Ed Fortune

It’s New Year’s Eve, so of course this is going to be a retrospective post looking back at the year and looking forward to the future. That’s what New Year’s Eve is for, after all.¹.

2012 hasn’t been a bad year for me, all things told. My career, IT-wise, has been rubbish. Worked has dried up in the sectors I specialise in, and it’s also become much less satisfying. At the same time, copy-writing, editing and game design related work has turned up more frequently and it’s even looking like it might start to pay the bills. Still, it’s tight, but more satisfying. Early 2013 is going to be a real proving ground for me, and I’m actually excited by the challenge.

Creativity wise, things are getting better. My tabletop games column in Starburst Magazine is apparently quite popular (they tell me), and I had a lot of fun organising a 1950’s themed, Dan Dare inspired LARP, so much so that I’m running another game in late April. 2012 saw some of my very short fiction getting published, and fingers crossed, more of that should appear in 2013. Most importantly, I’ve simply gotten on with the important business of shoving words down and then flogging them to anyone who’s interested.

The intention for 2013 is to significantly turn up my creative output, and as such I’ve signed up for the Million Word Challenge. That’s a million words produced in a year, not counting general communications. Or to put it another way, 3500 words a day, allowing for days off. It’s not as daunting as it sounds, but it’s just scary enough to be motivating.

It didn’t happen like this at all, we had the cab to ourselves and it was a Deltic. Still, you get the idea.

The most significant thing that happened in 2012, however, was that I proposed to Anne L Davies, and that she said yes. For those who don’t know, I took Anne on a Rail Ale Steam Tour ² for her birthday, with a ring in my pocket. The entire vintage train station was in on it (due to the pile of paper work required to allow one to smuggle a young lady into the privacy of the cab of a vintage Deltic). I had a whole line of patter worked out and everything, though I suspect my beloved knew exactly what I was up to. Strangely, she still seemed surprised when I dropped on one knee and asked the question. Best day of 2012, no contest.

So goodbye 2012; you’ve been terrible for my pocket and it’s certainly not been a smooth year, but in terms of the things that matter; love, good friends, family and knowing your place in the universe, you’ve been a pretty good year.

1: What NYE isn’t for is turning up to a series of parties for mandatory fun. I’ve been to a great many New Year’s Eve blow outs, and though a lot of them have been a great excuse to celebrate the year with friends, an equally significant number have been ruined by the fact that I simply wasn’t in the party mood, or that so many people partying at the same time made it all a logistical nightmare.
The one sort of NYE do I’ve never done is the formal dance and dinner; the whole dressing up and showing off thing in some sort of hall or theatre, and I suspect that might actually be the way to do it in future, rather than simply having an extended house party.

2: Anne is a huge steam train nerd; despite this, some friends were very surprised by this, even the ones who’ve been to the house and seen the huge collection of trains.