Fredrik Backman on Creative Anxiety and Procrastination

[Applause] joining us all the way from Sweden International bestseller Frederick Bachman good evening my name is Fric bakman I here tonight because my agent said that this would be good for my career she said I need to learn how to speak in front of people it will be fun she said so I told her that I write books I spend eight hours every day locked inside a room with people I have made up if I was comfortable talking to real people I would have a real job but my agent said you know just go up

there and talk about the life of a riter and I said all right being a riter is the best way I know how to get paid for being insane um don't applaud I only have four minutes stop I only have four minutes my brain and I we are not friends my my brain and I we are classmates doing a group assignment called life and it's not going great so my agent upon hearing this said uh which is American for I could have been a lawyer then she said uh maybe you can talk about how you

suffer from creative anxiety Frederick and I said I don't suffer from creative anxiety and my agent said will everyone around you suffer so I explained that I don't have creative anxiety I just have this is just normal death anxiety and sometimes I have Panic anxiety if I'm in a hurry I need to have a lot of anxiety all at once but I don't have creative anxiety I never get writers block and the secret is easy it's procrastination I don't want to brag but I'm very good at procrastination I'm going to have a writer's block I

just haven't gotten around to it yet I am I am so good at procrastination that the only reason that I am here tonight is because I'm supposed to be finishing a book right now but my anxiety is not creative my anxiety is Scandinavian because I am from Sweden and now in America Sweden is often confused used with Switzerland but we are very different in Switzerland they have chocolate and VES in Sweden we have Ikea and depression Swedish Swedish depression is just like American depression but it's cheaper and you have to assemble it yourself and some

some parts may be missing so if someone in here is depressed tonight and don't know why then you might be Scandinavian of course some some of you will think that because I am Scandinavian I must write crime novels but I find murder to be too much work so instead I write novels about characters who could murder someone but they haven't gotten around to it yet now I wrote this speech on the airplane from Sweden to America which was great because of the time difference Americans call that jet lag I call it a procrastinator's dream because

Sweden is 6 hours ahead of New York so I left home Sunday evening and when I arrived here it was still Sunday evening the Customs official asked me where I was traveling from and I answered the future so if you hear a strange sound now that's my agent regretting her career choices but it's too late now Ariel so in conclusion I am here tonight with all of my anxiety because I know that in this room there might be someone who is dreaming about writing a book uh dreaming of becoming an author so I am here

to tell you that I am obviously an idiot I have no idea what I'm doing but I became an author anyway so you can too and I hope that one day I will be able to tell my agent that the reason that my next book is not finished yet is because I was busy reading yours thank you very much [Music]