But, despite what you may've heard, I'm not a robot, and so I wanted to take a few minutes to dust off the old blog and share some thoughts about 2012. Granted, I have nothing in particular to say, so this is just going to be a bunch of random thoughts that probably won't add up to much.
Living Alone: This is the biggest life change from 2012 that pops into my mind. My best friend/roommate moved out in early August, if I remember it correctly. I'm pretty security conscious, and I thought I might feel really unsafe living alone. I'm glad to say, that never became an issue for me. Money is probably the most immediate way in which this life change hit me. Having all of my bills double overnight was definitely something of a system shock, one that I'm still trying to adjust to, to be honest. I tend to still spend money like I have a roommate, only to look at the bank account and go into panic mode when the bills come. I (barely) make enough to cover everything on my own, but I need to get much better at managing my funds and coming to grips with the fact that my once abundant amount of spending money is now reduced to a mere pittance.
I wouldn't say that living alone is lonely, but it is very quiet. I didn't just have a roommate, he's been my best friend since I was 14 or 15, so losing that dynamic has been hard. He's still my best friend, but it's been an odd challenge getting used to only hanging out a few times here and there as opposed to all day every day. Beyond missing my friend, I have to say that living alone is more boring than anything else. The nice thing is that my family lives right around the corner, so I end up spending a lot of time hanging out with them.
Teaching: I don't talk about it much, but my three nephews are home schooled. This year, two days a week, I go over and help teach them. It's been a blast and something I've really come to love. Getting a chance to have a hand in their education, to help them learn and to get a front row seat as they gain knowledge and advance as little people, it's something I count as a true blessing. The worst part is getting up so early, as I'm pretty much the opposite of a morning person. That said, I'm going to start teaching a third day once they get back to school in the new year. That means that 4 out of 5 days per week, I'll wake up to an alarm (I also have to get up early on Wednesdays to go get the newspaper from the printing press). That statistic horrifies me. I'm a single guy with a job that primarily happens at night, and yet I'll spend 4/7 days a week waking up to an alarm?! Ugh. UGH! I hate the thought of it so bad. And yes, I know that many of you get up to an alarm 5 days a week, yeah, I get it. But for me, I've worked hard to structure my life in such a way where the alarm is almost never a factor. But, it's for my nephews, and it'll probably help me to have a more defined sleep schedule anyways, so I guess I should stop being a baby about it and just embrace the change.
Creative Writing: I feel good about my writing career. We didn't make a big stink of it, but we closed down Hall Brothers Entertainment a few months back. I could give you the long version of why, but I'll just sum it up and say that the company got away from us. We tried to do too much, and it quickly expanded beyond the fun little project it was intended to be into a second full time job that neither of us were having much fun with. Plus, for me, one of the main points of HBE was to give my own writing a platform where it could reach more readers. It did that for me, no doubt, but then the management and running of the company starting really dragging down my ability to write. With so many responsibilities piling up, it was impossible for me to concentrate on writing my own books. Instead I was just a publisher of other people's books. I greatly value those other people, and I count myself lucky to have met everyone we did through HBE, but it was also soul crushing to have my own writing relegated to the back burner.
Anyways, I don't want to get long winded about it. I hated letting people down who we were working with, but from a personal standpoint, shuttering HBE has really helped me out a lot. I'm back to work on my terraforming novel, my passion for creative writing is back in full force, and Phillip and I have some exciting things planned. I'll be continuing my series Black Badge and Scrolls, and heck, we'll probably still publish under the HBE banner, just because it's something people recognize and know. So yes, it was the end of our time as a small publisher, but it's also the beginning of just me getting back to doing what I love, and the beginning of Phillip and I having fun again with fiction, the way we did when HBE launched. I'm excited about where it left us at the end of 2012, and really excited about where it's going to take us in 2013.
Newspaper writing: I've always loved my job as a journalist, but I don't know if I've ever fallen in love with it the way that I did in 2012. It was a year of hard work, a year of big stories, a year of big challenges. It was the year I received my first big job offer in the industry, and while I ultimately didn't take it, that offer really was a big moment for me. Having another newspaper come after me and try to pull me away from The Grizzly, it felt like a validation in a lot of ways. You never know what the future holds, but at the time I informed that company that I felt like I wasn't done with what we were building at the Grizzly Detail. I still feel that way. This is the year that I really feel like I became an equal with my two bosses. It's not just them and their employee anymore, it's three of us, defying the odds, doing the workload of a team of 15, and doing it for all the right reasons.
I learned a lot about my bosses this year. I always believed in and admired them, but this was a year that we were tested. People can seem great, but when they go through the fire, that's when their true character comes out. And I have to say, the way in which they handled the tough moments, it made me so proud to be a part of the Grizzly. The integrity, the rabid devotion to truth and to bringing that truth to the people that need to hear it, and the incredible and amazing ethics they displayed, it all just made me beam with pride to be their associate. Then there's the election coverage we did. I proposed something stupidly massive, as I do from time to time, but this time it was going to require some financial sacrifices. It would cost us more money in overhead, while limiting how much room we had for ads, costing us money in revenue. And they didn't even blink. They gave me the green light and because of that we gave the city the most expansive, exhaustive election information they've ever had.
It all comes down to a phrase that we started throwing around at the paper. Pure of purpose. I think good things happen to those who are pure of purpose. I write the news to help and to inform, pure of purpose. I write movie reviews to entertain people, pure of purpose. There are always challenges, always roadblocks, but I believe that we're a newspaper that is pure of purpose, and that we'll continue to thrive.
As you can see, I get pretty sentimental about my job. I know people sometimes have a low opinion of media and journalists, and I myself am not much of a fan of the mainstream media, but I do believe whole heartedly in what we do at The Grizzly Detail, and I'm dang proud to be a part of it.
Living: I love life. I love to laugh, I love positive things, I love that no matter what's going on, at the end of most days I go to sleep thinking it's mostly a beautiful world and that mostly people are good. I'm ending this year with the knowledge that I need to re-engage in my relationship with God, that while I always work on being a good person I also need to re-commit to being good son of the almighty father. I believe that hope is stronger than fear, love is stronger than hate, creativity and imagination make the world a better place, family is forever, and that if we try, we can make the world around us better. I believe that 2012 was as good of a year as you want to remember it as being, and that 2013 is ours for the taking.
In closing, here's me, walking in the snow on Christmas Day, filled with belief that there's still magic in the world.
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