8 Lessons from Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good

Art’ Speech
The following is the full transcript of the commencement speech “Make Good Art”
delivered by Neil Gaiman to the University of the Arts Class of 2012 on May 17, 2012.
[Edited version]

Listen to the MP3 Audio here: Neil Gaiman 2012 Commencement Speech – Make
Good Art

TRANSCRIPT:

Thank you. I never really expected to find myself giving advice to people
graduating from an establishment of higher education. I never graduated from any
such establishment. I never even started at one. I escaped from school as soon as
I could, when the prospect of four more years of enforced learning before I could
become the writer I wanted to be seemed stifling.

I got out into the world, I wrote, and I became a better writer the more I wrote, and I
wrote some more, and nobody ever seemed to mind that I was making it all up as I
went along, they just read what I wrote and they paid me for it, or they didn’t, and
often they commissioned me to write something else for them. Which has left me
with a healthy respect and fondness for higher education that those of my friends
and family, who attended Universities, were cured of long ago.

Looking back, I’ve had a remarkable ride. I’m not sure I can call it a career,
because a career implies that I had some kind of career plan, and I never did. The
nearest thing I had was a list I made when I was about 15 of everything I wanted to
do: I wanted to write an adult novel, a children’s book, a comic, a movie, record an
audiobook, write an episode of Doctor Who… and so on. I didn’t have a career. I
just did the next thing on the list.

So I thought I’d tell you everything I wish I’d known starting out, and a few things
that, looking back on it, I suppose that I did know. And that I would also give you
the best piece of advice I’d ever got, which I completely failed to follow.

First of all, when you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you
are doing. This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and
they know what is possible and what is impossible. You do not. And you should
not. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people
who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them. And you
can.
If you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do. And because nobody’s done it
before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone doing that particular thing again.

Secondly, if you have an idea of what you want to make, what you were put here
to do, then just go and do that. And that’s much harder than it sounds and,
sometimes in the end, so much easier than you might imagine. Because normally,
there are things you have to do before you can get to the place you want to be. I
wanted to write comics and novels and stories and films, so I became a journalist,
because journalists are allowed to ask questions, and to simply go and find out
how the world works, and besides, to do those things I needed to write and to write
well, and I was being paid to learn how to write economically, crisply, sometimes
under adverse conditions, and on deadline.

Sometimes the way to do what you hope to do will be clear cut, and sometimes it
will be almost impossible to decide whether or not you are doing the correct thing,
because you’ll have to balance your goals and hopes with feeding yourself, paying
debts, finding work, settling for what you can get.

Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be – which
was an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics,
making good drama and supporting myself through my words – imagining that was
a mountain, a distant mountain. My goal.

And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right.
And when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it
was taking me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on
magazines, proper jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that,
attractive though they were, for me they would have been walking away from the
mountain. And if those job offers had come earlier I might have taken them,
because they still would have been closer to the mountain than I was at that time.

I learned to write by writing. I tended to do anything as long as it felt like an

adventure, and to stop when it felt like work, which meant that life did not feel like
work.

Thirdly, when you start out, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You
need to be thick-skinned, to learn that not every project will survive. A freelance
life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert
island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read
it, and put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or
a commission, or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a
hundred things for every bottle that winds up coming back.

The problems of failure are problems of discouragement, of hopelessness, of

hunger. You want everything to happen and you want it now, and things go wrong.
My first book – a piece of journalism I had done only for the money, and which had
already bought me an electric typewriter from the advance – should have been a
bestseller. It should have paid me a lot of money. If the publisher hadn’t gone into
involuntary liquidation between the first print run selling out and the second print
were never happening, and before any royalties could be paid, it would have done.

And I shrugged, and I still had my electric typewriter and enough money to pay the
rent for a couple of months, and I decided that I would do my best in future not to
write books just for the money. If you didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have
anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have
the work.

Every now and then, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me
hard and reminds me. I don’t know that it’s an issue for anybody but me, but it’s
true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever
worth it, except as bitter experience. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money,
either. The things I did because I was excited, and wanted to see them exist in
reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I spent on any of
them.

The problems of failure are hard.

The problems of success can be harder, because nobody warns you about them.
The first problem of any kind of even limited success is the unshakable conviction
that you are getting away with something, and that any moment now they will
discover you. It’s Imposter Syndrome, something my wife Amanda christened the
Fraud Police.

In my case, I was convinced there would be a knock on the door, and a man with a
clipboard — I don’t know why he had a clipboard, but in my head, he always had a
clipboard — would be there, to tell me it was all over, and they caught up with me,
and now I would have to go and get a real job, one that didn’t consist of making
things up and writing them down, and reading books I wanted to read. And then I
would go away quietly and get the kind of job where I would have to get up early in
the morning, wear a tie, and not make things up any more.

The problems of success. They’re real, and with luck you’ll experience them. The
point where you stop saying yes to everything, because now the bottles you threw
in the ocean are all coming back, and you have to learn to say no.

I watched my peers, and my friends, and the ones who were older than me, I
watched how miserable some of them were. I’d listen to them telling me that they
couldn’t envisage a world where they did what they had always wanted to do any
more, because now they had to earn a certain amount every month just to keep
where they were. They couldn’t go and do the things that mattered, and that they
had really wanted to do; and that seemed as a big a tragedy as any problem of
failure.
And after that, the biggest problem of success is that the world conspires to stop
you doing the thing that you do, because you are successful. There was a day
when I looked up and realized that I had become someone who professionally
replied to email, and who wrote as a hobby. I started answering fewer emails, and
was relieved to find I was writing much more.

Fourthly, I hope you’ll make mistakes. If you make mistakes, it means you’re out
there doing something. And the mistakes in themselves can be very useful. I once
misspelled Caroline, in a letter, transposing the As and the O, and I thought,
“Coraline looks almost like a real name…”

And remember whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a
photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer,
whatever you do you have one thing that’s unique. You have the ability to make
art. And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that’s been a
lifesaver. The ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times and it gets you
through the other ones.

Sometimes life is hard. Things go wrong, in life and in love and in business and in
friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. And when
things get tough, this is what you should do.

Make good art.

I’m serious. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. Leg crushed and
then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. IRS on your trail? Make
good art. Cat exploded? Make good art. Someone on the Internet thinks what
you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Probably
things will work out somehow, and eventually time will take the sting away, but that
doesn’t matter. Do what only you can do best. Make good art.

Make it on the bad days. Make it on the good days too.

And fifthly, while you are at it, make your art. Do the stuff that only you can do.

The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that’s not a bad thing. Most of us only find
our own voices after we’ve sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing
that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your
vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.

The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you’re walking down the street naked,
exposing too much of your heart and your mind than what exists on the inside,
showing too much of yourself, that’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.

The things I’ve done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain
about, the stories where I was sure they would either work, or more likely be the
kinds of embarrassing failures that people would gather together and discuss until
the end of time. They always had that in common: looking back at them, people
explain why they were inevitable successes. And while I was doing them, I had no
idea. I still don’t. And where would be the fun in making something you knew was
going to work?

And sometimes the things I did really didn’t work. There are stories of mine that
have never been reprinted. Some of them never even left the house. But I learned
as much from them as I did from the things that worked.

Sixthly, I am going to pass on some secret freelancer knowledge. Secret

knowledge is always good. And it is useful for anyone who ever plans to create art
for other people, to enter a freelance world of any kind. I learned it in comics, but it
applies to other fields too. And it’s this:

People get hired because, somehow, they get hired. In my case I did something
which these days would be easy to check, and would get me into a lot of trouble,
and when I started out, in those pre-internet days, seemed like a sensible career
strategy: when I was asked by editors who I’d written for, I lied. I listed a handful of
magazines that sounded likely, and I sounded confident, and I got jobs. I then
made it a point of honor to have written something for each of the magazines I’d
listed to get that first job, so that I hadn’t actually lied, I’d just been chronologically
challenged. You get work, however you get work.

But people keep working in a freelance world, and more and more of today’s world
is freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along
with, and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three.
Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is
good and you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it’s
good, and if they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if
you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.

So when I agreed to give this address, I thought what is the best piece of advice I
was ever given. And I realized that it was actually a piece of advice that I had failed
– and it came from Stephen King, it was 20 years ago, at the height of the success
of – the initial success of Sandman, the comic I was writing. I was writing a comic
people loved and they were taking it seriously. And Stephen King liked Sandman
and my novel with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and he saw the madness that
was going on, the long signing lines, all of that stuff, and his advice to me was this:
“This is really great. You should enjoy it.” And I didn’t.

Best advice I ever got but I ignored. Instead I worried about it. I worried about the
next deadline, the next idea, the next story. There wasn’t a moment for the next 14
or 15 years that I wasn’t writing something in my head, or wondering about it. And I
didn’t stop and look around and go, this is really fun. I wish I’d enjoyed it more. It’s
been an amazing ride. But there were parts of the ride I missed, because I was too
worried about things going wrong, about what came next, to enjoy the bit that I was
on.

That was the hardest lesson for me, I think: to let go and enjoy the ride, because
the ride takes you to some remarkable and unexpected places.

And here, on this platform, today, is one of those places. (I am enjoying myself
immensely.) I actually put that in brackets just in case I wasn’t.

To all today’s graduates: I wish you luck. Luck is useful. Often you will discover that
the harder you work, and the more wisely you work, the luckier you will get. But
there is luck, and it helps.

We’re in a transitional world right now, if you’re in any kind of artistic field, because
the nature of distribution is changing, the models by which creators got their work
out into the world, and got to keep a roof over their heads and buy sandwiches
while they did that, are all changing. I’ve talked to people at the top of the food
chain in publishing, in bookselling, in music, in all those areas, and nobody knows
what the landscape will look like two years from now, let alone a decade away. The
distribution channels that people had built over the last century or so are in flux for
print, for visual artists, for musicians, for creative people of all kinds.

Which is, on the one hand, intimidating, and on the other, immensely liberating.
The rules, the assumptions, the now-we’re supposed to’s of how you get your work
seen, and what you do then, are breaking down. The gatekeepers are leaving their
gates. You can be as creative as you need to be to get your work seen. YouTube
and the web and whatever comes after YouTube and the web can give you more
people watching than television ever did. The old rules are crumbling and nobody
knows what the new rules are. So make up your own rules.

Someone asked me recently how to do something she thought was going to be

difficult, in this case recording an audio book, and I suggested she pretend that she
was someone who could do it. Not pretend to do it, but pretend she was someone
who could. She put up a notice to this effect on the studio wall, and she said it
helped.

So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise,
pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make
glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for
your being here.

Make good art.

Thank you.

Transcripción del discurso de graduación de Neil Gaiman: Haz buen arte

Universidad de las Artes 17 de Mayo de 2012

“Nunca esperé realmente encontrarme dando consejos a gente graduándose de un

establecimiento de educación superior. Yo nunca me gradué de un establecimiento así.

Ni siquiera comencé en uno.

Me escapé de la escuela tan pronto pude, cuando el panorama de cuatro años más de
aprendizaje obligado antes de convertirme en el escritor que quería ser era sofocante.

Salí al mundo, escribí, y me convertía en un mejor escritor mientras más escribía, y

escribí más, y a nadie parecía importarle que lo estaba inventando en el camino, la gente
simplemente leía lo que yo escribía y pagaban por eso, o no lo hacían, y muchas veces me
solicitaban que escribiera algo más para ellos.

Lo que me ha dejado con un saludable respeto y aprecio por la educación superior que
aquellos de mi familia y amigos, que asistieron a universidades, han perdido hace bastante
tiempo.

Mirando atrás, he tenido un formidable viaje.

No estoy seguro de poder llamarlo una carrera, porque una carrera implica que tuve
algún tipo de plan de carrera, lo que nunca fue así.

Lo más cercano que tuve fue una lista que hice cuando tenía 15 años de todo lo que quería
hacer: escribir una novela adulta, un libro infantil, un comic, una película, grabar un
audiolibro, escribir un episodio de Doctor Who… y así.

No tenía una carrera.

Yo simplemente hice lo que seguía en la lista.

Entonces pensé en decirles todo lo que desearía haber sabido cuando comencé, y algunas
cosas que, mirando en perspectiva, supongo que sí sabía. Y que también les daría el mejor
consejo que recibí, que fallé completamente en seguir.

Primero que nada: Cuando comienzas una carrera en las artes no tienen ninguna idea de
qué estás haciendo.

Esto es genial.
La gente que sabe lo que está haciendo conoce las reglas, y sabe lo que es posible e
imposible.

Tú no lo sabes.

Y no debes saberlo.

Las reglas de lo que es posible e imposible en las artes fueron hechas por gente que no
había probado los límites de lo posible yendo más allá de ellos.

Y tú puedes hacerlo.

Si no sabes que es imposible es más fácil de hacer.

Y como nadie lo ha hecho antes, no han hecho reglas que impidan a alguien hacerlo
nuevamente.

Segundo, si tienes una idea de lo que quieres hacer, de la razón por la que fuiste puesto
aquí, entonces sal y haz precisamente eso.

Y eso es mucho más difícil de lo que suena y, a veces al final, mucho más fácil de lo que
puedes imaginar.

Porque normalmente, hay cosas que debes hacer antes de que puedas llegar al lugar al
que quieres ir.

Yo quería escribir comics y novelas e historias y películas, así que me convertí en un

periodista, porque los periodistas tienen permitido hacer preguntas, y simplemente ir y
descubrir cómo funciona el mundo, y además, para hacer estas cosas yo necesitaba
escribir y escribir bien, y me pagaban por aprender como escribir económicamente, de
manera concisa, a veces bajo condiciones adversas, y a tiempo.

A veces la manera de hacer lo que esperas hacer será clarísima, y otras veces será casi
imposible decidir si estás o no haciendo lo correcto, porque tendrás que equilibrar tus
metas y esperanzas con el alimentarte, pagar deudas, encontrar trabajo, conformarte con
lo que puedes obtener.

Algo que me funcionó fue imaginarme que donde quería estar – siendo un autor,
principalmente de ficción, haciendo buenos libros, haciendo buenos comics y ganándome
la vida a través de mis palabras – era una montaña.

Una montaña lejana. Mi meta.

Y yo sabía que mientras me mantuviera caminando hacia la montaña estaría bien.

Y cuando realmente no estaba seguro de qué hacer, podía parar, y pensar si lo que hacía
me estaba llevando hacia la montaña o alejándome de ella.

Dije que no a trabajos editoriales en revistas, trabajos de verdad que hubieran pagado
dinero de verdad, porque sabía que, por atractivos que fueran, para mí era caminar
alejándome de la montaña. Y si esas ofertas de trabajo hubiesen llegado antes podría
haberlas tomado, porque hubiesen sido estar más cerca de la montaña de lo que yo estaba
en ese momento.

Aprendí a escribir escribiendo.

Tendía a hacer cualquier cosa mientras se sintiera como una aventura, y a detenerme
cuando se sentía como trabajo, lo que significó que la vida no se sentía como un trabajo.

Tercero, cuando comienzas, tienes que lidiar con el problema de fracasar.

Tienes que tener la piel curtida, aprender que no todos los proyectos sobrevivirán.

Una vida de trabajador independiente (freelancer), una vida en las artes, es algunas veces
poner mensajes en botellas, en una isla desierta, y esperar que alguien encuentre una de
tus botellas y la abra, y la lea, y ponga algo en una botella que va a volver de algún modo
a ti: un comentario, o un encargo, o dinero, o amor.

Y debes aceptar que puedes tener que poner cien cosas por cada botella que termine
volviendo.

Los problemas del fracaso son problemas de desaliento, de desesperanza, de hambre.

Quieres que te pase todo, y lo quieres ahora, y las cosas van mal.

Mi primer libro – una pieza de periodismo que había hecho por dinero, y que ya me había
comprado una máquina de escribir eléctrica gracias al avance – debería haber sido un
bestseller. Debería haberme pagado mucho dinero. Si la editorial no hubiera ido a la
quiebra involuntaria entre que se vendió la primera edición y que saliera la segunda, y
antes de que se pudieran pagar las regalías, lo habría hecho.

Y me encogí de hombros, y aún tenía mi máquina de escribir eléctrica y suficiente dinero

para pagar la renta por un par de meses, y decidí que en el futuro haría lo posible para no
escribir libros sólo por el dinero. Si no obtienes el dinero, entonces no obtienes nada.

Si hacía un trabajo del que estaba orgulloso y no obtenía el dinero, al menos tendría el
trabajo.

De vez en cuando, olvido esa regla, y cuando lo hago, el universo me patea fuerte y me lo
recuerda.
No sé si es un tema para alguien además de para mí, pero es verdad que nada de lo que he
hecho en la que la única razón para hacerlo ha sido el dinero ha valido la pena, excepto
como experiencia amarga.

Usualmente tampoco terminaba obteniendo el dinero.

Las cosas que hice porque me excitaba hacerlas, y quería verlas existiendo en la realidad
nunca me han defraudado, y nunca me he arrepentido del tiempo que he gastado en
ellas.

Los problemas del fracaso son duros.

Los problemas del éxito pueden ser más duros, porque nadie te advierte sobre ellos.

El primer problema de cualquier tipo de incluso éxito moderado es la inquebrantable

convicción de que te estás saliendo con la tuya de algún modo, y que en cualquier
momento te van a descubrir.

Es el Síndrome del Impostor, algo que mi esposa Amanda bautizó como la Policía del
Fraude.

En mi caso, yo estaba convencido de que golpearían la puerta, y un hombre con un

portapapeles (no sé por qué andaba con un portapapeles, pero en mi cabeza, lo hacía)
estaría ahí, para decirme que todo se había acabado, que me habían descubierto, y que
ahora tendría que buscar un trabajo de verdad, uno que no consistiera en inventar cosas y
escribirlas, y leer libros que quería leer.

Y entonces me iría silenciosamente y conseguiría un trabajo donde no tienes que inventar

más cosas.

Los problemas del éxito son reales, y con suerte los experimentarás.

El punto en el que dejas de decir sí a todo, porque ahora las botellas que lanzaste al
océano están todas volviendo, y tienes que aprender a decir no.

Miraba a mis compañeros, y a mis amigos, y a aquellos que eran mayores que yo y veía
cuan miserables eran algunos: los escuchaba decirme que ya no podían imaginarse un
mundo donde hacían lo que siempre habían querido hacer, porque ahora tenían que ganar
cierta cantidad de dinero cada mes sólo para seguir estando donde estaban.

No podían ir y hacer las cosas que importaban, y que ellos realmente querían hacer; y eso
parecía una tragedia tan grande como cualquier problema del fracaso.

Y después de eso, el mayor problema del éxito es que el mundo conspira para impedir que
hagas eso que tú haces, porque eres exitoso.
Hubo un día en el que miré y me di cuenta de que me había convertido en alguien que
respondía e-mails profesionalmente, y que escribía como hobby.

Comencé a responder menos e-mails, y me alivió darme cuenta que escribía mucho más.

Cuarto, espero que cometan errores.

Si están cometiendo errores, significa que están haciendo algo.

Y los mismos errores pueden ser útiles. Yo una vez escribí mal Caroline, en una carta,
cambiando la A por la O, y pensé “Coraline parece un nombre real…”

Y recuerda que sin importar en qué disciplina estés, ya sea que eres un músico o un
fotógrafo, un gran artista o un caricaturista, un escritor, un bailarín, un diseñador, lo que
sea que hagas tienes algo que es único.

Tienes la habilidad para hacer arte.

Y para mí, y para tanta gente que he conocido, eso ha sido un salvavidas.

El mayor salvavidas.

Te lleva por los buenos tiempos y te ayuda en los otros.

A veces la vida es difícil.

Las cosas salen mal, en la vida y en el amor y en los negocios y en la amistad y en la salud
y en todas las otras cosas en las que la vida puede salir mal. Y cuando las cosas se ponen
difíciles, esto es lo que debes hacer:

Haz buen arte.

Lo digo en serio.

¿Tu esposo se escapa con un político?

Haz buen arte.

¿Tus piernas fueron aplastadas y luego comidas por una boa constrictora mutante?

Haz buen arte.

¿Hacienda te persigue?

Haz buen arte.

¿El gato explotó?

Haz buen arte.

¿Alguien en Internet piensa que lo que haces es estúpido o malvado o que ya todo ha sido
hecho antes?

Haz buen arte.

Probablemente las cosas van a arreglarse de algún modo, y eventualmente el tiempo

quitará la espina, pero eso no importa.

Sólo da lo mejor.

Haz buen arte.

Hazlo en los buenos días también.

Y quinto, cuando estés en eso, haz buen arte.

Haz cosas que sólo tú puedes hacer.

El impulso, al comienzo, es copiar. Y no es algo malo.

La mayoría de nosotros sólo encontramos nuestras propias voces después de sonar como
muchas otras personas.

Pero la única cosa que tú tienes y que nadie más tiene es a ti.

Tu voz, tu mente, tu historia, tu misión.

Así que escribe y dibuja y construye y juega y baila y vive como sólo tú puedes hacerlo.

En el momento en el que sientas que, sólo posiblemente, estás caminando por la calle
desnudo, exponiendo demasiado de tu corazón y de tu menta y lo que existe en tu
interior, mostrando mucho de ti, ese es el momento en el que quizás has comenzado a
hacerlo bien.

Las cosas que he hecho que funcionaron para mejor fueron las cosas de las que estaba
menos seguro, las historias que estaba seguro que o iban a funcionar, o más
probablemente serían de ese tipo de fracasos vergonzosos por los que la gente se juntaría
a hablar de ellos hasta el fin de los tiempos.

Todas ellas tenían eso en común: al mirarlas, la gente explica por qué fueron éxitos
inevitables.
Cuando las estaba haciendo, no tenía idea.

Aún no la tengo.

Y ¿dónde estaría la diversión en hacer algo que sabes que va a funcionar?

Y a veces las cosas que hice realmente no funcionaron. Hay historias mías que nunca han
sido reimpresas. Algunas nunca dejaron la casa.

Pero he aprendido tanto de ellas como lo hice de las cosas que sí funcionaron.

Sexto. Voy a entregarles conocimiento secreto de un trabajador autónomo.

El conocimiento secreto siempre es bueno.

Y es útil para cualquiera que tenga planes de crear arte para otras personas, para entrar
al mundo del trabajo independiente de cualquier tipo.

Lo aprendí en los comics, pero se aplica a otros campos también.

Y es este:

Las personas son contratadas porque, de alguna forma, son contratadas.

En mi caso, yo hice algo que en estos días sería muy fácil de chequear, y me metería en
problemas, y cuando comencé, en esos días pre-internet, parecía una buena estrategia
para una carrera: cuando los editores me preguntaron para quién había trabajado, mentí.

Di un listado de revistas que sonaban bien, y yo soné confiado, y obtuve los trabajos.
Luego me comprometí conmigo mismo a escribir algo en cada una de las revistas que
mencioné para obtener ese primer trabajo, de modo de que no hubiese mentido realmente,
sino que simplemente hubiese sido cronológicamente retado… Obtienes trabajo como sea
que obtienes trabajo.

La gente sigue trabajando en el mundo del trabajo independiente, y más y más del
mundo de hoy es independiente, porque su trabajo es bueno, y porque son gente de trato
agradable, y porque entregan su trabajo a tiempo.

Y ni siquiera necesitas las tres.

Dos de tres está bien.

La gente tolerará lo desagradable que puedas ser si tu trabajo es bueno y lo entregas a

tiempo.

Ellos perdonarán tu tardanza si el trabajo es bueno, y les caes bien.

Y no tienes que ser tan bueno como los otros si entregas las cosas a tiempo y siempre es
un placer saber de ti.

Cuando accedí a dirigirme a ustedes, comencé a pensar cual sería el mejor consejo que me
habían dado a lo largo de los años.

Y vino de Stephen King hace veinte años, en la cúspide del éxito de Sandman. Estaba
escribiendo un comic que la gente amaba y que estaban tomando en serio. A King le había
gustado Sandman y mi novela con Terry Pratchett, “Buenos Presagios”, y vio la locura,
las largas filas para firmas, todo eso, y su consejo fue este:

“Esto es realmente genial. Deberías disfrutarlo.”

Y no lo hice.

El mejor consejo que me han dado y lo ignoré.

En vez de eso, me preocupé por ello.

Me preocupé por la siguiente fecha de entrega, la próxima idea, la próxima historia.

No hubo un momento en los siguientes catorce o quince años en los que no estuviera
escribiendo algo en mi cabeza, o pensando en ello.

Y no me paré y miré alrededor y dije “esto es realmente divertido”.

Desearía haberlo disfrutado más.

Ha sido un viaje asombroso.

Pero hubo partes del viaje que me perdí, porque estaba demasiado preocupado por las
cosas que podían salir mal, por lo que vendría después, para disfrutar la parte en la que
estaba.

Esa fue la lección más difícil para mí, creo: dejarse llevar y disfrutar el viaje, porque el
viaje te lleva a algunos lugares sorprendentes e inesperados.

Y aquí, en esta tarima, hoy, es uno de esos lugares. Estoy disfrutando inmensamente.

A todos los graduados de hoy: les deseo buena suerte.

La suerte es útil.

Muchas veces descubrirán que mientras más duro trabajen, y mientras más sabiamente
trabajen, más suerte tendrán.
Pero hay suerte, y ayuda.

Estamos en un mundo transicional en estos momentos, si están en un cualquier tipo de

campo artístico, porque la naturaleza de la distribución está cambiando, los modelos por
los cuales los creadores entregan su trabajo hacia el mundo, y logran mantener un techo
sobre sus cabezas y comprar sándwiches mientras hacen eso, todo está cambiando.

He hablado con gente en la cúspide de la cadena alimenticia en el mundo editorial, en la

venta de libros, en todas esas áreas, y nadie sabe cómo estará el panorama en dos años
desde ahora, menos aún en una década.

Los canales de distribución que la gente ha construido durante el último siglo o más están
modificándose para la impresión, para los artistas visuales, para los músicos, para la
gente creativa de cualquier tipo.

Lo que es, por un lado, intimidante, y por el otro, inmensamente liberador.

Las reglas, los supuestos, los “ahora tenemos que” de como haces que tu trabajo sea visto,
y lo que haces entonces, se están rompiendo.

Los guardianes están dejando sus puertas.

Puedes ser tan creativo como necesites serlo para lograr que tu trabajo sea visto. YouTube
y la red (y lo que sea que venga después de YouTube y la red) pueden darte más gente
mirando que lo que la televisión jamás dio.

Las antiguas reglas se están desmoronando y nadie sabe cuales son las nuevas reglas.

Así que haz tus propias reglas.

Alguien me preguntó hace poco como hacer algo que ella pensó iba a ser difícil, en este
caso grabar un audio libro, y yo le sugerí que fingiera que ella era alguien que podía
hacerlo.

No fingir hacerlo, pero fingir que ella era alguien que podía.

Puso una nota al respecto en la pared de su estudio, y dijo que le ayudó.

Así que sé inteligente, porque el mundo necesita más inteligencia, y si no puedes ser
inteligente, finge ser alguien que es inteligente, y entonces sólo compórtate como esa
persona lo haría.

Y ahora sal, y comete errores interesantes, haz errores increíbles haz errores gloriosos y
fantásticos.

Rompe reglas.
Deja el mundo más interesante porque pasaste por él.

Haz buen arte.”

8 Lessons from Neil Gaiman’s ‘Make Good
Art’ Speech
6. “Do things you are uncertain about”

On May 17, 2012, Neil Gaiman rose to speak at the commencement ceremony for The
University of the Arts. His recorded speech has inspired artists beyond that graduating
class. The transcript has been published as a book and the YouTube video has garnered
millions of views.

I was handed the transcript by a friend, back when I didn’t know who Neil Gaiman was. I
read it, and then I reread it. I took out a highlighter and read it again. At that moment, I
decided to pursue writing, a passion I’ve had ever since I was a child. As that journey
began, I found myself reading or watching the speech whenever I needed inspiration. When
I convinced my parents that writing was worth pursuing, I reached for my copy of the
transcript, covered in highlights and underlines, and read it to them.

At this point, I know the speech almost by heart, and whenever I need advice, these words
return to me. The entire speech is golden, but these quotes are the ones I reach for the most.

8 Lessons from Neil Gaiman that have

helped my writing career
1. “You have no idea what you are doing”

When you start out on a career in the arts you have no idea what you are doing.

This is great. People who know what they are doing know the rules, and know what is
possible and impossible. You do not. And you should not. The rules on what is possible and
impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible
by going beyond them. And you can.
If you don’t know it’s impossible it’s easier to do. And because nobody’s done it before,
they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone doing that again, yet.

This was a relief for me to hear. Starting a career in the arts is like entering adulthood. You
have no idea what you’re doing, and it’s a relief to hear someone consider that a good
thing. That’s the beauty of being young or being an artist; we’re brimming with optimism
and ideas and there are no rules to tell us no.

2. “Keep walking toward the mountain”

Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be — an author,
primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself
through my words — was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal.

And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right. And
when I truly was not sure what to do, I could stop, and think about whether it was taking
me towards or away from the mountain. I said no to editorial jobs on magazines, proper
jobs that would have paid proper money because I knew that, attractive though they were,
for me they would have been walking away from the mountain. And if those job offers had
come along earlier I might have taken them, because they still would have been closer to
the mountain than I was at the time.

Whenever I was at the crossroads, I remembered this quote and decided which direction
would take me closer to my end goal.

As newly emerging artists, we may have limited options and resources when it comes to
choosing jobs, but we could make other decisions that affect our end goals, such as our
routines, habits, hobbies, even our social circles. And when we choose our ‘main hustle’
(since making art full-time is luxury for already-established artists) we determine how that
would affect our time and energy for our art.

3. “Put out ‘messages in bottles’”

A freelance life, a life in the arts, is sometimes like putting messages in bottles, on a desert
island, and hoping that someone will find one of your bottles and open it and read it, and
put something in a bottle that will wash its way back to you: appreciation, or a commission,
or money, or love. And you have to accept that you may put out a hundred things for every
bottle that winds up coming back.

This has helped me get through rejections, and worse, no responses at all.

My friend gave me advice for my wedding day, “Expect ten things to go wrong, so when
something does, it’s just another check off the list.” Imagining that there’s a quota of
submissions I have to send before I receive an acceptance helps me overcome each no. It’s
not a slap in the face; it’s just another rejection to tick.
And every time there is appreciation or money sent back to me, it’s even more rewarding
since all of those other responses have finally paid off.

4. “Do work that you’re proud of”

…I decided that I would do my best in future not to write books just for the money. If you
didn’t get the money, then you didn’t have anything. If I did work I was proud of, and I
didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.

Every now and again, I forget that rule, and whenever I do, the universe kicks me hard and
reminds me. I don’t know that it’s an issue for anybody but me, but it’s true that nothing I
did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter
experience. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money, either. The things I did because I
was excited, and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never
regretted the time I spent on any of them.

I think of this quote whenever I’m tempted to “follow the market” or jump on trends I’m
not particularly fond of. I’d write a story I’m proud of than one I‘m not.

I recently wanted to submit a short story to a fairy tale retelling anthology. I chose Alice in
Wonderland, and as I wrote, I thought of my best friend, who is fond of Wonderland
retellings. When I finished, I sent the story to the anthology and my friend. I didn’t get
accepted into the anthology, but my friend loved it, and that made the effort worth it for me.

5. “Art is the ultimate lifesaver”

And remember that whatever discipline you are in, whether you are a musician or a
photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a designer, whatever you do
you have one thing that’s unique. You have the ability to make art.

And for me, and for so many of the people I have known, that’s been a lifesaver. The
ultimate lifesaver. It gets you through good times and it gets you through the other ones.

Inspiration is everywhere, but artists have the ability to take it and turn it into something
special. Sometimes we forget how amazing that is and bash ourselves for not creating fast
enough or good enough. At times, we need to take the focus away from the end product and
just create as only we can.

6. “Do things you are uncertain about”

The things I’ve done that worked the best were the things I was the least certain about, the
stories where I was sure they would either work, or more likely be the kinds of
embarrassing failures people would gather together and talk about until the end of time.
They always had that in common: looking back at them, people explain why they were
inevitable successes. While I was doing them, I had no idea.
I still don’t. And where would be the fun in making something you knew was going to
work?

This is incredibly encouraging on days when I’m certain that my writing should be
demolished from this world. Artists are too close to their work to be objective, so it’s hard
to tell what is good and what’s not. There are also so many factors out of our control, like
audiences, trends, current affairs, and luck, that determines if a project would be a success
or not. But don’t stress. Just enjoy the ride, wherever it leads.

7. “Two out of three is fine”

People keep working, in a freelance world, and more and more of today’s world is
freelance, because their work is good, and because they are easy to get along with, and
because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three. Two out of three
is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it
on time. They’ll forgive the lateness of the work if it’s good, and if they like you. And you
don’t have to be as good as the others if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear
from you.

I turn to this advice more than any other. On days when my work feels subpar, I focus on
what I can control: being pleasant and being on time. If I’ve got those, I’ll probably be
okay, I tell myself.. (More often than not, the work isn’t as terrible as I feared either.)

8. “Pretend to be someone who could”

Someone asked me recently how to do something she thought was going to be difficult, in
this case recording an audiobook, and I suggested she pretend that she was someone who
could do it. Not pretend to do it, but pretend she was someone who could. She put up a
notice to this effect on the studio wall, and she said it helped.

So be wise, because the world needs more wisdom, and if you cannot be wise, pretend to be
someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

This quote is another favorite. The advice is simple, yet so effective. Slipping into the shoes
of someone I respect can motivate me to do what I originally thought was impossible. Once
I begin, I often realize the task wasn’t as hard as I thought it was.

If you’re interested in reading the full speech, click here. If you want to see the video, click
here. If you’re an artist of any kind, I can’t recommend this highly enough. Print out the
transcript or buy the book (not an affiliate link.) See which quotes speak to you the most.
This speech might change your life, as it has mine and countless others.

In the words of Neil Gaiman:

And now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and
fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make
good art.