Superhero? Me?
Normal life was already not that normal. I had jettisoned my normal job with normal work patterns, because normal is simply not enough fun. So by the time the inciting incident of Talent Campus came along, I was spending all of my days writing… and wondering how I could get someone to pay me to do it.
Denial of the quest. I discussed the counterbalance of TC9’s potential against the financial investment with my partner. She said ‘Do it, you’re investing in yourself’. So I did. Financial denial done, I move into enjoying a cocktail of excitement and worry about the programme itself. What would it be like? Would everyone be as odd as me? Or am I not odd enough?
I move into a new world. Hell yes, TC is a new world. I knew I had a self-limiting voice in my head. I hadn’t realised, however, that once I listened, it would keep on talking. It said that I had a self-limiting belief. It didn’t say the self-limiting belief had six friends. I had a self-limiting list. A bit more of a hero’s quest than anticipated. But those beliefs hadn’t reckoned on the TC tribe, with its fearless, fucking awesome chief, Chris Jones, and his band of kick-ass super avengers: Bob, Amy, Lucia. And it hadn’t reckoned on my fellow story warriors.
The thing about a tribe is that you’re no longer alone with your thoughts.
So those self-defeating whispers in our ears come up against other voices. Voices which tell them to sod off. We told each other’s self-limiting beliefs to sod off all week…and I think a lot of sodding off happened. The self-defeating voices were… defeated. Cool.
Returning home with the magic elixir (not to be confused with a vial of magic flu, which I also took home), I wondered if any of this would be sustained back in the home environment. And then, a day after getting home, it all synthesised into a revelation.
Everything I’d been learning. Everything I’d experienced at TC9. Gone is the wonder whether I’ll get paid for writing, or get to work soon a film project. How? Simply that I’m not looking for that anymore. I’m creating something of my own, which doesn’t involve going cap-in-hand to anyone else for scraps from a bigger table. I’m starting something… and it’s far more ambitious than I had considered. I’m not just a story warrior. I’m the head honcho, the chief dreamer, the kind facilitator and collaborator of something amazing.
I will gather people to me and, together, we will dream dreams into stories told on screen. We will be the ones giving a helping hand. We will be telling life-changing stories in our way, driven by compassion, by love and by a bloody good sense of humour.
We had everything we need. We are the awesome story warriors.
Simon Elvin combines a lifetime’s experience in music, writing and Continuing Professional Development in his screenwriting and filmmaking.
