introduceyourself: willthompson's life, goals, and plans on steemit

Welcome to my introduceyourself! My name is Will Thompson, 20 year old undergraduate at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities. First and for most, I am an actor. That being said, I believe that all creative people should have knowledge and ability in ever aspect of whatever medium they are working in. Maybe a more apt way to describe myself is simply as a student, for even after 20 years of life, there is still a mountain of things I wish to learn, and an even bigger mountain of things I wish I could learn.

Some Background On Me:

I was born into the small town community called Minnewaukan, North Dakota, population 300. My father, Vern, was a politician working for the State Democratic Party, having served previously as a State Senator and Congressman. My mother, Cindy, was an undercover narcotics officer, who not a month prior to my birth had tackled a cocaine dealer (at trial the dealer constantly referred to my mother as “that fat bitch” perhaps to compensate for his likely embarrassment at the hands of being run down and taken down by a bad ass woman 8 months pregnant with her first child).

At the age of 4 we moved to Bismarck, so my father could work at the capital, and my sister was born. At age 8 we moved to Fargo for other employment opportunities, and this is where I lived until I left the nest and entered University. Fargo was an excellent place to grow up, and I received plenty of amazing opportunities. In high school I was heavily involved in many extra-curricular activities and had the pleasure of serving as both the Theatre Department’s President, and the Student Body President. Theatre, or more so acting in general, became my passion, and I have decided to pursue it as not just a carrier, but a lifestyle.

Now at University I study Theatre Arts, Film Studies and Philosophy as I pursue what is called a Bachelor of Individual Studies (Something to be explained in a further post, likely in the next couple of days) as well as a minor in Creative Writing. I also work at Gopher Digital Productions. We’re the people that do all the production for the entire athletics department. That includes everything on the big screens in stadium, and all the streams going to TV networks, for live play and for delayed play and even online streams as well.

This previous summer I decided to move out to Los Angeles with my best friend from high school and dip my toes into the real world, in between semesters at Minnesota. While out there I got the amazing opportunity to be on more than a handful of different sets doing background acting. From Youtube soap operas, to Billy Bod Thornton’s Amazon Prime show Goliath, to Fox’s Brooklynn Nine-Nine, I got to experience a wide variety of sets and crews. The first week of the summer I also spent a week in Miami working on American Crime Story: The Assassination of Giannis Versace (premiering Jan 17th on FX, catch me as the hitchhiker who looks like he just got done stripping in a lumberjack club and is now going home to Charlette). I learned so much and got some many great opportunities this summer, it truly was the best of my life so far. Now in the thick of my sophomore year, I’m just gridding things out, and now joining Steem.

My Goal:

My goal in life is to be an Artist. I remember talking in a parking lot on Sunset with my acting teacher and mentor very late one night this summer about what it means to be an actor and an artist. He said something along the lines of being an Artist is a lifestyle, one where the creative mind is always creating – no matter the medium, no matter the viewership – just allowing oneself to create. Although acting is my bread and butter, I am also extremely interested in Directing and Writing, both for the screen and the stage, Music Production, Painting, Poetry – I’d even do some Sculpting if I had the means. All I want to do is to create and express myself.

Why Steemit:

I was introduced to Steemit by @mukaiselekwa and @natethoreson, two high school classmates and close friends. Instantly I was enamored with the entire concept. To me Steem is a platform where a creative person can be transparent and open about the progress and process of their creating as well as share that creation when complete. The community as I’ve seen it is perfect for doing this. A ton of well informed and like-minded individuals with the same goal of creating the best possible content overall? That’s a community I want to be a part of, a community I want to share my talents and experimentations with. I hope to build a base of followers interested in the things that I am in and can provide feedback and constructive criticism that will allow me to grow, and for me to do the same for others.

What To Expect:

There will be a lot of posting on this account, I like to ramble on and on. I will be as transparent and honest as I can. I will look to go beyond the surface at times, and open up. For example, I know that at some point I will talk about my personal struggles with things like depression. I want to build a base of people who not only like my content I create, but can connect to me on a deeper level. I think its imperative to create a schedule for people who want to follow closely. I plan on posting blog posts 3 times a day, every day. From my understanding the best way to capitalize on your posts is to post no more than 4 times in a 24 hour period, so I’ll stick with 3 so that if something crazy comes up, I can post about it without over extending my posting. I’d also like to leave room for commenting, as right now my understanding is that comments count in that quota of 4 (but I do not know this for sure, please correct me if you know).

I have many interests, Theatre, Film, Philosophy and Writing is what I study, and are sources of extreme passion for me, so expect a lot of that. Outside academia, I am a huge fan of the MLB, NFL, and NBA, especially the Twins, Vikings, and Lakers respectively. For my 3 posts a day I want to run daily segments. The first post will be up at 8am central standard time, and will be a recap of what I had been thinking about and reading about in the sports world the previous day, or something to that effect. Then at Noon, I’ll post some kind of poetry, or writing, or mid process updates on things I’m working on. Really, I just want that slot to be for artistry, however that comes out. Finally, at 9pm I plan to post academic essays, papers, and takes of mine on various interests that I had mentioned above. In short, my posting schedule will be one sports post, one artistic post, and one academic post, each day. This is subject to change, and updates will be located at the end of articles I blog.

For Tomorrow:

8am – A full primer for the Saint’s – Vikings Divisional game
12pm – Some poetry and art
9PM – An essay exploring Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York and how it represents a changing of the guard from Post-Modernism to what might follow

Questions For the Community:

I would have put photos and a thumbnail on this post, but I can’t seem to figure out Steemimg. If someone could help me figure that out, or point me in a direction where I could learn for myself, that would be greatly appreciated. I plan on posting photos out of my composition art book for the 12 o’clock slot tomorrow, and will thus need to understand how to embed photos pretty soon here.

Like and Comment to start the conversation! Follow me on social media if you want to see what the erratic posting of a college kid trying to keep it all together is like :)

Social Media:
Twitter: @ThompsWill
Instagram: willthompson8425