Freakconformist

I was born in Louisiana, not too far north of New Orleans. While I still have fond memories of the area's wild, natural beauty and appreciate New Orlean's magical, musical culture, I'm sadly more of an outsider than not. I've lived in Wisconsin since I was 8 years old, spending the last 34 years in the Greater Chicago area. Wisconsin does have it's own natural, if more urban and tamed, beauty. From cloudy days on Lake Michigan with it's navy dark, wind tossed waves, to driving over the crest of a moraine while the setting sun turns wide open fields in front of you into gold. I never really considered myself and "artist". When I was about 10 I got into comic books and eventually started writing my own stories and naturally drew my own characters. My family of hippies, eager to encourage my artistic side, enrolled me into art classes when they realized that I showed an ounce of natural talent. I'll be the first to tell you, and I've found this to be an inscrutable truth, "Talent without Passion will get you Nowhere" Don't try to go into a art career based on "talent" alone. I did a whole semester of Art College before I realized that I didn't care about art that much. Not that I don't appreciate art, but don't get it wrong, art is Work. Too many go into art thinking they can slap some paint around and create a master piece. No, art is Work, art is Skill, art is Purposeful. If you really care about your Art, if you have Passion for your Art, you'll Work for it. You'll learn Skills and Techniques and strive to Improve. If you're not doing this, you're just a hobbyist. Honestly, it took me too long to realize this. I spent too many years trying to pass off my talent as skill and getting depressed when people weren't as impressed as I wanted them to be. Eventually I just lost all passion for it and stopped drawing completely. Meanwhile, I spent these same years working on these characters, imagining stories and personalities for them and doing... nothing really about it. I never considered myself a writer because I wasn't even writing full stories. I never really thought my stories could be published because I was too tired/lazy to create an actual comic for them. I mean, superhero stories have to be in comic format, right? Anyway, as of 2020 I've decided that I'm going to write my first book. It's about superheroes... and romance... and accepting people who aren't like you. I don't know if it's going to garner any interest, but when you're really passionate about a project, it doesn't have to be super popular, does it?