Arts Council Confidential

I got Arts Council funding. I'm a "made man". It was a complete surprise. I mean I applied to get it: I filled in the forms, did a budget, showed ten pages of my proposed project, wrote out a proposal, and attached a ton of supplementary information. I even attended a couple of "how to get funding" workshops. But I did all that last year. And the year before. And the year before that. 

Besides this year, with all the theatres shut and nobody getting any work EVERYBODY was applying for it. I didn't stand a chance. 

But I got it. I got the money and, more importantly (well as importantly) I HAVE ARRIVED. I'm an artist, of standing. I now have peers. There may be a club tie. Or possibly a garter. A badge? A complicated handshake? 

To someone like me: self-invented, untrained and unaffiliated - a middle-aged blow-in with a suspicious sounding accent -  this seems quite remarkable. My impostor syndrome has taken a sound kicking. My self-esteem has risen like my sourdough didn't. This is just great.