My Creative Hero: Stephen King
Paul Nagy is the chief creative officer for VML across APAC. In the last 12 months his work has been awarded more than nine Grand Prix in international shows, his Melbourne agency was rated one of the top ten agencies of the decade by Cannes Lions, he lead one of the most awarded campaigns on earth over the last two years (FitChix) and his previous work has been included in WARC’s 100 Smartest Marketing Campaigns In The World.
Paul is on the VML Global Creative Board, but in his spare time is a blacksmith, a knifemaker, and looking for any excuse to get out into the wild with his three beautiful daughters.
LBB> Who would you say is your creative hero?
Paul> Stephen King.
LBB> How long has this person been important to you and what are your first memories of coming across their work?
Paul> I’m not actually sure when I first started reading his novels, but I still have my original copy of ‘Salem’s Lot,’ and it’s so decrepit now that I have to keep it together in a zip-lock bag. I’d say I started well before I was a teenager — certainly before I was meant to be reading stuff like that and absolutely early enough to give me proper, hide-under-the-covers nightmares.
I must have read that thing 30 times over the years. It’s been in planes, backpacks, boats and on every bookshelf in every house I’ve ever lived in. It’s one of my oldest friends.
I think I started reading his work because I like to be scared, but over the years it’s become a lot more than that. In my opinion he’s not just a great writer, but one of the greatest storytellers of our generation — and there’s a huge difference.
LBB> How did you go about learning more about them and their work?
Paul> By accident, really. King is one of those writers who generates a relationship with his readers that gets richer and richer over the years, or at least he did with me. The forewords in his novels are more like personal letters, little catch-ups on what he’s written for me this time and why I might like it. I feel like I know him, and more amazingly/weirdly, I feel like he knows me — which is the hallmark of a truly great storyteller.
I read everything of his I could get my hands on, then one year my mum bought me his biography, and learning how poor he was and how hard he worked to become 'an overnight success' made me love him even more.
LBB> Why is the person such an inspiration to you?
Paul> Well first, just pure talent — he has created some of the stories I cherish most in life like ‘IT,’ ‘The Shining,’ ‘Pet Sematary,’ ‘Carrie,’ ‘The Stand’… all novels that are a part of my life now. And then there are the movies such as ‘Stand by Me,’ ‘The Green Mile’ and ‘The Shawshank Redemption’… some absolute gold in there as well.
The main reason though is a little harder to explain, but, in a nutshell, I wouldn’t be a professional writer today if it wasn’t for him. Something about reading his work compelled me to write. And not just a little bit, but obsessively. At the time I was a builder’s labourer, and I thought that’s what I would be for life. But the more I read Stephen’s work, the more I was driven to write down my own stories.
Every day after work I would write for hours, sometimes long into the night. Soon I’d written my own novels — none of which have ever been published — but those stories grabbed the attention of editors, universities, and award judges, and that opened the door to the job I have now.
To this day, if I’m experiencing writer’s block, I just pop open that zip-lock bag and start reading; it drives me straight to my keyboard.
LBB> How does this person influence you in your approach to your creative work?
Paul> He’s taught me the value of finding the truth in my writing. It sounds simple, but it’s actually incredibly difficult. It’s about pushing through all the easy things I want to write — the obvious or expected things, the cool or on-trend things, the intellectual things that I know will impress, and a million more things that are the easy, reflexive things to write about – and burrowing into to the real heart of it.
For example, the easy thing to say about King is his work touched my heart and inspired my creative journey.
The truth is far more complex. I feel like we’re connected in some way. That he writes for me. And that he’d be proud of what I’ve done.
Weird, but there you go. That’s the truth and picking those things apart and telling their story is what real writing is to me today.
LBB> What piece or pieces of this person’s work do you keep coming back to and why?
Paul> His novel 'IT' is certainly my favourite. I was a bit of a misfit as a kid, and the group of misfits he introduced me to in that story genuinely feel like family — Ben Hanscom in particular. They aren’t characters in a novel to me, but old friends, and opening the pages of that book (I have three copies because I destroyed the first two through over-reading) feels like visiting them in Derry.
Of all his stories, that one most effectively transports me to a time and place. It still fascinates me, these words on a page, and just by looking at one after another I am sent to a world he created for me.
And people think magic isn’t real…
