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]

{{}}

谢谢 我从没想过

自己会给

从

高等教育机构毕业的人提供建议 我从来没有从

任何这样的机构毕业 我什至从来没有

从一所大学开始 我会尽快从学校逃学

当有四年的前景时

在我成为作家之前强制学习 我

想成为

一个令人窒息

的人 在我

前进的过程中，他们只是读了我写的东西

，他们付钱给我，或者他们不付钱，

而且他们经常委托我

为他们写其他东西，这让

我对高等教育产生了健康的尊重和喜爱

，而我的

朋友们 上大学

的家人早就

痊愈了

我做过的最接近的事情是

我大约 15 岁时列出的清单 我想做的所有

事情 我想写一本成人

小说 儿童读物 漫画 电影

唱片 有声读物 写一集

神秘博士等等 我没有

职业，我只是做了清单上的下一件事，

所以我想我会告诉你

我希望从一开始就知道的一切，

以及一些回顾过去

我想我确实知道的事情 我也会

给你最好的建议

，当你开始从事艺术事业时，我完全没有遵循这些建议

你不

知道自己在做什么这是伟大的

人，他们知道自己在做什么 “正在做知道的规则，他们知道什么是可能的，什么是不可能的，你不和你不应该对什么是通过谁没有通过超越测试的可能的边界人民作了艺术可能和不可能的规则

他们，你可以，如果你不知道这是

不可能的，这样做更容易，因为

Ë没有人做到了，他们还没有作出前规则来阻止任何人做特定的事情再其次，如果你有你想使你把这里做什么然后就去做什么的想法，这比更难 这听起来，

有时最终比你想象的要容易得多，

因为通常

你必须做一些事情才能到达

你想成为的地方

我想写漫画、小说、

故事和电影，所以我成为了一名

记者 因为记者被

允许提出问题并简单地

去了解世界是如何运作的

，此外还可以做我

需要写的东西，写得好，我

得到报酬是为了学习如何

在不利的条件下经济清晰地写作

，等等

有时，你希望做的事情的方法

是明确的，有时

几乎不可能决定

你是否在做正确的事情，

因为你必须平衡你的

目标 并希望通过养活自己

偿还债务找到工作解决

你能得到什么

对我有用的东西是想象我

想成为的作家主要是

小说制作好书制作好

漫画制作好戏剧并

通过我的文字支持自己 想象那

是一座山 一座遥远的山 我的

目标，我知道只要我继续

向那座山走，我就

没事了，当我真的不知道该

怎么办时，我可以停下来想想

它是否会带我 靠近或

远离山峰 我拒绝了杂志上的编辑

工作 适当的工作

会支付适当的钱，因为我

知道尽管它们对我很有吸引力，但

他们会

离开山峰，如果这些工作机会

来得更早，我 可能会带走它们，

因为它们仍然

比我当时更靠近山

我通过写作学会了写作

我倾向于做任何事情，只要

感觉像 冒险并在

感觉像工作时停下来，这意味着生活

不像工作

第三当你开始时你必须

处理失败的问题

你需要厚脸皮才能

知道并非每个项目都能在

自由职业者中幸存下来 生活艺术生活

有时就像在荒岛上把信息放在

瓶子里，

希望有人能找到你的一个

瓶子，打开它读一读，然后把

东西放进瓶子里，瓶子里的东西会

流回给你

欣赏或欣赏。

佣金或金钱还是爱情，你必须接受，你可以放了无数的事情，每卷紧回来失败的问题是你想要的一切发生的和饥饿的绝望沮丧的问题一瓶你现在事情想它 出错了 我的第一

本书 我只是为了钱而写的一篇新闻

已经

预付给我一台电动打字机 应该是一

本畅销书 它应该付钱

如果出版商没有

在第

一次印刷售罄和

第二次印刷从未发生之间进行非自愿清算并且

在任何 Broyles 可以支付之前它

会完成，我耸了耸肩，我

仍然有我的电动打字机 和

足够的钱来支付几个月的房租

，我决定以后我会

尽力不

为钱而写书，如果你没有得到

钱，那么你什么都没有，

如果我 做了我引以为豪的工作

，但至少我没有得到钱我时不时地

有工作我忘记了

这条规则，每当我做的时候，宇宙都会

狠狠地踢我并提醒我我不

知道这是一个 除了我以外的任何人的问题，

但确实，我没有做任何事情，

我们这样做的唯一原因

是钱是值得的，除了

痛苦的经历通常我没有

得到钱

我所做的事情，因为我是 兴奋

并想看到他们在现实中的

存在从未让 我很沮丧，我从不

后悔我在其中任何一个上花费的时间

失败的问题很难

成功的问题可能更难

因为没有人警告你

任何一种即使是有限成功的第一个问题

是不可动摇的

信念 你侥幸逃脱

，现在他们随时

都会发现你是冒名顶替综合症

，我的妻子阿曼达将

我的案件中的欺诈警察命名为欺诈警察

不知道为什么他

有一个剪贴板，但在我的脑海里

他总是有一个剪贴板会在

那里告诉我一切都结束了，他们已经

赶上了我，现在我必须

去找一份真正的工作，但没有' 牛逼包括使事情我已经写下来，看书我想读的，然后我就悄悄地走开，并获得样的工作我会一大早起床，打领带，而不是让事情

不再解决成功的问题 嘿是

真实的，幸运的是，你会经历

到你不再对一切说“是”的地步，

因为现在

你扔进海里的瓶子都

回来了，你必须学会说不，我

看着我的同龄人和我的朋友，

那些比我年长的人，我会

看到他们中的一些人有多悲惨

每个月赚一定的钱只是为了保持

他们不能去的地方做

他们

真正想做的重要的事情，这似乎

和任何失败的问题一样大的悲剧

，然后是最大的问题

成功的意义在于，世界密谋

阻止你做你所做的事情，

因为你是成功的 有

一天我抬起头，意识到我

成为了一个专业

回复电子邮件的人，把写作作为一种

爱好，我开始回复更少了 电子邮件

并重新 相信我写得

更多 第四次我希望你会

犯错 如果你犯错这意味着

你在外面做某事而且

错误本身可能非常

有用

我曾经在一封

将 A 转换为 A 的信中拼错了 Caroline

哦，我还以为卡罗琳看起来几乎像一个真正的名字记得你是什么学科，无论你是音乐家或摄影家细艺术家或漫画家作家舞蹈演员歌手不管你做什么，你有一件事设计师那是你唯一 有

能力创作艺术，对我和

我认识的许多人来说，这是一个

救命稻草

生活在爱和在商业和友谊，健康和其他所有方法，生活可以去错了，当事情变得艰难，这是你应该做的事情做好艺术我是认真的丈夫带着一个PO 诉讼人把

好的艺术腿压碎，然后被

变异的蟒蛇吃掉 做好的艺术

国税局在你的踪迹上 做好的艺术 猫猫

爆炸 做好的艺术 互联网上的某人

认为你所做的事情是

愚蠢或邪恶的，或者这一切都是以前做过的

做好可能事情会

以某种方式最终解决，时间会

带走刺痛，这甚至无关紧要，

做只有你能做的最好的事情让好的

艺术在糟糕的日子里让它

在好日子里也让它在好日子里，第五，当

你 重新让你的艺术

做只有你能做的事情开始的冲动

就是复制，这不是一件

坏事我们大多数人只有

在我们听起来像很多其他人之后才会找到自己的声音，

但一件事 你

拥有别人没有的就是你的

声音你的思想你的故事你的愿景

所以写作、绘画、建造、玩耍、

跳舞和生活，只有你能做到的

那一刻，你觉得很可能

你走在街上赤身

裸体 你的 h 太多了 心灵和你的

思想以及内在存在的东西

过度展示你自己 那是

你可能开始做对的那一刻

我所做

的最有效的事情 是我对我所处的故事最不确定的事情

肯定他们会完成这项工作，或者更有可能

是人们聚集在一起讨论的那种令人尴尬的失败

，

直到时间结束他们

总是有共同点，

回顾他们，人们解释为什么

他们是不可避免的成功以及

我在做什么 他们我不知道

我仍然不

知道做一些你知道

会起作用的东西会有什么乐趣有时我所做的事情

真的

没有我的故事

从未被重印其中一些

甚至从未 离开了房子，但我

从他们那里学到的东西和

我从六点后正常工作

的

事情中学到的一样多

创造艺术为其他人进入任何一种我学会了以漫画的一个自由的世界，但它也适用于其他领域也是一样，它的这个人被录用，因为不知何故，他们在我的情况下，我做了一些东西，这几天会很容易地检查被录用 并且会给我

带来很多麻烦，当我

在互联网出现之前的那些日子开始时

似乎是一个明智的职业策略，当我

被我写过的编辑问到

我撒谎时，

我列出了一些

听起来很可能的杂志并且 我听起来很自信

，我找到了工作

，然后我很荣幸为

我列出的每本杂志写了一些东西以获得第

一份工作，这样我实际上并没有撒谎我

只是按时间顺序受到挑战，但

你得到了工作 但是你得到了工作，但

人们继续从事自由职业

，当今世界越来越多的人是

自由职业者，因为他们的工作很好，

因为他们很容易相处

，因为他们按时交付工作，

而你甚至没有 需要

三分之二的三分之二是好的

如果你的

工作很好并且你按时交付，人们会容忍你的不愉快

如果你的工作很好并且他们喜欢你并且

你不必这样做，人们会原谅你的迟到

如果你准时和其他人一样好，而且很

高兴收到你的来信，

所以当我同意提供这个地址时，我

想我得到的最好的建议

是什么，我意识到

这实际上是一个 我

没有遵循的建议然后它来自

斯蒂芬金 那是 20 年前在

成功的高峰

期 Sandman 的初步成功 我正在写的漫画

我很感谢我正在写一部

人们喜爱并且他们正在接受的漫画

说真的，斯蒂芬·金喜欢

桑德曼和特里·普拉切特的小说《

好兆头》，他看到

了长长的签约线上正在发生的疯狂

所有这些事情，他

对我的建议是这样的，他说这

真的很棒，你应该 享受它，我

不是我得到的最好的建议 我

忽略了 我担心它 我

担心下一个截止日期 下一个

想法 下一个故事

在接下来的 14 或 15 年里，我没有一刻不

写东西 头或想了解它，我没有停下来看看，并环顾四周，走这真的很好玩我希望我能享受它更是一直一个惊人的骑，但有我错过了，因为我太担心该机的配件

接下来的事情出了问题，享受

我所经历的那段时间，这对我来说是最难的一

课，我认为放手去

享受骑行，因为骑行

习惯了一些非凡和意想不到的

地方，今天在这个平台上

对我来说 是那些地方之一，

我非常享受

我实际上把它放在括号

中以防万一我不是我不会对

今天所有的毕业生说我祝你好运运气

经常有用你会发现

你越努力 工作，

你工作得越聪明，你就越幸运 你会得到，但

有运气，如果你在任何类型的艺术领域，它有助于我们现在处于一个

过渡的世界

，因为

发行的性质正在改变

创作者将他们的

作品推向世界并获得的模式

在他们这样做的同时买三明治，他们都在

改变我已经和

食物链顶端

的人谈过了

看起来像两年

后更不用说十年

了 人们

在上个世纪左右建立的分销渠道不断

变化 印刷品 对于视觉艺术家 对于

音乐家 各种各样的创意人士

，一方面

令人生畏，另一方面 另一个极大地

解放了规则现在的假设

我们应该知道你

如何看到你的工作以及你做了什么然后

他们打破了守门人

正在离开他们的大门你可以像你一样有

创造力 ED是让您的工作，看到YouTube和网站以及YouTube后，无论发生什么事在网上可以给你更多的人看老电视做过的旧规则正在崩溃，没有人知道新规则是这样弥补自己的规则

最近有人问我如何

做她认为

在这种情况下录制有声书会很困难的事情

，我建议她假装

自己是一个可以做到的人，而

不是假装这样做，而是假装她是

一个可以忍受的人 对工作室的墙上这种效果的通知，她表示这有助于所以明智的，因为这个世界需要更多的智慧，如果你不能明智假装是别人谁是明智的，然后就表现得像他们现在去，让有趣的错误

犯惊人的错误 犯光荣和

奇妙的错误 打破规则 让

世界变得更有趣 因为你在

这里 做出好的

[鼓掌]