Writing Success: Luck or Skill? This week’s Bestseller Experiment with Antony Johnston

This week’s guest is Antony Johnston who has written comics, script and novels and is also the creator of the comic that became the movie Atomic Blonde. He’s now got a new cosy crime series starting with the novel The Dog Sitter Detective. He’s had an extraordinary career. A phrase that Antony uses a couple of times is that he was in the ‘right place at the right time’ and that he benefitted from that serendipity. I don’t doubt that the timing of certain events put some wind in his sails, but in my experience I’ve found that you tend to make your own luck by working your buns off and Antony has worked very hard indeed, spotting trends and changes in the industry and reinventing himself in the manner of his heroes David Bowie and Neil Gaiman. That’s not to say that we live in meritocracy that automatically rewards hard work (far from it!), but in the creative industries you have to create in order to get noticed, and the more you create the more like you are to succeed. As Joe Abercombie put it in one of our early episodes, ‘The longer you dance naked in the rain, the more likely you are to be struck by lightning.’

And in the extended version for Academy members and podcast Patrons, Me and Mr D discuss reinvention and “flitting”, being an organised writer, how to make a short film and much more!