Neil Gaiman is most known for his work in a number of literary mediums including journalism, comic books, and novels.
In 2012, Gaiman gave a commencement speech at the University of the Arts where he talked about success. He stated that when you become successful, you may be unintentionally swayed from performing the actions that made you successful. Gaiman recalled his early success and how he felt pressured to answer emails all day long and it actually prevented him from writing as much as he wanted. So he reminds us to keep doing what makes us successful and to not let others get in the way.
Neil Gaiman – Inspirational Commencement Speech at the University of the Arts
Transcript of the Speech:
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thank you I never really expected to
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find myself giving advice to people
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graduating from an establishment of
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higher education I never graduated from
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any such establishment I never even
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started at one I escaped from school as
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soon as I could when the prospect of
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four more years of enforced learning
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before I could become the writer I
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wanted to be seemed stifling I got out
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into the world I wrote and I became a
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better writer the more I wrote and I
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wrote some more and nobody ever seemed
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to mind that I was making it all up as I
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went along they just read what I wrote
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and they paid me for it or they didn’t
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and often they commissioned me to write
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something else for them which has left
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me with a healthy respect and fondness
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for higher education that those of my
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friends and family who attended
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universities were cured of long ago
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looking back I’ve had a remarkable ride
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I’m not sure I can call it a career
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because a career implies that I had some
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kind of career plan and I never did the
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nearest thing I had was a list I made
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when I was about 15 of everything I
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wanted to do I wanted to write an adult
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novel a children’s book a comic a movie
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record an audio book write an episode of
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Doctor Who and so on I didn’t have a
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career I just did the next thing on the
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list so I thought I’d tell you
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everything I wish I’d known starting out
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and a few things that looking back on it
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I suppose I did know and then I also
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give you the best piece of advice I’d
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ever got which I completely failed to
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follow first of all when you start out
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on a career in the arts you have no idea
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what you’re doing this is great
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people who know what they’re doing know
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the rules and they know what is possible
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and what is impossible you do not and
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you should not the rules on what is
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possible and impossible in the arts were
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made by people who had not tested the
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bounds of the possible by going beyond
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them and you can if you don’t know it’s
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impossible it’s easier to do and because
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nobody’s done it before
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they haven’t made up rules to stop
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anyone doing that particular thing again
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secondly if you have an idea of what you
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want to make what you were put here to
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do then just go and do that and that’s
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much harder than it sounds and sometimes
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in the end so much easier than you might
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imagine because normally there are
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things you have to do before you can get
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to the place you want to be
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I wanted to write comics and novels and
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stories and films so I became a
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journalist because journalists are
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allowed to ask questions and to simply
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go and find out how the world works
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and besides to do those things I needed
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to write and to write well and I was
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being paid to learn how to write
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economically crisply sometimes under
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adverse conditions and on deadlines
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sometimes the way to do what you hope to
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do will be clear-cut and sometimes it’ll
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be almost impossible to decide whether
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or not you’re doing the correct thing
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because you’ll have to balance your
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goals and hopes with feeding yourself
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paying debts finding work settling for
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what you can get something that worked
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for me
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was imagining that where I wanted to be
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which was an author primarily a fiction
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making good books making good comics
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making good drama and supporting myself
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through my words imagining that was a
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mountain a distant mountain my goal and
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I knew that as long as I kept walking
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towards the mountain I’d be all right
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and when I truly was not sure what to do
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I could stop and think about whether it
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was taking me towards or away from the
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mountain I said no to editorial jobs on
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magazines proper jobs that would have
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paid proper money because I knew that
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attractive though they were for me they
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would have been walking away from the
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mountain and if those job offers had
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come earlier I might have taken them
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because they still would have been
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closer to the mountain that I was at
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that time I learned to write by writing
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I tended to do anything as long as it
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felt like an adventure and to stop when
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it felt like work which meant that life
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did not feel like work
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thirdly when you start out you have to
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deal with the problems of failure you
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need to be thick-skinned to learn that
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not every project will survive a
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freelance life or life in the arts is
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sometimes like putting messages in
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bottles on a desert island and hoping
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that someone will find one of your
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bottles and open it and read it and put
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something in a bottle that will wash its
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way back to you
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appreciation or a commission or money or
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love and you have to accept that you may
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put out hundreds of things for every
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bottle that winds up coming back the
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problems of failure the problems of
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discouragement of hopelessness of hunger
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you want everything to happen and you
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want it now and things go wrong my first
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book a piece of journalism I done only
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for the money and which had already
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bought me an electric typewriter from
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the advance should have been a
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best-seller it should have paid me a lot
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of money if the publisher hadn’t gone
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into involuntary liquidation between the
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first print runs selling out and the
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second print run never happening and
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before any Broyles could be paid it
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would have done and I shrugged and I
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still had my electric typewriter and
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enough money to pay the rent for a
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couple of months and I decided that I’d
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do my best in future not to write books
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just for the money if you didn’t get the
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money then you didn’t have anything and
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if I did work I was proud of and I
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didn’t get the money at least I’d have
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the work every now and then I forget
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that rule and whenever I do the universe
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kicks me hard and reminds me I don’t
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know that it’s an issue for anybody but
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me but it’s true that nothing I did
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where the only reason for doing it was
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the money was ever worth it except as
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bitter experience usually I didn’t wind
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up getting the money either
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the things I did because I was excited
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and wanted to see them exist in reality
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have never let me down and I’ve never
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regretted the time I spent on any of
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them the problems of failure are hard
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the problems of success can be harder
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because nobody warns you about them the
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first problem of any kind of even
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limited success is the unshakable
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conviction that you’re getting away with
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something and at any moment now they
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will discover you it’s imposter syndrome
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something my wife Amanda christened the
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fraud police in my case I was convinced
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there would be a knock on the door and a
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man with a clipboard I don’t know why he
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had a clipboard but in my head he always
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had a clipboard would be there to tell
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me it was all over and they’d caught up
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with me and now I would have to go and
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get a real job one that didn’t consist
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of making things up and writing them
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down and reading books I wanted to read
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and then I would go away quietly and get
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the kind of job I would have to get up
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early in the morning and wear a tie and
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not make things up anymore the problems
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of success they’re real and with luck
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you’ll experience them the point where
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you stop saying yes to everything
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because now the bottles you threw in the
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ocean are all coming back and you have
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to learn to say no I watched my peers
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and my friends and the ones who were
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older than me and I’d watch how
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miserable some of them were I’d listen
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to them telling me they couldn’t
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envisaged a world where they did what
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they’ve always wanted to do anymore
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because now they had to earn a certain
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amount every month just to keep where
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they were they couldn’t go and do the
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things that mattered and that they’d
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really wanted to do and that seemed as
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big a tragedy as any problem of failure
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and after that the biggest problem of
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success is that the world conspires to
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stop you doing the thing that you do
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because you’re successful there was a
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day when I looked up and realized that I
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become someone who professionally
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replied to email and who wrote as a
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hobby I started answering fewer emails
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and was relieved to find I was writing
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much more fourthly I hope you’ll make
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mistakes if you make mistakes it means
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you’re out there doing something and the
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mistakes in themselves can be very
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useful
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I once misspelled Caroline in a letter
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transposing the A’s in the oh and I
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thought Caroline looks almost like a
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real name remember whatever discipline
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you’re in whether you’re a musician or a
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photographer a fine artist or a
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cartoonist a writer a dancer singer a
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designer whatever you do you have one
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thing that’s unique you have the ability
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to make art and for me for so many of
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the people I’ve known that’s been a
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lifesaver the ultimate life saver it
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gets you through good times and it gets
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you through the other ones sometimes
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life is hard things go wrong in life and
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in love and in business and in
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friendship and in health and in all the
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other ways that life can go wrong and
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when things get tough this is what you
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should do make good art I’m serious
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husband runs off with a politician make
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good art leg crushed and then eaten by
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mutated boa constrictor make good art
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IRS on your trail make good art cat cat
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exploded make good art someone on the
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internet thinks what you’re doing is
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stupid or evil or it’s all been done
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before make good art probably things
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will work out somehow
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eventually time will take the sting away
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and that doesn’t even matter do what
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only you can do best make good art make
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it on the bad days make it on the good
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days too and fifthly while you’re at it
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make your art do the stuff that only you
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can do you’re starting out is to copy
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and that’s not a bad thing most of us
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only find our own voices after we’ve
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sounded like a lot of other people but
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the one thing that you have that nobody
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else has is you your voice your mind
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your story your vision so write and draw
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and build and play and dance and live as
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only you can the moment that you feel
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that just possibly you’re walking down
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the street naked exposing too much of
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your heart in your mind and what exists
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on the inside showing too much of
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yourself that’s the moment you may be
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starting to get it right the things I’ve
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done that worked the best were the
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things I was the least certain about the
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stories where I was sure they’d buy the
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work or more likely be the kind of
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embarrassing failures that people would
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gather together and discuss until the
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end of time they always had that in
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common
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looking back at them people explain why
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they were inevitable successes and when
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I was doing them I had no idea
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I still don’t and where would be the fun
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in making something you knew was going
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to work and sometimes the things I did
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really didn’t
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there are stories of mine that have
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never been reprinted some of them never
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even left the house but I learned as
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much from them as I did from the things
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that worked okay six late I’m going to
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pass on some secret freelancer knowledge
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secret knowledge is always good and it’s
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useful for anyone who ever plans to
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create art for other people to enter a
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freelance world of any kind I learned it
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in comics but it applies to other fields
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too and it’s this people get hired
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because somehow they get hired in my
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case I did something which these days
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would be easy to check and will get me
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into a lot of trouble and when I started
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out in those pre-internet days seemed
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like a sensible career strategy when I
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was asked by editors who I’d written for
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I lied
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I listed a handful of magazines that
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sounded likely and i sounded confident
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and i got jobs
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I then made it a point of honor to have
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written something for each of the
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magazines I’ve listed to get that first
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job so that I hadn’t actually lied I
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just been chronologically challenged you
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get work however you get work but people
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keep working in a freelance work and
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more and more of today’s world is
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freelance because their work is good and
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because they’re easy to get along with
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and because they deliver the work on
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time and you don’t even need all three
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two out of three is fine
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people will tolerate how unpleasant you
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are if your work is good and you deliver
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it on time people will forgive the
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lateness of your work if it’s good and
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they like you and you don’t have to be
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as good as everyone else if you’re on
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time and it’s always a pleasure to hear
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from you
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so when I agreed to give this address I
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thought what is the best piece of advice
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I was ever given and I realized that it
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was actually a piece of advice that I
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had failed to follow and it came from
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Stephen King it was 20 years ago at the
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height of the success the initial
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success of Sandman the comic I was
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writing I was oh thank you I was writing
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a comic people loved and they were
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taking it seriously and Stephen King
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likes a man and my novel with Terry
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Pratchett Good Omens and he he saw the
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madness that was going on the long
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signing lines all of that stuff but and
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his advice to me was this he said this
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is really great you should enjoy it and
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I didn’t best advice I ever got that I
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ignored instead I worried about it I
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worried about the next deadline the next
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idea the next story
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there wasn’t a moment for the next 14 or
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15 years that I wasn’t writing something
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in my head or wondering about it and I
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didn’t stop and look and look around and
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go this is really fun I wish I’d enjoyed
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it more it’s been an amazing ride but
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there were parts of the ride I missed
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because I was too worried about things
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going wrong about what came next to
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enjoy the bit that I was on that was the
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hardest lesson for me I think to let go
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and enjoy the ride because the ride
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takes use to some remarkable and
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unexpected places
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and here on this platform today for me
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is one of those places and I am enjoying
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myself immensely
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I’d actually put that in brackets just
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in case I wasn’t I wouldn’t say to all
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today’s graduates I wish you luck luck
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is useful often you will discover that
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the harder you work and the more wisely
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that you work the luckier you will get
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but there is luck and it helps we’re in
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a transitional world right now if you’re
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in any kind of artistic field because
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the nature of distribution is changing
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the models by which creators got their
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work out into the world and got to keep
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a roof over their heads and buy sand
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which is while they did that they’re all
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changing I talked to people at the top
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of the food chain in publishing and book
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selling in music in all those areas and
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no one knows what the landscape will
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look like two years from now let alone a
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decade away the distribution channels
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that people had built over the last
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century or so are in flux for print for
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visual artists for musicians the
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creative people of all kinds which is on
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the one hand intimidating and on the
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other immensely liberating the rules the
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assumptions then now we’re supposed to
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zuv how you get your work seam and what
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you do then they’re breaking down the
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gatekeepers are leaving their gates you
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can be as creative as you need to be to
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get your work scene YouTube and the web
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and whatever comes after YouTube and the
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web can give you more people watching
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the old television ever did the old
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rules are crumbling and nobody knows
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what the new rules are so make up your
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own rules someone asked me recently how
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to do something she thought was going to
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be difficult in this case recording an
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audio book and I suggested she pretend
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that she was someone who could do it
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not pretend to do it but pretend she was
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someone who could she put up a notice to
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this effect on the studio wall and she
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said it helped so be wise because the
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world needs more wisdom and if you
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cannot be wise pretend to be someone who
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is wise and then just behave like they
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would
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and now go and make interesting mistakes
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make amazing mistakes make glorious and
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fantastic mistakes break rules leave the
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world more interesting for your being
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here make good art
