GOALS?

This blog marks number 400. It’s taken me 15 years to obtain the goal if you can even call it that. I had no particular number in mind when starting, hoping to at least reach 100. The total amount of words of all 400 compositions is 343,021.

In comparison, the exact number of words in the KJV Holy Bible is 783,137. I’m not even halfway to that point. It took several people a period of some 1500 years to complete things for that book. Taking this into consideration, I’m not typing as slow as I think I am.

People in 88 countries have looked at my blog, with over 34,948 reader’s total. That’s hard to imagine and one of the main reasons I’m careful on what I write about.

On the average, it takes me three hours to compose a decent piece. That time includes numerous proofreads and corrections. Taking 400 and multiplying by 3, of course, comes out to 1200 hours total. That in itself equates to 50 days of writing over 15 years if I sat at the keyboard nonstop—24 hours a day. Being that I can’t do it, three-hour days at the computer comes to 400 days, or a little over a year.

From a mechanic’s perspective, normally, it takes me around 3 hours to do a full brake job on American vehicles, that is if I have the parts on hand. Using that number as a guideline and taking the 1200 hours of writing and dividing by 3, I could’ve theoretically performed 400 brake jobs over the past 15 years.

The last brake job, I charged a person $100.  Taking that amount and multiplying by 400 equals $40,000.00. Of course, had I done brake jobs over a decade and a half instead of writing, all of that money in my hands would most likely be gone. I’m thinking if I had that cash now, a Can-Am Maverick X3 RC SXS would be nice, decked out of course.

What I have instead, are 400 different stories. Unfortunately, none of them can be taken to McDonald’s and traded for a cup of coffee.

If I want to reach the number of words in the Bible, I still need to write an additional 440,116. At the rate I plodded along to reach 343,021, it’ll take me another 17 years to reach that goal. I’ll be 89 if I make it. Being that I’m not doing brake jobs anymore, writing seems like the venue to best spend my time. Some seniors paint, do puzzles, beadwork, crochet, or watch TV, but that’s not for me.

If writing keeps me upright—then it’ll be well worth continuing. Perhaps by the time I decide to hang it up, I’ll get one right where spelling and punctuation are concerned!