chair and the
moonlight touches it, and
slowly it starts feeling more
and more wolfish, and then
it growls, and you know,
what about the, oh my god,
then you'd have to set it
in the winter cos you'd
need the snow for people
to try and figure out why
you've got chair leg marks
in the snow by the body
that's had its throat
ripped out, and suddenly you have a story.
So that's, a lot of it is day dreaming.
I wish there was something,
I always feel I'm in some
ways disappointing people
when they ask where
do you get your inspiration,
because what they really
always want is the answer,
they want you to be able to say
well, what you do is 11:58 at
night, go down to the cellar,
you roll the goat bones, there'll
be a banging on the door,
it will open, this thing
will fly in, it will explode,
you'll have a, something
like a chocolate, you eat it,
(audience laughter) you have an idea
I dunno, you make 'em up out of your head.
(audience laughter)
When you start out, you have
to deal with the problems
of failure, you need to
be thick-skinned to learn
that not every project will survive,
a freelance life, a life
in the arts is sometimes
like putting messages in
bottles on a desert island
and hoping that someone will
find one of your bottles
and open it and read it, and
put something in a bottle
that will wash its way
back to you, appreciation
or a commission, or money, or
love, and you have to accept
that you may put out hundreds
of things for every bottle
that winds up coming back,
the problems of failure,
the problems of discouragement,
of hopelessness,
of hunger, you want everything
to happen and you want it now
and things go wrong, my first
book, a piece of journalism
I'd done only for the money,
and which had already bought me
and electric typewriter from
the advance, should have been
a bestseller, it should
have paid me a lot of money
if the publisher hadn't gone
into involuntary liquidation
between the first print run
selling out and the second
print run never happening,
and before any royalties
could be paid, it would
have done, and I shrugged,
and I still have my electric
typewriter, and enough
money to pay the rent for
a couple of months and
I decided that I'd do my best
in future not to write books
just for the money, if you
didn't get the money then
you didn't have anything, and
if I did work I was proud of
and I didn't get the money,
at least I'd have the work.
Every now and then I forget that rule,
and whenever I do, the
universe kicks me hard
and reminds me.
I don't know that it's an
issue for anybody but me
but it's true that nothing
I did where the only reason
for doing it was the
money was ever worth it,
except as bitter experience.
Usually I didn't wind up
getting the money either.
The things I did because
I was excited and wanted
to see them exist in reality
have never let me down
and I've never regretted the
time I spent on any of them.
