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I’m bored.
I suppose that’s the fate of any blogger who dedicates himself or herself to a subject that’s been covered exhaustively for several years now by an army of dedicated scribblers and yackers. I mean, c’mon, how many twists can you insert into the fundamental plot of personal finance—spend less than you earn and invest the difference?
Part of me says it’s a good time to retire. Mrs. Groovy and I had a nice three-year run with this blog. And, yet, I love being a part of the personal finance community, and I love the challenge of writing. What to do?
Well, when I get bored, I think of something big enough and crazy enough to keep me interested. So here’s that big and crazy something. I want to write 250,000 words in 2019. I don’t know what the heck I’m going to say with those 250,000 words, and I don’t know what good will come of it, but the idea of writing a quarter of a million words in a year gives me a tremendous CMLT. Two hundred and fifty thousand words is the equivalent of a 500 page book.
To write 250,000 words in 2019, I’ll need to write an average of 685 words per day. That’s a lot of words. But it’s doable. I began a trial run of this daily word target on 12/4. Here are the results.
From 12/4/2018 to 12/31/2018, a total of 28 days, I wrote 21,390 words. That works out to an average of almost 764 words per day. Not too shabby.
And wait, it gets better. The trial run is over and thus far in 2019 I’ve written 9,209 words. Since we are eight days into the new year, that works out to an average of 1,151 words per day. If I keep this pace going, I’ll reach my quarter of a million word goal sometime in August. The system works!
Quick aside. It’s amazing how well you manage something when you begin to measure it (see my tracking table below). Now, because I have an audacious writing goal, and because I’m tracking my daily word count, I spend much less time fooling around. Before, if I had an hour to kill before dinner was ready, I’d turn on the television. Now, I fire up the laptop and see if I can bang out another couple hundred words. Words to the wise (no pun intended), Peter Drucker is right. If you want to be more productive, give yourself a measurable goal and measure it.
| Date | Writing Project | Item | Begin Word Count | Ending Word Count | Difference |
| 1/1/2019 | Blog | The Alt-FI Manifesto | 1642 | 2115 | 473 |
| 1/1/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage | 1118 | 1725 | 607 |
| 1/2/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage | 1725 | 2423 | 698 |
| 1/2/2019 | Blog | The Alt-FI Manifesto | 2115 | 2225 | 110 |
| 1/2/2019 | Blog | What a Degree In Financial Independence Might Look Like | 684 | 749 | 65 |
| 1/2/2019 | Blog | You Don’t Have a Right to Be Above Suspicion | 0 | 337 | 337 |
| 1/3/2019 | Blog | You Don’t Have a Right to Be Above Suspicion | 337 | 896 | 559 |
| 1/3/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Writing an Ebook | 0 | 424 | 424 |
| 1/3/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage | 2423 | 2516 | 93 |
| 1/4/2019 | Blog | The Alt-FI Manifesto | 2225 | 2438 | 213 |
| 1/4/2019 | Blog | Ten Ways to Lower Your Cost of Government | 1505 | 1643 | 138 |
| 1/4/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage | 2516 | 2952 | 436 |
| 1/5/2019 | Book | Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage | 2952 | 3697 | 745 |
| 1/5/2019 | Blog | Finding Good Financial Spotters | 758 | 1018 | 260 |
| 1/6/2019 | Book | The Groovy Guide to Australia | 700 | 1046 | 346 |
| 1/6/2019 | Blog | What Pisses Me Off About Mobile Homes | 0 | 261 | 261 |
| 1/6/2019 | Blog | Two Things the Rich Can Do to Help the Poor and Two Things the Poor Can Do to Help Themselves | 0 | 114 | 114 |
| 1/6/2019 | Book | The Groovy Guide to Doing Higher Education Right | 0 | 220 | 220 |
| 1/7/2019 | Blog | The Alt-FI Manifesto | 2438 | 3443 | 1005 |
| 1/7/2019 | Book | The Groovy Guide to Fixing Healthcare | 0 | 539 | 539 |
| 1/7/2019 | Book | The Groovy Guide to Doing Higher Education Right | 220 | 348 | 128 |
| 1/7/2019 | Blog | Two Things the Rich Can Do to Help the Poor and Two Things the Poor Can Do to Help Themselves | 114 | 487 | 373 |
| 1/8/2019 | Blog | Freedom Is Groovy In 2019 | 500 | 994 | 494 |
| 1/8/2019 | Blog | The Alt-FI Manifesto | 3443 | 4014 | 571 |
Freedom Is Groovy in 2019
Okay, I’ve given myself an audacious goal for 2019. In fact, it’s so audacious, it will definitely affect my blogging and the management of this website. After all, there are only so many hours in a day. Writing at least 685 words per day will essentially be a part time job. And then there’s Mrs. Groovy’s forever-reloading to-do list. And let’s not forget Groovy Ranch. I got a house to furnish, a garage workshop to build, and nearly three and a half acres to beautify and maintain. Needless to say, I got a lot on my plate. So I’m not going to be the most attentive blogger on the planet this year. Here’s what to expect.
At Least Three Ebooks
I’m almost done with my second ebook, The Groovy Guide to the Muscle Up. That will be coming out by the end of January. By the summer, my third ebook should be done, The Groovy Guide to Geoarbitrage. And by the close of 2019, my fourth ebook should be ready, The Groovy Guide to Building a House. This ambitious publishing goal is only possible because these books are going to be 40 to 50 pages each. No 200+ page opus is on the horizon.
Fewer but Longer Posts
If I’m having an epic year of writing, my posts might as well be epic as well—at least on the word count side of things. So expect a lot of posts in the 2,500 to 4,000 word count range. And expect maybe one post a week.
Fewer Comments on the Post’s of My Blogging Peers
I’ll keep reading 40 to 50 blog posts a week—where do you think I steal all my ideas from—but unless I really have something to contribute, or encounter something I really disagree with, I’ll just comment “Me like” and move on. I know that’s pathetic, and makes me look mentally challenged, but I think it’s a nice compromise between my desire to support my blogging buddies and my desire to write a lot of freakin’ words.
Quick aside. Just for the record, I’m very uncomfortable with my proposed two-word comment “Me like.” Like I said, I want to let people know that a post has met the Mr. Groovy seal of approval. After all, the Mr. Groovy seal of approval has a lot of cachet in the personal finance sphere. But a two-word comment is definitely mailing it in. We’ll see. I’m torn.
Fewer Responses to the Comments on My Posts
Part of me wants to shutdown the comments section entirely since I won’t have the bandwidth to respond to all the comments. But the comments I get, especially the ones that challenge my ideas, are really constructive. Responding to my comments makes me a better thinker and a better writer. Shutting them down would thus be foolish. So I may institute a guideline of just responding to the comments that challenge my ideas. I’m leaning that way, but don’t know if that’s fair to the commenters who agree with my ideas. We’ll see. I still trying to figure this one out.
Final Thoughts
Okay, groovy freedomist, that’s all I got. What say you? Is writing 250,000 words in a year a worthwhile goal? Or is it a stupid waste of time? And how about my tentative blogging guidelines? Do they make sense? Are they fair to my fellow bloggers? Are they fair to the people who not only take the time to read my scribblings but also comment on those scribblings? Let me know what you think when you get a chance. Peace.

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