Every year is interesting in its own right. There are ups and downs and moments in between, things that will never be forgotten and things that won’t be remembered without serious effort being put in.

On at least two fronts, 2018 was notable in very positive ways.

First, from January through August I kept quite busy. The full-time contract position I worked at RSM US LLP was enormously fulfilling, allowing me to once more dive into the daily management of a major brand’s social content program. I was writing, publishing, planning and reporting and it was a lot of fun, offering me the chance to share my thoughts on the program and, I hope, push their thinking in new and interesting ways. The team there was great and it allowed me to gain experience in a new industry – finance and economics – I hadn’t worked with before.

While I was commuting downtown for most of eight months I was also continuing to do freelance work for other clients in the evenings and weekends, as well as continue to write for both this site and CinematicSlant, as well as for Adweek. So I was pulling 18 hour days fairly regularly while utilizing whatever time was available to me while riding the Metra BNSF in one direction or the other.

I was also still working at Starbucks, though only on the weekends. That decision allowed me to maintain my position there, something I only decided to publicly talk about – at least without a lot of vagaries added – a few months ago.

In the middle of all that I was approached by The Hollywood Reporter to contribute a weekly modified version of the marketing recaps I’ve been writing for years. That was a huge opportunity, one I had to take advantage of. That’s been a tremendously rewarding experience, exposing my writing to whole new audiences and pushing me as a writer in challenging ways.

Along with all that – because I can’t stop, won’t stop – I did a lot of other writing just for myself. While NaNoWriMo was a bust for me for the second consecutive year, but between February and August of 2018 I wrote a 27,000 word original Star Wars story for no other reason than I felt compelled to do so. And I’m 25,000 words into a non-fiction book I started in April and continue to be super excited about while continuing to chip away at another novel.

On this blog I wrote 270 posts last year totalling a bit over 164,000 words. Cinematic Slant got 405 posts comprised of almost 345,000 words, bringing it to 675 posts of 569,000 words. On top of that there were 10 posts for Adweek and 27 posts for THR as well as other freelance assignments and the many and various things I wrote while at RSM.

As 2019 begins I’m tremendously grateful for both of these as well as the other opportunities and experiences that came my way in 2018. Here’s hoping the new year has even more in store for myself as well as everyone else.