Mel's Year in Review: 2015

Okay, there's no way around it. In the world of fiction writing, 2015 is definitely the worst year I've had ever since I've started this blog. And there aren't any good excuses this time. No actuarial exam. No super stressful times interrupting my writing. The most I can come up with is depression and lack of focus. (I promise a blog post on that depression shortly, but for now, it's time for goals.)

Though, at the same time, I've made great strides with my music, in my day job, and in other aspects in my life.

Even with this being the worst year ever, I've still had some progress in fiction writing. Here goes:

• Short stories: In January I wrote and submitted "The First Actuary" to the 11th Annual SOA Speculative Fiction Contest. I didn't win a prize, but was told I came in very close. I submitted a few more stories to magazines, but had no bites.
• Planet Justice: I am back to my sixth edit. I'm currently up to 4 chapters out of around 23.

Other stats for 2015:

• 23 blog posts (a little more than half of my output for 2014).
• 10,385 pageviews bringing the total to 52,696 (up 25%).
• The Mormon Mel had 1 new post and 531 new pageviews for a total of 1,194 (up 80%).
• The Music of Mel had 22 new posts and 2,360 new pageviews for a total of 3,431 (up 220%).
• The Econo-Mel had 0 new posts and 180 new pageviews for a total of 1,635 (up 11%).
• My YouTube videos had 31,615 views for a total of 295,116 (up 12%).
• Adsense earnings performed so poorly that you're about to get an angry update post in another month or so.
• I reviewed:
• 10 movies
• 7 TV shows
• 1 book
• 15 short stories
• My personal favorite posts:
• Agar.io and the Seven Habits (where I find life lessons in a silly video game)
• The Google Earth Plane Game (where I get excited matching pictures from the airplane with Google Earth images ... using math!)
• What Me Lazy? (where I try to psychoanalyze why I stopped writing)
• One Space or Two? (where I explain why I get annoyed with people complaining about those still using two spaces between sentences -- those people need to read my post above on Agar.io and circles of influence)

How did you do in 2015?