Looking Back on 2024 Highlights

This post is going back to the roots of this site; it's more of a journal entry than original content. If that's not of interest to you, feel free to skip it and come back when I post my next creative project. But you're welcome to hang out as I recap some moments from the past year of 2024.

On the whole, this past year was not a good one for me in my personal life. It was plagued by health issues, financial struggles, and many stress-filled, sleepless nights. The majority of those issues are still around as we move into 2025, but in an effort to "look on the bright side" or "find the silver lining" and have a more positive outlook, I wanted to go over some of the bright spots from last year.

I am very much a data nerd so in addition to recapping some of those good moments, I want to catalog some of my media consumption highlights as well. I always enjoy looking at these stats and figures at the close of every year. So let's go!

NOTE: Click the images/graphics to enlarge them.

Media Consumption

Music

I use Last.fm to track my music listening and I use YT Music as my main music streaming service so this data will come from both of those services.

Summary Report from Last.fm

Time of Day Report from Last.fm

One of my favorite albums of the year; and obviously I was not alone since I was only #21 for streaming this one

My listening of Leanna Crawford's music started in the summer when her Still Waters album first dropped, as shown in this mid-year summary from YT Music. But it continued through the rest of the year and ended up being in both my Top Albums and Top Artists for the year.

Podcasts

I have been a Pocket Casts user for many years now and 2024 was no different. Here are a few highlights from my podcast listening last year. Yes, I went on a bit of a true crime kick last year.

Books

I have been tracking my reading with Goodreads since 2017, but I switched over to The StoryGraph the last couple of years because I prefer their uncluttered UI, more stats, and additional features, like fractional star ratings. I did not hit my reading goal in 2022 or 2023, but I was happy that early in 2024 I got on a good pace and kept it up through the rest of the year.

Mid-year check-in on July 7

Final Year Tally

With a name like "StoryGraph," you would expect them to have some interesting data, and they deliver. In addition to page counts, genres, format, and other standard stuff, they also track mood, pacing, books and pages per month, and more. Here is my star rating breakdown, mood graph, and overall summary for the year. It was quite a good reading year for me.

Creative Projects

Audio Theatre Central

Due to my health challenges in recent years, the only ongoing podcast I have had the bandwidth to keep in regular production is Audio Theatre Central. (Though I did revive Content Creation Musings on an as-I-am-able basis last year.) In September 2024, the show began its 15th year of production but just a few months prior, we celebrated the release of the 200th episode with a massive guest lineup featuring some of the top creatives in the audio drama industry. A huge highlight of the year for me!

Voice Acting Roles

In addition to the regular voiceover jobs for ads and the like, I was able to lend my voice to several audio dramas as well. Voice acting for audio drama is my favorite type of voice work. These are the shows that were released in 2024, minus the ones that I produced myself, which I'll talk about next. (I don't think I missed any, but I wasn't keeping very good records for the first few months of the year so it's possible.)

My Micro Audio Projects

I had begun playing around with micro audio projects before, but in 2024 I produced my first full-fledged, full-cast micro audio drama. These are projects that I write, direct, act in, and do all the post-production as well. I ended up producing a total of five individual episodes, three of which became the ongoing series, One Day in Aspen Creek.

I also produced a few other non-audio drama pieces last year. They can all be found here.

IRL Moments

One Grand Party

One of the highlights of the year was being able to attend the 1000th episode celebration for Adventures in Odyssey, One Grand Party. Getting to speak with many of the creatives behind that show was a treat, as always. But some of the best times were those spent hanging out with friends and fellow indie audio drama creatives. You can hear my full recap of the event on ATC episode 203.

AIO Crew

Friends & ADA Members Dinner

My friend and roomie for the weekend, Austin Peachey

More friends at Whit's End

I was also able to visit some family and we went to see the Garden of the Gods before I had to catch a flight back home. It was beautiful but we didn't have time to get out so I only got a couple snapshots from inside the car.

Birthday Day Trip

In September, a very good friend treated me to a day trip to Northern Arizona. We went to a museum, checked the book section at thrift shops, visited a coffee shop, and had some great food! This is one of my favorite days of the entire year.

Author Meetings

Last year, I was privileged to meet a few authors whose books I enjoy. John R. Erickson, author of the Hank the Cowdog series, and fantasy author Brandon Sanderson are two writers I have enjoyed reading for several years. In the case of John Erickson, I have been reading his Hank stories since I was first introduced to them by my younger siblings back in high school. Kazu Kibuishi, author of the Amulet graphic novels, is an author I just discovered in 2024 but his stories and illustrations have quickly become favorites for me. It was super cool to meet all three of these gentlemen last year and get a photo with them. (John even agreed to be a guest on the ATC podcast too!)

Me with John R. Erickson

Me with Brandon Sanderson & Kazu Kibuishi

Conclusion & 2025 Goals

So despite many challenges last year, it was a good reading year for me and there were a few other bright spots. I am pretty pleased with the launch of One Day in Aspen Creek and I'm really excited about the upcoming episodes for this year. I am committing to releasing at least 5 episodes this year but would love to be able to wrap up the full series which is slated for a total of 12 episodes. We'll see how it goes.

I have set my reading goal for 2025 at 90 books, up 5 from last year. After missing it for two years before last, I don't want to assume that 100+ will be the norm. I am going to focus on more classics and enriching stories this year.

Aside from my own micro audio dramas, a huge goal for 2025 is completing the Hardy Boys feature with the Audio Drama Alliance. I would also like to produce a couple other scripts that I have been working on for some time now. One is a standalone, half-hour drama inspired by a real event and the other is a comedy piece that I started for the ADA's Sonic Comics line.

I will also continue to record episodes of Content Creation Musings as I come across topics and ideas that I feel are worth talking about. I already have a couple lined up to produce very soon, the first being my top favorite books from 2024.

And lastly, I will continue to do voice acting roles for audio drama whenever the opportunities arise.

Thanks for coming along on this little retrospective! Here's to some great projects and moments in the coming year!