2015 Year End Review… Too Long–I Sum Up!

See what I did there? “Princess Bride” reference? Yes? No?

Anyway, here we are, the end of 2015. It’s funny how time seems to whiz by, and yet when you look back, a lot happened. I can handle that. It would be worse to look back over the year and realize you did nothing at all. I hope that’s not where you are this New Year’s Eve.

As far as the blog’s concerned, I added 160 new articles to the Internet’s electronic verbal dump–161 when this one goes up, giving a total of 975–er, 976–in total. I had an informal goal of hitting 1,000 posts this year. Good job it was informal, eh? Nevermind. I’m sure to hit it next year, what with Sunday School Notes and Who Reviews alone. But hopefully there’ll be lots of other interesting articles in 2016.

Here are the five most visited blog articles in 2015:

1. Graham Crackers in the UK: An Update
2. The Graham Cracker Question
3. The Graham Cracker Question Revisited
4. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: Background
5. 2014 World Cup Thoughts: The Finals

There was a particular upsurge in interest around the Graham Cracker articles during Christmas. I guess a lot of Brits were making cheesecake, or something. I don’t know. I still find it amusing that my little inquiry into British Graham Cracker substitutes is the most popular thing on this blog. At least it’s good for something.

A lot of things went on with the family, some of which I might have blogged about, some of which I know found its way into Janet Reid‘s comment box. This would include our car engine dying, which led to my wife trying to push the multi-ton Ford Excursion off the road, which led to her getting chest pain, which led to her having a procedure to remove a blockage. She’s fine, and the car got a new engine, but that was not the most pleasant May/June in our family’s history. FirstBorn also took a number of trips to Atlanta this year (along with my wife and our SecondBorn) as she continues to pursue her goal of getting into the acting profession.

The highlight of the year for me was undoubtedly Bouchercon, and the resulting blog articles are among my favorites of this year [Day 1, Day 2, Day 3]. Quote of the year goes to my literary agent friend Janet Reid. I had just spent a delightful 15 minutes in the company of Jessica Faust, another New York literary agent, and I returned to Jimmy V’s restaurant, where Janet and others were nursing drinks at a table. Ms. Reid asked how my chat went. I told her it went well, and Jessica was definitely on my list of agents to query. Janet looked daggers at me and said, “You have a list?!” Words to treasure. I’m sure fellow aspiring writers understand.

Thank you for stopping by the blog this year, even if you only drop in occasionally. I’m especially grateful to those who comment. You make this blog worthwhile. 🙂

Happy 2016 to you all!!