Shouts From Down Under

How much do you have left in the tank? Are you sure...?

Dear Abraham Lincoln,
Time waits for no man,
Henry

This is what was etched inside the pocket watch lid, in the movie Abraham Lincoln (the one with the vampires)

And this, in the link below, is what IS etched inside Abraham Lincoln's watch.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/03/abraham-lincoln.html

Yes, the news is a little old, but there's no need to rush things. Our time will be up soon enough. Why rush to our deaths?

I've been thinking about time. Have you checked how much time you have left? If you've been reading my blogs for a while, you may remember one where I posted a link to the "death clock". You enter your details and this macabre monstrosity estimates how many seconds, minutes and hours you have left. It displays them and begins, and continues, to tick away the seconds. You can sit there mesmerized and feel like rushing for the door in panic.

Well, there's no need is there. No need to rush anywhere really. It will rush to us quickly enough.

So, there's time.

We have to check the rain water tank here every week, because if it goes down too low, I'll have to fill it from the town water supply, which is also connected to this property, as well as an underground bore pump. But the bore pump water has a high copper content.



Makes you wonder about my Dad's cancer treatment. And copper. And whatever else is in that water.

Time, creeping away. Remember when you were younger? Very young? Your first memory?

If we think about time very much, in relation to our lives going by, then we have an urge to pack in a lot of stuff, into the time we have left. Only natural.

What about if our time for writing is restricted?

What priorities do we adopt, when time is running out. Perfectionism? Wisdom? Write less but better quality? Write what matters, instead of twaddle?

What does matter? What should we panic over, and what should we just forget?

Should we panic? Will death come as a release and we just fade away? Do you really think so? I mean, it's a free world right? What if you are wrong?

One thing I've always felt with myself is, that if my writing time is restricted, I tend to concentrate less on punctuation, grammar, spelling etc, and spend the time concentrating on the purpose for the piece, building a strong plot to begin with, thinking out basic twists before I even start, and then revving the engine, and stamping the go pedal flat to the metal.

During writing my first completed novel "The Influence Gene" I was often chatting online to my long time friend Sugar Rose Dupre . This usually took place in the library online center, because I liked to get out of the house, away from distractions, and focus on the story.
But writing often clashed with talking to my friend.
So, often, we'd have brainstorming Internet chat sessions where we'd be talking on the ideas and what would work. Mostly, because I'm egotistical and rude , I'd be doing the talking, and she'd be doing the listening.

And the computer time was / is limited to an hour on some and 1/2 hour on others.

1/2 hour to write something in a novel? Are you kidding? That's ridiculous right?

But you know, I found it more stimulating to have the time severely restricted, as if I could only write it in that time. There was always a sense of urgency. And writing a thriller type novel, a sense of urgency and a fast pace is a good mood to be in during writing. Fantastic!

Stress and tension are not always a bad thing. They can force us, or highly motivate us, to do stuff, or think up stuff, that we normally wouldn't.

Well, that's how it was for me anyway.

What about if it's the other way? What if we have many many hours of complete non function. No choice but to sit, isolated from anything and just do nothing. Total 100% Boredom. What if it was 4 sessions a day of 3 hours each? A total of 12 hours of total insane boredom.

This happened to me. From 2010 through to 2013, I worked in a factory inspecting food product going past on a conveyor. Potato chips. There was rarely anything wrong with the chips. Perhaps a burnt one. Or a tiny bit of green on it. I'm talking one chip in 20 minutes that was faulty.
Ok, add to this lack of challenge having to wear eye protection, ear protection (ear muffs), gloves, hair nets, high viz clothing, heavy metal toed boots.
Add also lots of noise. Even if there was someone else there, we did work in pairs sometimes, it was difficult to talk because you couldn't hear!

For a novelist, this amounted to torture. But, look on it this way. I was able to think for many many hours, 48 hours a week of pretty much 100% thinking on what I would write. The characters, what they would do and say, appearance, their purpose, their loves, hates, scenes. All sorts of things I was able to think out while being cut off from civilisation, in the middle of a high tech food production factory.

Put boredom time to work. It's not time wasted FOR NOVELISTS.

What went through my mind was this; if I can't remember what my characters do and say, in every single paragraph pretty much, in the whole novel, then you know what? It's not worth writing.

And that, is how it turned out. Ahem. Except for editing. That'll be done too, by using boredom as a weapon and an advantage.

Just have to get time to do it, that's all.

Funny how time is so short for stuff we want to avoid. But everyone makes time for the things they love. Oh yeah. Like Blogs. Thyme on roast lamb. How much Thyme does lamb need, to taste good?



Sparky