Legendary comic book writer and novelist Fabian Nicieza offers career advice to people finding their path in creative industries.
Fabian Nicieza is a writer of long-standing in the comic book industry. With over a thousand credits in a 30 year career, he has worked on Marvel titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, Cable, Deadpool, and Thunderbolts, and is likely best known as the co-creator of Deadpool In his appearance on the Project Tempest Podcast, Fabian offered advice for young creators.
This occurs at 1:23 of the original podcast and has been lightly edited for clarity.
Make it. I mean, honestly, make it.
You have the electronic and digital capabilities at your fingertips now that never existed, even 20 years ago. If you want to make something, it doesn’t matter if you’re making it for yourself, if you’re making it for ten friends, if you’re making it for a hundred people in a group message board, or if you’re putting it wide out there on the internet. You have no excuse not to make something other than the excuse to not make it.
If you want to create for professional gain, the only way to do that is by creating first, and hoping to build a body of work that draws the attention of someone that can turn it into a professional gain for you. No matter what, either way you have to create it. You can't talk about creating it.
Ultimately the ones who rise to the top as it were, the ones who get looked at, the ones who get read, are only the ones who do. The ones who don't never do, and all they do is complain about never getting the chance to be looked at and read. So you have to do it.
I'm an old man now, and I’m looking back through hindsight, it's easy for me to say that but I know my personality would have driven me to find ways to create even within the context of how it was done thirty or twenty five years ago. I know that as I got older I had an innate drive to have others read what I was writing. I wanted to write things that would entertain people whatever platform that may be, it could have been books and it ended up being comic books and since then it has been a gajillion different platforms.
The goal is to do something that others can enjoy, or that others can be inspired by, or others can be angered by, or others can be confused by, or others can be confused by, or others can be sad about. Whatever the goal of your creative storytelling is, the only way to achieve that intent and goal is by having other people look at it and elicit those emotions and those reactions out of them that you wanted your fiction to elicit. You have to do it, in order to get that reaction, you have to put it out there for it to be reacted to.
Follow Fabian on twitter, and listen to the full conversation on all major audio services.
The Project Tempest Podcast is where creators from around the globe talk with author C J Halbard about their journeys, struggles, and inspirations.