Tag: time

No Jetpacks, No Teleporters, No Space Colonies … Keep Pushing Back the Date, Writers!

You ever notice how writers underestimate the rate of technology’s advance? They never quite get it right.

In the 1950s, writers predicted that families would be getting lost in space in the year 1997 A.D. They didn’t. In the 1960s, some small-time director thought that 2001 would a true odyssey in space. It wasn’t. Manned spaceflight hasn’t even gotten past the moon.

In the 1980s, a certain movie about time travel had the audacity to suggest we’d have hoverboards by 2015. That one still hurts. I want a hoverboard!

But no, we don’t have any. We have electric unmanned cars that come to a dead halt in the middle of intersections if the power grid goes out, but no hoverboards.

But we writers have a simple solution for irritants like reality and historical fact. We ignore them.

Just keep pushing back the date. By 2040 we’ll have colonies on Mars, I’m sure. No? By 2070. No? By 2100. Repeat as needed.

Oh, but don’t go thinking writers are completely lacking in self-awareness. There was an overt change in tactics around the 2000s when space colonies were proving to not be coming any time soon.

Writers started cheating.

In the year -insert random year around two decades from now- mankind discovers alien technology on the moon or Mars or what have you and reverse engineers it. Or a benevolent alien race arrives and welcomes us into the greater galactic community. Huzzah!

The year doesn’t even matter anymore! Marvelous literary freedom unbound by the constraints of science and logic! Be it 2027 or 2227, humanity will eventually discover those long-lost alien ruins that will unlock the secrets of faster-than-light travel, teleportation, artificial gravity and hoverboards.

What? Impossible, you say? Excuse me, but how do you know there isn’t an alien vault on the moon? You have proof?

Besides, writers don’t need proof. We type it down, and it is so. Just like this: In 2036 we will have flying cars. See? That was easy.

Science fiction is easy. All you have to do is keep moving the goalposts. And pretend that you never believed we’d all have hoverboards in the 2010s.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Finding Your Time to Write

Everyone has a time when they are at their best for writing. Everyone has that time of day when they can “get in the groove.” Whether morning or evening, when the sun is rising or when it is setting, or anytime in between, we all have sweet spots when we find it easiest to settle down and write.

But we can’t always write during that sweet time. Life comes calling. Work. Chores. Errands. Family emergencies. Social obligations. Life doesn’t always allow us to write when we want to. What to do?

Here are some of my own thoughts:

  1. Make the most of the time you have – Be diligent when you are able to sit down and work on your projects. Set goals for yourself: hitting a certain word count per day, completing a chapter, and so forth. This is especially useful if you know ahead of time that your free time is constrained.
  2. Be flexible – We all have a time of the day when we are at our literary best, but we ought not feel that that’s the only time we are allowed to write. Experiment with other times and see what else works for you. You might be surprised at how adaptive you can be.
  3. Analyze your priorities – Work is one thing, playtime is another. You might have more time to write than you think, but you devote it to something else, whether a hobby, entertainment or even napping. Ask yourself how important your writing truly is to you. Are you willing to give up a little more time to devote to it?
  4. Persevere – And sometimes, no matter what, you just can’t get into the groove because you’re a night owl who can only squeeze in a paragraph or two at the crack of dawn. Soldier on. Don’t give up, and keep writing anyway. Perseverance is vital. If you truly want to make the craft a part of your life, there will be tough days along with the good. Soldier on.

***

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

As I Grow Older, These Grow in Value

What do you think gets better with age?

Aging is not a curse nor a tragedy. It is a fact of life, and like all things in life, brings both good and bad. Indeed, age brings many good things with it. Many things grow in joy and fulfillment as we grow older. Here are just a few:

  1. Friendship. As I grow older, I value my friends all the more. A fresh, new friendship is like an apple that hasn’t quite ripened. It may be a little sweet and hold promise, but it hasn’t yet reached full maturity. A friend who has been at your side for years is more precious than a brother or sister, and you can have full confidence they will stick with you through thick and thin, as they have for so many years already.
  2. Health. As we get older, our health can get a little rickety. I am grateful that I can get out of bed unassisted, that I can walk from one side of town to the other, and that I can take a breath without pain. Does that sound a little morbid? But I value every moment of good health, and strive to make the most of it. A child takes his good health for granted. With age comes an awareness of mortality, and with it, a deeply held joy in a robust life.
  3. Memories. The longer we live, the more memories we are given. Memories can be like old friends – or prodding critics – and reflecting on them helps us discover how full our lives truly are. Even if we think we lived a dull, uneventful life, looking back on our memories reminds us that nobody is uninteresting or boring. We all have memories that span the gamut from comedy to triumph to tragedy to drama to wonder. We all live, and we all remember.
  4. Time. Ah, time. The great equalizer. It bows to no one’s will or demands, no one’s wishful thinking or logical arguments. Time is an unceasing gear, turning with heedless inevitability. In other words, you can’t get more of it. I value time now more than I did as a ten-year-old, because I have less of it. Time is a nonrenewable resource. Make the most of it! I treasure moments that can never come again, for their fleeting nature makes them precious.

What about you? What do you think gets better as you age? What do you value more as you get older?

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Sacrifices: Thoughts on the Risks of Being A Writer

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

There’s truth in these words. Our victories in life are almost always the result of placing ourselves in situations where we stand to lose. We take risks. Writing is no different.

Today, I’d like to reflect on two particularly big risks related to writing: money and time.

Money

Writing requires money. If you want to make your book publicly available, you’re going have to fork over the cash. That’s the way of things. I write and publish books as a hobby, not to make a living, which is a good thing because I’m nowhere near to making a profit off of the copies I’ve sold so far. On the other hand, high expenses seem to be the mark of any good hobby … But I digress.

Writing a book doesn’t cost anything, except perhaps the price of a good computer and keyboard (or pen and paper if you are so inclined), but editing does, as does cover art, formatting, and printing or releasing in eBook form. That’s thousands of dollars that may or may not be recouped. If you wish to write to support yourself, remember that there’s no guarantee you will do more than break even for a long time. And you may never. So be certain that you also enjoy writing for its own sake!

Time

Writing is not a quick and easy activity. Don’t expect to be the author who dashes out an award-winning novel after a single furious weekend session. At least, don’t expect to do that and have time for anything else. Like eating and sleeping, for example.

Investing time is a little scary, because unlike money, you can’t get it back in any way, shape or form. We pay our dues of time to that which we value above all else. Ask any writer: you are going to spend many long hours at your desk brainstorming, outlining, drafting, redrafting, formatting, and agonizing over the perfect words to fill out that final paragraph. And your book may or may not be successful. That’s risky. Your writing requires sacrificed time. Are you ready to make that sacrifice?

And now, I have either scared you away from ever publishing your stories or you have considered these factors and are determined to carry on regardless. Good for you! I’m not trying to be a doomsayer, I just wanted to share the realities of being an author. Time and money. Mundane and annoying, but that’s because writing, like every job, is in fact a job. It has its dull moments of drudgery. It is also one of the most incredible, exciting, wondrous, and most fulfilling acts of creativity available to humankind. It is risky business, writing a book. It also brings great rewards.

***

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

“Hermes is not having the best time. He walks a fine line, and his duty as messenger of Olympus weighs heavily on him. Being a god in the modern age means living in a world that no longer believes in gods. How much can one deity accomplish when no one respects him anymore? And why do his instincts tell him that he, the son of Zeus, is losing favor with his own family?

Tensions abound. The upstart Young Gods play dangerous games using entire cities as their boards. Formless monsters strike from the nighttime shadows, terrorizing hapless mortals. Agents of rival pantheons scheme to thwart Olympus’ designs. In the thick of it all, Hermes does what he does best: trick, lie, and cheat his way to victory.“

Into the New Year

What is there to say at the beginning of a new year? Resolutions, promises, hopes, plans? Yes, all of these and more. But most of all, there’s the joy of simply looking over the calendar and seeing all those days spread out before you.

I have a tendency to rush through things, to complete projects for the sake of completion. January 1st is a good day to consider that this isn’t as important as taking time to enjoy each season. Maybe that’s a bit trite, a bit cliche, but there’s truth in it. A year isn’t a long time in the grand scheme of things. Best to appreciate each day, both the happy surprises and the obnoxious challenges, because they don’t come around again.

Whether I’m gritting my teeth or smiling happily, each day is a gift and a privilege. Best not to rush through any of them.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Sleepless Opportunities

If you didn’t need sleep, what would you do with all the extra time?

Time enough at last!

Sleep takes up most of our lives. 7-9 hours every day. 14-15 hours left to do what we need to do – work, eat, chores, leisure. What if I had those extra 9 hours to myself? What if I could do whatever I wanted with all that extra time?

The strange thing is, I’m not sure if I would do much of anything. I’ve noticed that the amount of time I have to do something is directly proportional to how little I am motivated to do it. Perhaps it’s the same as being rich – one hundred dollars doesn’t mean much when you have one hundred million.

What I would try to do is to increase the amount of time that I exercise, and get more chores done, and maybe try out some recipes I’ve always wanted to make. And I’d certainly want to write more and read more and catch up on all the hobbies that have been nagging at my mind. But, I honestly don’t know if I would.

Time is precious. And less time motivates me to try to be more careful with it. I can’t do everything, so I endeavor to do what truly matters to me.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

Do I Need Time?

Do you need time?

Asking whether I need time isn’t a question I can easily answer. Do I want time? Yes, I want time. To stop it in its tracks for as long as I desire and do all the things I want to do in life … that would be wonderful. But I can’t. Because we all only have a set amount of time, and we can’t get any more, regardless of whether we need it.

Maybe what can be said, then, is that we have enough time if we don’t spend it on frivolous, short-term trifles that don’t make a difference in the grand scheme of things. We are given the time we have. It’s clocked in at birth and clocks out at death. I don’t need time, but rather, maybe I should think harder on how to use the bundle of time I still have.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, no, I don’t need time. I need wisdom to use time rightly. Not an easy thing to live up to.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

What Do You Do With Your Time?

When I was a kid, the thing I wanted to be when I grew up was an “everyologist.” I wanted to do everything: science, literature, travel, architecture, painting, history. A five-year-old can easily imagine doing all those things. After all, he has all the time in the world. When a single year is one-fifth your total lifespan, the future stretches out to infinity.

Of course, our lives aren’t infinite, and as we grow up we learn that we don’t have all the time we want. I’m not an “everyologist,” though I do maintain a variety of interests and love to learn new things. I focus on my writing, my job, being with friends, reading, and living quietly. The more I learn I can’t do everything, the more I learn to focus on what I actually find worth doing.

I’d probably be a lousy architect, for one. And I’ve toyed with the visual arts, but it doesn’t hold my attention like writing does. And hey, I can always cheat: the Internet has lots of ways to learn and explore without actually, well, doing anything. It’s something, right?

But the Internet itself takes up our time (yes, I am aware of the irony of that statement on a blog). Too much? Well, that’s up to you. What else do you hope to do today?

All that being said, something else I’ve learned in life is that I have a lot more time than I sometimes suspect. It’s the things I feel I have to do – little things, like finish this book by such-and-such a date, or catch up on that TV series everyone is talking about – that eat away at our “free” time. It’s not really free if we treat our hobbies as a strange set of obligations. A career is one thing, but entertainment quite another. Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that viewing our lives from new angles reveals that we don’t need much to fill up our time in a satisfying way.

I’m not a master of everything, and I’m okay with that. I have time enough for what I enjoy.

Many thanks for visiting my blog. I post updates on my writing career, I muse over storytelling and fiction, and I reflect on the curious and wonderful things in life.

When You Feel Like You Don’t Have Enough Time…

“Old Clock” by Davmi Pics is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Do you ever feel the crunch of time? Like your to-do list is too long to fit into the hours in the day? You feel those minutes sliding by and try to cram in as much as you can. But it just isn’t enough, and you concede defeat to the march of time.

So much to do, and so little time. If only we could do it all in one go. If only we could freeze the clock in place and do everything we ever wanted to do for as long as we wanted. What a dream, huh? But what does that say about the things we do manage to accomplish when time is short?

Maybe it’s not comfortable to think about the fact that we accomplish, first and foremost, the things that matter most to us. Maybe we don’t want to think about what that says about us if we go first to the couch to watch TV, put together a jigsaw puzzle, play video games, or eat junk food. What do we prioritize? What matters most to us? Do we want to peer into that corner of ourselves?

Most of the items on our checklists are personal indulgences. A lot of the things we feel we must do are really just trifles that we enjoy more than taking out the trash or cleaning the house. Hey, entertainment is more fun than chores. That’s why it’s called entertainment. We like to have fun, and in a world where most of our time is consumed by business and work, we try to sneak it into the 16 or 18 hours we spend awake.

I find that there is a difference between what we want to do and what we actually do. The first is our conscious preference. The second is what we subconsciously place real value on. I suspect we don’t even realize it unless we’re paying close attention. We don’t recognize what we hold dear until forced to choose between this or that to wrap up in the last hour. Time crunch can lead to interesting revelations.

But how much do we really have to do in 16 hours? We tell ourselves that “this and that” must be finished, and “this and that” turns into “anything and everything.” A bit of a self-imposed burden, isn’t it? I’m not preaching procrastination, but rather that most of the troubles we face in task management is self-imposed. Cramming means we don’t want to compromise. It’s all or nothing! I want to do everything I want to do and I’m not going to cross anything off today’s to-do list! And we wear ourselves out, not from hard work, but from the exhaustion of trying to satisfy the expectations we’ve built up in our heads.

There’s more time in the day than we may think, because so many of the things we convince ourselves are absolutely vital are really just busy work and trifles. If we were to strip away everything except what is truly important in our lives, we’d end up with a much shorter list. Because those are the things we will dedicate time to. Those are the things we truly value and will not sacrifice.

Take a step back and look not at what you plan to do, but at what you actually do during the day. You may be surprised at what you see.

The gods and beings of ancient myth never went away. They just moved on with the times.

My book, A God Walks up to the Bar, is currently available on Amazon.com. Venture into the world of the Greek god Hermes, a world filled with demigods, vampires, nymphs, ogres, magic, and trickery. It’s a tough job, being a god!

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