On watching a story of mine debut at Sundance, and thinking about Neil Gaiman.
Week-by-week readers know that last week I was at Sundance, watching a film adaptation of a story I wrote.
There was so much I could think about: Which celebrities will I see? And how will I look to them? What will the critics think of the movie? And in their reviews will they cite my story? Will the film get a distribution deal? And if it does what will I spend the money on? And if it doesn’t — well, then, where will I be?
I could have spent all my time on any of these things. But I chose to think about Neil Gaiman.
He gave a commencement address titled “Make Good Art.” It’s an argument to do the work that you alone can do, but within it is something that affects us all.
When success at last comes our way, we think we must struggle through it as well.
Here’s Gaiman:
“When I agreed to give this address, I started trying to think what the best advice I’d been given over the years was.
“And it came from Stephen King twenty years ago, at the height of the success of Sandman. I was writing a comic that people loved and were taking seriously. King had liked Sandman and my novel with Terry Pratchett, Good Omens, and he saw the…
