Stupid Hero's Journey
A brief reflection on the traditional way of telling stories and my writing process for the show that's about to launch.
The ultimate method for storytelling is The Hero's Journey, right? An exciting incident happens to a beloved character that leads him/her or her to discover a new world, and adventures that lead to great conflict and then great learning. It's a scheme that started out being coined by a Mr. (Joseph Campbell) in 1949 that analyzed many myths and legends to find “a single structure to tell stories”. Reductionist, of course. But quite effective.
In my career in reporting, producing and writing stories this method, often plotted in three acts, has been very useful to plan what I write, especially in audio, where you narrate in a very sequential way, one thing at a time. It was the same outline I used when I started writing all the episodes of Juventud Maldito Vacío and even so, it urges me to tell you that this idea of the hero (also generically male) who manages to overcome all obstacles, learn all lessons and defeat the great monster is just pure lies.
It's a stupid and sexy lie.
I, myself, felt like the heroine of my own story in January of this year when I decided to finally, stop dragging my feet on that dream project I had wanted to write so long ago and rescue it from the world of ideas to bring it to the world of our ears. Damn, it's been 9 years. Putting that beloved project in a precious tower, thinking about it for pages of my diary, depositing in it every new idea I learned, flattering it in conversations with friends and every minute I thought about my creative exercise. I dreamed up a narrative / half-experimental series about everything I wasn't told about growing up in my 20s.
On several occasions I went to save this project from the clutches of Lack of Money and Lack of Time. I returned from each expedition with incomplete pages, in complete defeat. Because I thought I could do it alone, that I was a superhero, and it turns out I wasn't.
We live in the time of the hero Content Creator. This brilliant person who waits for you on his Tik Tok, on his Instagram account, on Youtube, on his Twitch streams, his TV interviews and now, more than ever, his endless hours talking with friends on his recently released videopodcast.
Being a Content Creator is the new hero of our modern liquid times yet… I have been writing consistently for nine months and last week I could not stand because of a deep back muscle strain. Too many hours sitting, too much time without taking a break. Too much time in my writing lair. So it feels, too, that supposed heroism of thinking oneself all-powerful. No Instagram stories.
I'm not complaining, I'm aware of my privilege in doing this. The reason I'm sharing it with you is because we have to overthrow the myth of the “Youtuber who can do anything in the 2 minutes of this video”. Because the truth is that to do something of quality you have to stop romanticizing instant gratification. Being a content creator for me has been an exercise of assuming my writing is part of my life. In the beginning, I used to go to nice cafes to work in a divine environment. Now I write in my room, in my living room, in my dining room, I write with a stopwatch to make sure I don't hurt my back again, I write before I go to sleep and just when I wake up, I write when I'm traveling and when I'm not, I write rain or shine. The Laura of September 2024 writes like she eats breakfast: as an end and not as a means to something.
This is my victory. After all, my only merit for the upcoming release is to have written and rewritten to bring that dream story to reality. The determination to continue writing. Still, it would be a complete lie to say that I did it alone and that's why you also have to stop believing the myth of the “hero with a thousand faces”.
Mi gente, in real life no one, absolutely no one, achieves anything important without the help of others.
It was thanks to the weekly video calls I had with Lau Hernandez, since almost a year ago. Thanks to the long conversations, bubble teas, and constant support from Nilsson. Thanks to the voice notes with Sebas Izáciga and Lau Correal. Thanks to the listening sessions with Dani Murcia and Juan David. To the extensive phone calls with Maru and NK. To the photos and memes from my friends and family. Thanks to the card from my ex-coworkers and thanks to you, who come to read me on Sundays.
Thanks to that combined strength I took the strength to set sail on this project and bring it to port. What you are about to hear next September 25 has only been possible thanks to the people who have accompanied me to make it real. Thanks to these lessons, I am very happy to share with you this story, which will be about the internal journey of moving from 20 to 30 years old. It's about dreams come true.
And we are releasing it not because we want to save the world, but because we want this to be real.
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Juventud Maldito Vacío premieres its first episode next Wednesday, September 25th on Youtube and your favorite podcast apps. See you next Saturday to give you the exact coordinates of our meeting.