Ian Keeling

Transcript

who's your toughest critic I asked that question a lot especially when I'm working my career is this wonderful mishmash of things I'm an author something I've pursued since I was 12 years old I'm also an actor I was once in one of the worst productions of The Importance of Being Earnest ever and I was earnest but I also love to teach I love teaching and over the years I've had the opportunity to work with a variety of people in a variety of settings everything from six year old kids to 60 year old executives and inevitably I end up asking that question who's your toughest critic

it ends up being relevant whether it's a writing class or a corporate retreat now if I ask the youngest kids those six seven year-olds I get a variety of answers mom dad the teacher maybe a sibling but as we get older that answer changes a couple of years ago I was teaching a job skills workshop at Second City for a group of grade seven and eight we got to know each other a little bit got warmed up and then it hit the point where the question made sense who's your toughest critic again I got a variety of answers mom dad the teacher but then from

the corner of the room one voice myself my turn to discover a young woman maybe 12 13 years old gown huddled arms around her knees looking up myself by grade 9 that voice is everywhere now hey that voice can be a positive force in our lives it can help us improve ourselves it helps me edit when I write it's part of our moral core but often too often it can get ramped up just a little too high or worse get stuck in the on position and that's when it can do damage because if it's saying things like nobody likes you or that was terrible or

you'll never be as good as Beyonce it's probably true but if that critic is speaking in those vague exaggerations or or some kind of comparison to somebody else that's not analysis that's abuse because if you want to say it to your best friend or if you were to say it out loud to a colleague at work and it would get you fired then why why do we inflict that kind of judgment on ourselves because that's the voice that can drive us apart it can make us so anxious that were terrified to leave our homes I struggled with this for years not realizing that well is

afraid the world might judge me the harshest critic was already inside the house it can lead to depression it can lead to substance abuse because maybe just maybe we can get that voice to shut up for just a little while or maybe you build more metaphorical walls anybody else here hide behind a sense of humor or maybe a fanatical dedication to your career or an unwillingness to be emotionally vulnerable it can separate us in so many ways but here's the thing I come here today maybe not to bury that inner critic but perhaps to praise it let's try this game again when I ask that

question at the beginning of my speech who's your toughest critic put up your hand if your answer was some version of myself look at that that's a lot of hands a whole bunch of people all sharing the same flaw we are united by so many positive things our love of friends and family our pursuit of a career that we might cherish art and literature Beyonce but we are also I know but we are also connected by our flaws including that one flaw that maybe just obsesses a little too much about all those other imperfections and if we can come to accept that not only in

others but also in ourselves well then maybe we can start taking down some of those barriers and step out from behind our shelters to discover a world filled with people just like us all with their hand in the air saying hey me too let's work on it together

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.

Transcript

I've wanted to be an author since 1982 when I read a book called this can't be happening at McDonald Hall yeah I know it's a good book I was 11 years old fast forward to 2009 I was 38 years old and still didn't have a book published yet so it was going well but in November of that year I decided to attend the backspace' Writers Conference in New York City now the cost of the conference was $700 for two days which was an expense I really couldn't afford at the time but I wanted to go to New York City for two reasons one after all

these years of trying I'd finally written a book that I was proud of now it wasn't the first novel I ever wrote you will never read the first novel I ever wrote it is very very not good it's really bad but this new one was sort of like a lord of the Rings for kids it was all about imaginary friends it had soft fighting ninjas and a chief eponymous for those who were wondering a chief of Potamus it's a little like a liger but instead of being a combination of a lion and a tiger it's a combination of a cheetah and a hippopotamus her name

is inertia of inertia now the other reason why I wanted to go to New York City was I wanted to break into the big American publishing markets not only was there more money than there would be in a smaller Canadian market but there's more opportunities for things like selling their books TV or movie rights maybe breaking into foreign markets or even little things that we might not think about like if you can get in with a big publisher then you might end up at like an airport bookstore which is generally reserved for people like JK Rowling or George R Martin now of course now you're

competing with that stature of author which means the risks are that much higher but my philosophy was go big or go home so I go to the convention that I can't really afford and on the second day I'm sitting at a table with 14 other terrified writers and a group of late agents the idea is that we read the first two pages of our manuscript and then the agents give us feedback and ideally if they like what they hear one of the agents might ask for you to send them more pages or heaven forbid the full manuscript so of the 14 people who read before

me yes I get to go last three get asked four pages and the other eleven get feedback in a night of literally crying into the bar downstairs I start to read my heart is pounding more than it is right now I get two sentences into my book and one of the agents one of the toughest women I've ever seen in my life laugh so hard that the room which includes other tables like ours goes silent and into that silence she says what the hell's the chief eponymous so I tell her what I told you and she barks one more laughs looks me right in the

eyes and says send me the full and immediately the woman right beside her says yeah me too and my life changes because 24 hours after that nerium the second woman who spoke she asked to represent me and four months after that I'm sitting in a room with Random House Publishing and we're talking about airport bookstores go big or go home two days after that meeting they went home and now it's 2018 and that book is still not on the shelves and as of not too long ago Miriam no longer represents me I I will be grateful to her for the rest of my life we

took the shot it was time to move on so was it worth it was it worth spending all that money that I didn't have going up against the JK Rowling's of the world sometimes it's hard to see what the reward might have been but here's the thing a writing career is like a thousand paper cuts it can be brutal I have walked away at least three times in my life and yet when a professional at one of the biggest agencies in America showed faith in my work it kept me writing and through all the pain and all the rejection that followed it kept me writing

and I got professional feedback I got professional support and I got better so that three books later I was at another convention talking to a smaller Canadian publisher and she said to me how come you never send us anything and in the fall of 2016 that publisher published what will be forever for the rest of my life being known as my first book now the advance for that book wanted it even paid for that convention years ago and I'm certainly not in any Airport bookstores but I've wanted to be an author since I was 11 years old and I now have two books on the

shelf and a third on the way and I'm still writing sometimes if you lead a life taking risks you might not end up with the life or the reward that you imagined or dreamed but if you keep taking this shot if nothing else it can at least put you in a place where you can keep dreaming

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.