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| Now this...was a long time ago. Back in my blogging days. |
A bit over two years ago, I stopped writing this blog. It wasn't because blogs are dead -- I refuse to believe that -- and it wasn't because I got bored, and it certainly wasn't because I was running out of things to say. Blogs, good blogs, relevant blogs still are vital, and they don't have to be on Tumblr, or run through a microplane grater and splattered onto Twitter, or covered in kitties and posted on Facebook. Blogs are the place to do long-form writing, and I like to think I was able to balance somewhere between a tweet and tl;dr.
No, I stopped writing the blog because I took on a full-time job as managing editor of Whisky Advocate magazine, a job I'd been doing part-time since 1996. The magazine had grown tremendously since then, and they decided that they wanted to have some permanence in the position. As for myself, I had two kids in college, and permanence sounded good. And for two years, we did really, really good work. The magazine, in my opinion, looks great, has published some excellent articles, and is, without question, the world's foremost whiskey publication. Period. I'm proud to have made my contribution to that.
But you know how it is. Sometimes when you get too much of something, you find out you don't really want it as much as you thought you did. For me it was editing...and whiskey. The editing, well, it was good work, but being responsible for 12 other people's deadlines wore a bit thin after a while. I was working with the best whiskey writers in the world, bar none, and I believe I helped make their work better (high point was definitely when David Wondrich submitted his cocktail column in the form of an 850 word epic poem and we made it work). But it was editing, and I wanted to write. I got to write, but pretty much only about whiskey. I had agreed to write exclusively for the company's magazines (I did a couple pieces for Wine Spectator), and there just weren't many opportunities to write about beer.
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| A bit more grizzled, but still grinning. |
Beer eventually led me to realize that editing was not what I wanted to spend -- let's be frank -- the remaining years of my career doing. I want to write more, and I want to write about beer, and whiskey, and food, and travel, and even some fiction ideas I have. To do that, I had to cut the cord again...and here I am again. Blogging. Freelance. Writing.
It's good to be back. I'm very grateful for my time with Whisky Advocate as managing editor. It opened many, many doors! Even better, I'm still writing for the magazine, which pleases me tremendously. I look forward to focusing on that part of it, but I also look forward to inflicting my thoughts about beer on the world again. Look for magazine articles, web pieces, and yes, more books. And the blogs, of course, because it looks like we still need to Abolish the PLCB, and session beer, having been born again, needs raising properly. Damned if I'll abandon it to the heavy-hopping hands of American brewers.
I'm back. And I'll try not to use as much boldface this time. I hear it pisses some people off. Come back tomorrow -- if you're interested -- and I'll have a schedule for the week. Busy, busy, busy.
