2023 has been a year of change. At the end of every year, as I plan for what's to come, I like to look back at the preceding 12 months. The writer in me can't resist trying to uncover some overarching theme tying it all together.
I think change has been the theme, if you can call it that, of this past year.
In 2023, I turned 18 and graduated high school. I laid the groundwork for my publishing company, Winter Forest Press, forming an LLC for the first time. I earned my second degree black belt in Taekwon-Do and started teaching martial arts this year.
I traveled to New Hampshire, Massachusetts, D.C., Pennsylvania, Texas, Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana, and planned for my first independent trip to Europe in 2024.
I worked on making videos throughout the year—mostly long-form YouTube videos, but I also experimented for the first time with short-form videos on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. While I don't like to focus on numbers, the change this year brought was the most substantial so far—I went from 200 to 1.5K subscribers on YouTube, 0 to 800 on TikTok, and less than 300 to over 11K on Instagram. I've been amazed and inspired by the comments, questions, and ideas I've gotten over the past few months. Thank you to everyone who's supported my work this year—it means a lot.
And of course, I've been writing. Not always as much as I'd like, but one of the things I've learned over this past year is that good things take time. Art is not a process to be rushed.
I consider this year the first chapter in a new era. I can't say for sure where the story's going, but I'm excited to discover what the next chapter holds.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year.
– Grayson
Recommendations
🎹 Music: This song (or just about any song, really) from the score of Minari by Emile Mosseri
(For more music I’d recommend, check out this playlist. It’s only eponymous because I didn’t know what else to title it—I consider it something like a soundtrack to my life.)
📘 Book: Show Your Work! by Austin Kleon
(Short, sweet, visually engaging, and packed with insights about creating art and content in the 21st century.)
🎬 Film: The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021), directed by Joel Coen
(Stylistically striking and—it’s Shakespeare, so perhaps this goes without saying—dramatically powerful.)
