Monday, October 17, 2011

A Quote Every Writer Needs to Hear

Neil Gaiman said this and it's the most succinct piece of profound writing (artistic, life) advice I've read in a long while. I found it here.

It says:

"Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or doing that - but you are the only you.

Tarantino - you can criticize everything that Quentin does - but nobody writes Tarantino stuff like Tarantino. He is the best Tarantino writer there is, and that was actually the thing that people responded to - they’re going ‘this is an individual writing with his own point of view’.

There are better writers than me out there, there are smarter writers, there are people who can plot better - there are all those kinds of things, but there’s nobody who can write a Neil Gaiman story like I can."

-Neil Gaiman

14 comments:

  1. This is just what I needed to hear today! Thank you :D

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  2. Nice! And so true. I've also been thinking about the subjectivity of writing--how just because one person thinks you're great, or awful, doesn't really mean anything. It's just their opinion!

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  3. my hero. this made my day

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  4. Neil is one of my heroes. I absolutely loved "American Gods".

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  5. Thanks guys, I agree, Gaiman is awesomesauce. I just loved this quote.

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  6. And that's why I love Gaiman... since the first issue of Sandman I read way back whenever that was.

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  7. You know when they talk about 'voice'?
    This is voice.

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  8. This is PERFECT!!!!!! Thank you!!!!

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  9. Amazingly awesome quote. Thanks for sharing. I love it.

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  10. No one gives a pep talk quite like Neil Gaiman either. Awesome quote!

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  11. That's a very good thing to keep in mind. I may not be the greatest writer in the world, but nobody else can tell Chris Kelworth's stories.

    Now I just need to figure out how to tell them well enough for people to love them. :)

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  12. Subsequently, after spending many hours on the internet at last We have uncovered an individual that definitely does know what they are discussing many thanks a great deal wonderful post.

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