I hate marketing emails. You are a writer, you should try writing one. They are hard and so often it feels totally disingenuous.
I have been writing these emails about the London Screenwriters’ Festival for the best part of a decade, sharing how ‘amazing this is’, how ‘fabulous that is’, and ‘how this thing will make the difference in your craft, art and career’. All those messages are true of course. But sheesh. I just don’t have the words even though the festival is 16 days away.
The last year has been really tough on so many levels and writing emails with that veneer of ‘sexy’, ‘must have’, ‘gotta come’… ‘O.M,G!!!’…
Well that veneer has worn thin.
So instead, let me share the WHY I run the festival, why WE as a team have done it for nearly ten years now.
Screenwriting is hard. Really hard.
I would argue that screenwriting is one of the hardest forms of written word to master. I am not sure it’s ever mastered… even by the masters!
It’s for this reason I run the festival. Because screenwriting is hard. And there is always something else to know, learn or pickup. Always someone new to meet and to create a relationship with.
For years people have advised me to take credit for our ‘LSF successes’. Other organisations claim ‘such and such did their course… and look now they have won an Oscar!’ Like this organisation has somehow trained that person, in 48 hours, to win an Oscar fifteen years later. Err… No.
Any success that any of the writers who have attended the festival find, well shit, that’s their blood sweat and tears right there.
It’s THEIR great ideas told through inspired execution. It’s their hard won experience, and the relationships they have made and nurtured… and of course, their drive and staying power that is needed to just keep going.
So yes. They created their own success with the cards they were dealt.
At LondonSWF we may have played some role in their success. Sometimes a big role. Sometimes a small role. I know that we deliver on massive inspiration to keep moving onward. I know we deliver on a cacophony of deep lightbulb moments. And I know that we give access to a ton of new relationships, ones that keep us connected to our passion (which is so important for when life attempts to kick that passion out of us – and it will).
There is no silver bullet, no short cut. We live in a click bait world that has devalued hard work, personal savvy, great ideas, all backed up by driven and unstoppable passion…
Don’t fall for the ‘make $10k’, ‘drop three stone in a week’, ‘write a novel in ten days…’ and ‘all in just four easy steps’ world we find ourselves in. It’s a lie, we know it, and it will make you crazy, and worse, lazy, if you buy into it.
No. Make no mistake, screenwriting is hard. Really hard.
And we need to gather the best knowledge about craft, access the greatest insight, experience and business intel, as well as meet more people and create powerful relationships.
So here’s what I promise about the festival.
If you come. If you open your heart, mind and soul.
You will learn a ton of new art, business and craft stuff (uh oh, unavoidable salesy stuff).
You will meet and create friendships with people who get you, you will make new peers (more salesy stuff, but like this a lot more).
Now for the passionate bit, the real deal…
Ready?
But most of all, come because on Sunday night, after three days of total immersion in LondonSWF, after listening to the best in the business, rubbing shoulders with new inspired peers… you will leave feeling like a Story Gladiator… leaning into the challenge of ‘what next’, emboldened by the knowledge that you ARE on the right track, flanked by your new tribe of writers, people just like you who are on their own extraordinary journeys also.
The Festival atmosphere is electrifying from 9am on Friday morning. I personally work into overdrive and risk everything to ensure that I live up to this promise.
Why the hell would you spend your time ANYWHERE else over the festival weekend? You are a screenwriter! Everyone is HERE!
So yeah, I run the festival because screenwriting is hard. And your story, if you have the courage to go the distance and to tell the truth as you see it, needs to be experienced by the world.
And to help you on that journey, that’s a privilege. I love it. The whole LSF team loves it. It’s WHY we do it.
We live just once. Let’s play the biggest, boldest, most inspired game we can.
See you at the Festival. I dare you.
Chris Jones
www.LondonSWF.com
Posted by a member of the London Screenwriters’ Festival team.
