Neil Gaiman I Learned Writing By Writing with Big Subtitles
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 audio book 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 I did know and that’ll 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’re doing this is great
people who know what they’re 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 deadlines
sometimes the way to do what you hope to
do will be clear-cut and sometimes it’ll
be almost impossible to decide whether
or not you’re 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 a
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’d 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 hundreds of 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’d done only
for the money and which had already
bought me an electric typewriter from
the advance should have been a
best-seller it should have paid me a lot
of money if the publisher hadn’t gone
into involuntary liquidation between the
first print runs selling out and the
second print run never happening and
before any Broyles could be paid it
would have done and I shrugged and I
still have my electric typewriter and
enough money to pay the rent for a
couple of months and I decided that I’d
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 and
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
we’re 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’re getting away with
something and at 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’d
caught up with me and now I would have
to go and get a real job one that didn’t
consist of making things I’ve been
writing them down and reading books I
wanted to read and then I would go away
quietly and get the kind of job I would
have to get up early in the morning and
wear a tie and not make things up
anymore 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 and I’d
watch how miserable some of them were
I’d listen to them telling me they
couldn’t envisage a world where they did
what they’ve always wanted to do anymore
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’d
really wanted to do and that seemed as
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’re successful there was a
day when I looked up and realized that I
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 A’s in the oh and I
thought Caroline looks almost like a
real name
remember whatever discipline you’re in
whether you’re a musician or a
photographer a fine artist or a
cartoonist a writer a dancer 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’ve known that’s been a
lifesaver the ultimate life saver 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 a
mutated boa constrictor make good art
IRS on your trail make good art cat 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 probably things will work out
somehow eventually time will take the
sting away and that doesn’t even 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’re 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 their 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 and 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’d play the work or more likely
be the kind of embarrassing failures
that people would gather together and
discuss until the end of time they
always have that in common
looking back at them people explain why
they were inevitable successes and when
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
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 okay six late I’m gonna pass
on some secret freelancer knowledge
secret knowledge is always good and it’s
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 will 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
just been chronologically challenged but
you get work however you get work but
people keep working in a freelance work
and more and more of today’s world is
freelance because their work is good and
because they’re 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 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 to follow then it came from
Stephen King it was 20 years ago at the
height of the success the initial
success of Sandman the comic I was
writing I was thank you I was writing a
comic people loved and they were taking
it seriously and Stephen King liked
Sandman a my novel with Terry Pratchett
Good Omens and he he saw the madness
that was going on in the long signing
lines all of that stuff that and his
advice to me was this he said this is
really great you should enjoy it and I
didn’t best advice I ever got that 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 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
used to some remarkable and unexpected
places and here on this platform today
for me is one of those places and I am
enjoying myself immensely
I’d actually put that in brackets just
in case I wasn’t I wouldn’t say 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 they’re
all changing I’ve talked to people at
the top of the food chain in publishing
in book selling in music in all those
areas and no one knows what the
landscape will look like two years from
now let alone a decade away the
distribution channels the people had
built over the last century or so are in
flux for print for visual artists for
musicians the creative people of all
kinds which is on the one hand
intimidating and on the other immensely
liberating the rules the assumptions
there now we’re supposed to zuv how you
get your work seen and what you do then
they’re 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 in the web
can give you more people watching the
old 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
[Applause]