Business advice from Neil Gaiman

 

Wiki flipping pedia!

It’s got a LOT to answer for I can tell you. Sunday morning I fired up twitter and came across an ad for the stage version of the ocean at the end of the lane. Intrigued I’m now looking at booking tickets for the stage play!

So off I naturally went down to find out more about the book and went down a massive and I mean HUGE Neal Gaiman rabbit hole (yes that’s an apt word I think).

I have read a few of Gaimans books. Good Omens being one.

But I started reading more and more about his life history and story and then stumbled across a youtube video about how unique we all are.

So I thought I’d share some insight into HIS creative process and some valuable life lessons that I think we can all apply to every part of yourselves.

MAKE GOOD ART

Leg crushed and then eaten by a mutated boa constricta. 

Make. Good. Art!

Cat exploded.

Make. Good. Art!

Husband runs off with a politician. 

Make. Good. Art!

Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is evil or stupid or been done before.

Make. Good. Art!

Whatever you do YOU have the ability to make art. It’s the ultimate lifesaver, it gets you through good times and gets you through the other ones!

When things get tough, make good art!

Every experience we have in life shouldn't prevent or stop us from creating good art 

DO WHAT YOU CARE ABOUT

Create what you care about, the rest takes care of itself. If you're passionate about it and you feel like you can tell that story well, then create it. 

DO NEW THINGS

Step into scary places. Don't play it safe. This can lead to frustration and boredom. Do one thing every day that scares you. It’s true. It works. It pushes you out of your comfort zone into spaces you cannot predict and opens you up to new experiences and ways of working.

IGNORE THE RULES

When you start out in your career you gave no idea what you're doing. This is great! People who know what they are doing know the rules and they know what is possible and impossible. And you do not and you should not.

If you don’t know it’s impossible it's easier to do.

YOU ARE UNIQUE

Saying we have enough artists is like saying we have enough scientists.

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 bring to the world. Except you.

JUST DO IT!

Just start, you are not expected straight out of the hat to be producing top quality content. 

It’s more like the first pancake on the griddle which will be this weird messy thing. That you either give to your dog or a child.

You write, you finish things. You start the next thing. Somewhere in there you get reasonably good.

Assume that you have a million words inside you that are rubbish and you need to get those out of you before you get to the good ones. And if you get there early that’s great.

WALK TOWARDS THE MOUNTAIN

If you have an idea of what you want to make and what you where put here to do then go do that and that’s much harder than it sounds.

There are things you have to do before you can get to the place you need to be.

Sometimes the way to do what you want to do will be clear cut and sometimes it will be almost impossible.

Because you’ll have to balance your hope and dreams with feeding yourself, paying debts and finding work.

I would imagine that my goal was a distant mountain and I knew as long as I was walking towards the mountain that everything would be okay. And if I had moments of doubt I would check to see if I was headed towards or away from the mountain. I tended to do anything when it felt like an adventure and to stop when it felt like work.

TRY MORE

Do lots of things and try lots of things. Think of dandelions. Mammals spend a long time making more of themselves. Dandelions they just have a head with lots of dandelions on them and some will die and some will make more dandelions. 

In this spectacular world we don’t know what will happen.

Float your dandelion seeds (your content) and see where they take seed. Try more.

ENJOY THE RIDE

From advice from Stephen King. You should enjoy all of this success.

And I didn't. I worried about the next line, the next story.

It was an amazing ride but there were bits I missed.

"Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.” - Neil Gaiman 

That's all this fella wrote. See you next week hombres.