It’s kind of hard to believe that another New Year is almost upon us. I don’t know how it was for the rest of you out there, but to me, 2015 seemed to fly by, at least from a writing perspective. And sort of from a life perspective as well. But in the spirit of the season, I figured I’d take a look back at what I accomplished this year, as well as what I’m hoping to do with the next one.

I guess I’ll start with the successes. I’d have to say my biggest success in this past year was to get my official website, that you’re reading on right now, finally started. It was a long time coming, but I managed to transition away from my old writing blog to a real site, and it seems I’ve gotten a lot of attention by doing so. Well, by a lot, I mean a couple dozen followers or so thus far. But it’s more than I ever got before, so it’s made me feel really accomplished. On that note, a big thank you to everyone out there who’s liked my posts and followed my site so far. Please let me know what you think! I can never get enough feedback.

Another success of the past year was the fact that I actually physically got my book on store shelves. I haven’t mentioned it that much up until now, my book, “The Showstopper!”, is in fact available at Buffalo Street Books, and independent co-op bookstore in Ithaca, New York, where I currently live. For those of you who also live around here and haven’t checked it out (not my book, the store, although my book is a good idea too), I highly recommend it. I haven’t made much money this way so far, but it’s still a nice thing to say that I’ve done.

But every success comes with failures. My pledge to myself at the end of 2014 to write and publish two new books by the end of 2015 has been a dismal, dismal let-down as I haven’t published a single new work. Apologies to all of my followers to stuck with my as a really built up and struggled with “Camp Ferguson”, but for various reasons that I won’t go into right now, I decided to shelve that project until further notice. I’m still very interested in writing it in the future, but I figured I would take some time to get a fresh perspective on things before I tried again. I need a totally new approach, and that means working through some things for a while. But again, a huge thank you to everyone who participated in the editing process for “Camp Ferguson”. I promise that all of your efforts will still be considered and used once I start my next version.

I also think my work ethic in this past year probably left something to be desired, at least toward the end of the year. I wish I was more productive with my writing sometimes. But I guess that’s mostly because it’s just the way I usually write: sporadically, and with no real pattern or plan. I could go for weeks at a time without writing because I’m just not feeling the flow or inspiration to write anything, and then go for a week straight writing every night and getting several chapters done. I’ve kind of accepted that this is my process at this point and that I’m not the kind of person who can really commit several hours a day to writing if I’m not in the mood, but it doesn’t stop me from wishing things could be different. Oh well.

So what are my goals for 2016, you may ask? Well, recently I’ve started working on the sequel to “The Showstopper!”, “The Showstopper Returns!” Very creative title, I know, but it tells it like it is. I won’t say too much about it as of now because I’ve only written around nine chapters so far, but suffice to say that my entire goal with this follow-up story is to be on a much grander scale and be totally, completely, and even ridiculously, epic in its sense of adventure. This time, it’s not just one city, but the fate of the entire country at stake. At any rate, I’m aiming to both finish and publish “The Showstopper Returns!” by the end of this coming year. I’m hesitant to set any other novel goals since I didn’t meet my goal of two last year, but if I get “The Showstopper Returns!” finished, I plan to start working once again on “Camp Ferguson”. More details on that as time goes on.

Also, I currently have a little over 200 likes on my Facebook page at Kyle Robertson, Novelist, which is excellent, but I think I’d like to expand my reach a bit. I’m hoping to at least double this in 2016, although I’m sort of at a loss for how to do that. On that note, I’d also like to set a loose goal of becoming a better marketer of my work. I’m open to suggestions on how to do that though!

I’ll conclude by saying that I hope all of you enjoy your New Years celebrations wherever you may be, and that you too accomplish all the goals you set for yourselves in 2016. I know I’ll be trying my best right along with you.