Progress?

Well, it has been a bit over two weeks since I last decided I was taking on this book writing gig so I figure I'm due for my first status update.

I'm behind schedule.

And not for any reason any of my Type A compadres would conceivably pin it on (upcoming PCI audit at work, tax time crunching, home improvement projects), but for a much better, more basic reason.

I've found that simply relaxing in my free time is far more pleasurable than I ever remember.

Not that this should be earth shattering news, but for the longest time I've always sought to fill my free time with (for lack of a better term) "productive" items. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing until taken to excess - which I probably have if I can honestly say that I forgot how good it feels to just chill out. Oh sure, I had taken individual nights "off" and chilled but the next night I would be back at the "productive" tasks - poker only being one in a long series of such things that I would pack in my 1-2 hours between the kids going to bed and me doing likewise. I honestly can't remember the last time I've taken as much "chill time" in one block as I've taken in the last two weeks.

All that being said, I still do feel the urge / need to fill this time with other things - and I surely will. I haven't gone Type B, but merely found that I need more down time than I had let myself take.

So, where does that leave the book? I have actually made some progress - getting basic ideas, topics, phrases, and other such mental pocket lint together. The method by which I am recording, organizing, and eventually structuring these into a coherent format is via a Mind Mapping tool. I am using FreeMind since (well) it is free and definitely meets all my basic needs. I fully anticipate having the basic structure / table of contents done "soon" but April 15 may be pushing it - it may indeed happen, but I'm not going to push myself needlessly to hit this date. I think that once I get over this "hump" that filling in the detail will be quite interesting - interesting enough to keep me motivated, anyway.

Well, back to relaxing with a Rye and Coke.....

Welcome!

Well, here starts another of my projects - writing a book! This is actually something that I have been kicking around for quite some time now, but only recently have some key ideas come to light, along with a concept for tying them all together and some motivation to do it. A confluence of factors, as they say.

The concept of the book is the basics of financial planning from the viewpoint of a father transcribing sage financial advice to his (now) young kids, for use in the future when they become financially independent. As such, the intent of the book is to lay out important "timeless" concepts and principles about how to think about financial planning and the individual components that make it up, rather than any specific advice that may only hold in some narrow range of time. I am considering writing it as a narrative, as if I was giving verbal advice to the kids, but I haven't decided on this yet. I think it would be an interesting "hook" for the book and make it a bit more fun to write, but we'll see.

At the moment, I don't know whether the quantity of output from this will be able to fill a thin pamphlet, a mass-market sized book, or a series of books. I'm sure readers of my other blog have seen how wordy I can be and have their opinions on how many words I can write on just about any trivial thing, so taking on an entire field of personal financial planning I'm sure will have them thinking in units of "truckloads" when it comes to my verbiage.

I also don't know what the exact outcome of this exercise will be - a "book" that I will merely share with my kids, something I will share with close friends, something I will self publish, or something that is "worthy" of being published by a major book distributor. What I am going to aim for is content worthy of a major publication, but happiness even if the only thing that comes of it is a self-printed binder that I can stick on a shelf. Either way I will have met my goal of writing the book, and will have a lot of fun doing so.

I don't know how much of the actual book content I'll be able to put here until I look into copyright issues - specifically, if I still retain the rights to any posts I make on Blogger.com or whether they retain certain rights making me unable to further post those words / ideas in another forum.

My first goal is to get the all the basic structure, principles, chapters and sections of the book together by April 15. I am sharing this idea and my progress with as many people as possible in order to help ensure that I'll actually take action and get this thing done.

Wish me luck!