Mike Jung
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I've been doing as much loose, low-stakes drawing as I can and I plan to continue, but I'm also going to start brainstorming / thumbnailing / sketching this PB idea that's accumulating emotional gravity by the day. I'm excited, but also utterly terrified. The emotional stakes suddenly feel so high.
10:49 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
The terror just arrived today, and I think it's because there's a whole series of psychological floodgates that are opening inside of me. Thinking about my dad. Thinking about making visual art, being or becoming a visual artist, and about old dreams.
10:50 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
Writing children's literature is a dream come true, one I didn't realize I even had until later in life. It's brought me so much that I want, and the potential for so much more. I love writing and I love being a writer. But it's not what I loved first.
10:50 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
I loved visual art first. I started drawing and painting and making art as soon as I could hold the materials in my hands. In the assorted schools I attended what people saw wasn't my abilities as a writer; it was my abilities as a visual artist.
10:51 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
Art didn't save me the way books did, though. It didn't give me the ability to lose myself and escape into a narrative for hours or days at a time; my relationship to art grew much more complicated over time. Still, I kept it up. I even studied art in college.
10:51 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
High school and college were catastrophically bad years for me, though, and I didn't do well with my artistic studies. And during that years-long haze of depression and suicidal ideation, I gave up on the idea of ever being a professional artist.
10:51 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
I hated myself too much, you see. And I became convinced that I'd squandered any chances of pursuing art professionally before even finishing college, because how can an entirely worthless and despicable human being accomplish something so lofty?
10:52 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
So I took my childhood dreams of being an artist, a *real* artist, wrapped them in grief and self-loathing and denial, and buried them in the deepest hole I could dig in the lowlands of my psyche, thinking they'd stay there until I die. I gave up.
10:52 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
I did eventually find a way to move on to happier and healthier times, however. I still carry those old traumas in my body and mind, but I've been able to find healing and joy again, not in the least because I found my way into the kidlit world.
10:52 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
And even after that miraculous sequence of events, it's taken me 15 more years to even approach the idea of creating books on more than a textual level, because the old feelings of shame, guilt, and regret still hold some sway over me.
10:53 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
Friends and colleagues have been making a difference. For example, one of my oldest friends told me I was always a better artist than him, even though he's the one who built a wildly successful career for himself in comics and kidlit.
10:53 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
Another friend said something in an email about the happiness she feels when chewing on problems with no solutions because who knows what that process may lead to? She has no idea how exquisitely that comment is reshaping my perspective; I'll have to tell her.
10:53 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
So I'm diving into the new and thoroughly daunting process of figuring out how to illustrate my own picture book. It feels like a far bigger challenge than figuring out how to write a novel, to be frank; there are worlds within worlds of technique to navigate.
10:53 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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In response to Mike Jung.
But it also feels...I'm not sure how to say it. Meaningful. Fraught. Destabilizing. Reawakening. It feels like unearthing a dream I considered dead and gone, and trying to infuse it with new life, despite knowing nothing is promised or guaranteed.
10:53 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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Mike Jung
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I don't know if I can do it. There are moments when I genuinely feel confident and energized by new creative and professional challenges, but this one? I don't know. Gonna try anyway. Gonna try to become, at long last, a professional artist. #kidlit #kidlitart #picturebooks #WritingCommunity
In response to Mike Jung.
10:54 AM - Feb 28, 2023
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