2025 End of Year Review

I’ve written end-of-year reviews for the past four years. In keeping with tradition, below are my reflections on 2025 and my plans for 2026.

2025 in Numbers

• Website Posts: 38
• Total Words Published: ~57,000
• Creative Journey Podcast Interviews: 3
• On Mountains Podcast Interviews: 2
• YouTube Videos: 3
• 2025 Self-Assessment: 6.5/10

2025 Overview

Overall, 2025 felt exhausting. I am tired, drained, depleted. Without a doubt, wrangling a toddler had something to do with my exhaustion. But other factors are weighing down upon me, which I’ll briefly discuss below. I say briefly because, while I think it is beneficial to be open and honest, I don’t want to wallow in negativity.

This time last year, I said that 2025 would be a year of focus and simplicity. I wanted my work to come first, after family, and to focus my efforts on my main subject area instead of spreading my attention across too many areas. I held true to these principles. Mostly. I’ll continue these principles in 2026, but I’ll try to increase my output. More on this below.

Creatively, I feel like I am on the right track despite there not being many visible signs of progress or growth. That’s okay, if a bit frustrating. But I need to remind myself that I’m working on a new project (at least it is new in the sense that I’m sharing my work publicly). And at this stage, I am building a system of roots and rhizomes. Eventually they’ll bear vegetation and (hopefully) some fruit, but now it’s about establishing a solid foundation and some discipline.

After discussing some wins (On Mountains and a research trip to Bolivia), I’ll reflect on my book proposal, my day job and its impact on my work, alcohol and its impact on my work, and then on my public-facing work like podcasting, social media, newsletters, and YouTube. Finally, I’ll reflect on why I scored myself a 6.5/10 in my 2025 self assessment, and some goals for 2026.

On Mountains

In the second half of the year, I launched a new microsite on my website called On Mountains. The microsite houses my notes, research, and thoughts on my mountain-related work. It is where I am “working with the garage door open.” On Mountains also has a sporadic and intermittent podcast where I interview writers, historians, researchers, and creatives who think about mountains.

This was a major step for me, mostly because it acted like a formal declaration of intent — this is where my focus will be for the foreseeable future. I’ve been thinking about this mountain project for years, so publishing work in this area feels like progress.

I published 18 posts to On Mountains since May 2025. I expect to publish more than that in 2026.

Bolivia

I visited Bolivia again in August to do more mountain-book research. I visited the cities of Cochabamba and Quillacollo during the Festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña. I was able to get some more interviews and material for the chapter I’m working on. But, I haven’t written this material into the chapter yet. My notes and interviews remain in a raw state. Incorporating this new material into the chapter will be a goal for the first half of 2026.

I also recorded a lot of video, which I’m also sitting on. The idea was to create a YouTube video on the Festival of Urkupiña, but I haven’t been motivated. To be honest, the prospect of putting this video together seems daunting. There has too much friction.

Book Proposal

I can’t say that I made a lot of progress on the book proposal in 2025. Sure, I picked and pecked at it. But I didn’t make major progress. I think part of the reason why I didn’t make progress in this area is because I was too scattered with On Mountains. If you visit On Mountains, you’ll see that the posts jump around a bit in terms of space, time, and culture. I need to be more strategic about my work, publishing research and notes that relate directly to the book proposal area I’m currently working on. I think this will help keep me on track. For example, if I am working on a book proposal chapter about Bolivia and the Andes, my On Mountains work needs to relate to that. Bouncing around from idea to idea isn’t helpful.

Day Job Blues

I don’t want to harp on my day job too much, but it is relevant here because it impacts my creative pursuits. My day job continues to be a major time sink in my life. It also takes an emotional toll on me. There has been a massive shakeup at my institution. Everything has changed, from job descriptions to compensation to workloads and expectations to division structure to leadership teams to evaluations to contract terms… I’m teaching more classes in more formats, and I have more non-teaching responsibilities. There is just more work on my plate.

This is wearisome now. But there is a bight side. The trade-off for all of this work is that I’m out-of-office from May to mid-August in 2026. I’ll get this “break” every two years, with the entire month of May and half of August off in alternating years. We’re working more during the semesters, but we have more time off in the summers. This is the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

I need to treat my day job more like a means to an end, to treat it more like - as my wife likes to say - a job at McDonald’s: you clock in, do what you need to do with a smile, and clock out. My problem is that work raises my blood pressure. It never has anything to do with teaching. It always has to do with my “service to the college,” duties that all professors are required to do that comes with endless meetings and an unhealthy dose of despair. It regularly impacts my sleep and my relationships.

Alcohol

Perhaps this is related to my day job stress: after two years of avoiding alcohol, I started drinking again in 2025. It was a decision I almost immediately regretted. Two years of sobriety makes it easy to see its effects on my energy, my mental and physical health, my wallet, and my productivity — on pretty much everything.

A lot of people think new-year resolutions are ridiculous. Their point, which is fair, is: Why not resolve to make a change when you identify a problem? Why wait until the New Year? Why not act now? This makes sense if there is a major, immediate issue that needs to be resolved. For example, hitting rock bottom or, say, surviving a heart attack might force someone to make immediate changes. For less urgent changes, I find New Years resolutions to be powerful. The new year offers a clean break, a natural time to hit reset, a psychological transition to start something new or to leave behind something undesirable.

So, starting tomorrow, I will begin another year without drinking. But, tonight, I’m going to enjoy one last glass of Côtes du Rhône.

Podcasting

Podcasting wasn’t a major focus for me in 2025. In addition to the episodes published on the On Mountains podcast, I published a few interviews on Creative Journeys with Pico Iyer, Aatish Taseer, and Lance Richardson. I don’t foresee my relationship to podcasting changing in 2026.

Social Media

Social media wasn’t a huge distraction for me in 2025. In fact, social media has received little attention from me in the past two years. I posted 5 photos on Instagram for the whole of 2024 and one — just one! — post in 2025. I don’t have any social media apps on my phone, with the exception of Bluesky.

While staying off social media has been great for my time, it hasn’t been so great for my platform. Without a means for people to “discover” your work, without a regular touch point where you “engage”, and without a streamlined, coherent vision, your platform will contract. At least, that’s what I’ve experienced. Because agents and publishers like to see authors with “platforms,” engaging on social media and “creating content” is critical for the modern creative. Having a strong “platform” helps sell book proposals and, ultimately, books. It happens all the time — celebrities and “influencers” getting book deals solely on the merit of their reach and popularity.

It pains me to say this, but publishing posts on your website is probably not enough on its own to “build an audience” in 2026 and beyond. This is especially true with the pressure AI has exerted onto search traffic. In my view, website publishing and blogging is still an important ingredient, but it seldom can make a complete meal on its own.

With this in mind, I will start engaging on social media (and other forms of media) more in 2026. Being strategic about building my platform and presence will help my goals. I am still working out my strategy for 2026, but I will likely employ the “post and ghost” method so I don’t get sucked into the various algorithms. I don’t want to be “everywhere,” but I think leveraging AI can help with social media grunt work. For example, asking AI to draft posts based on articles might be a good use of AI. As is asking AI software to extract “short form” video snippets from “long form” videos. More on this topic coming soon.

Newsletters

Because of my low engagement levels on social media (and other forms of media, like podcasting and YouTube), 2025 was the first year since 2019 that I saw negative newsletter growth. More people unsubscribed from my newsletters than joined. Despite more people visiting my website and reading my work compared to the previous year, I got a 3:1 ratio of unsubs to subs. The numbers are small, but for every one subscriber I got, three left.

Why did I experience negative newsletter growth? I can point to the following reasons.

• Not showing up anywhere consistently. Not posting on social media, on YouTube, or podcast episodes on a regular basis. My “discoverability” is based on one touchpoint: website articles via search. I am not harnessing other platforms to share my ideas.
• No “email magnet.” I deleted my old Travel Writing World email offer, a 40-page PDF that I gave to readers who signed up to my mailing list. “Email offers” entice people to subscribe.
• Inconsistent topical interests and messaging made my work and its value proposition opaque. What do you stand for? What topics do you cover? What is your approach? Why should people join you on your journey?
• Inconsistent and uninteresting emails.

YouTube

One of my principles for 2025 was to simplify and to narrow my topical focus. As a result, I ignored YouTube. I only posted three videos, two of which were nearly finished at the end of 2024 and got published in the first month of 2025. Most of my previous videos on YouTube were about photography and not about my main area of interest: mountains. It felt too scattered, inconsistent. So, I stopped posting to YouTube. As a result, I lost monetization. Which is fine. The space that quitting YouTube created helped me establish On Mountains.

But I intend to return to YouTube as part of my social media, platform-building strategy. I am bullish on YouTube. It is more engaging than other social media platforms. Plus, a video can find viewers well after its publication. Case in point: YouTube is the only platform I’m seeing subscriber growth based on old videos despite being virtually absent.

Anyway, I’m going to increase my video output in 2026. There will be a strategy, and it will be related to my main work.

Self Assessment

So why a 6.5 out of 10? The score reflects a year of mixed results. On the positive side, I launched On Mountains, which was a significant creative milestone. I stayed focused on my main subject area and didn’t scatter my attention across too many projects. I made it to Bolivia for research. I published consistently on my website. These are real accomplishments, and they kept me above the midpoint. But the score also accounts for what I didn’t do. I made minimal progress on my book proposal, which is the linchpin of my creative project. I lost newsletter subscribers for the first time in years. I abandoned YouTube and social media, which hurt my platform. And personally, I started drinking again after two years sober, a decision that drained my energy and productivity. The 6.5 reflects a year where I maintained forward momentum in some areas while losing ground in others. I didn’t fail, but I didn’t thrive either.

The assessment also captures how I feel about the year, not just what I accomplished. Exhaustion colors everything. When you’re drained, even your wins feel smaller. I built roots and laid groundwork, which is essential but invisible work. It’s hard to feel great about a year when the tangible results didn’t materialize. But I also recognize that not every year can be a 9 or 10. Sometimes you’re in a building phase, and the payoff comes later. The 6.5 acknowledges the reality of where I am: still in the game, still making progress, but far from where I want to be.

2026 Goals

• Finish Book Proposal
  • Pitch Section
  • Introduction
  • Sample Chapter on Bolivia
• Query Agents Late Summer 2026
• Early May Research Trip (Mexico? Egypt?)
• Publish Video on the Festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña
• Platform Building
  • Create Newsletter Email “Magnet”
  • Create and Execute Social Media Plan