Neil Gaiman - Make Good Art

I came across this quote from Neil Gaiman, from 2012. I found it particularly resonant because I can attest to its truth. Writing is the one thing that's kept me going, through financial difficulty, through the emotional roller-coaster that is my day-to-day life. When I write, I'm in control and for a while, I don't have to worry about anything.

Life is sometimes 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. Somebody on the Internet thinks what you do 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 do best. Make good art.

Make it on the good days too.

I'm trying...really...I am...