Skip to main content

Times and Tides

Writers are creatures of habit.  My own writing routine is to get up crazy early before I have to be at work and write the day awake.  I've been doing it that way for years.  Decades, even.  Then the time change comes.

When you're young it's not such a big deal.  A few extra yawns at school on Monday and by Friday you're acclimated.  But time holds still for no one.  As an adult, it takes more time to adjust to changes in your schedule.  Suddenly what used to be 4 a.m. is now 5 a.m.  You have to get out of bed at what feels like 3:00.  The writer's schedule suffers.

Daylight Saving Time was a contingency invented by the Germans during the world wars.  In order to maximize the usable light, they changed their clocks from standard time so that early morning light (my favorite) wouldn't be wasted.  Better to have later at night light.  Obviously, they weren't writers.

So I get up in the morning, ready to write, but *yawn* I can't concentrate so early!  It'll take me more than a few days to bounce back.  We writers live on our own time anyway—perhaps there should be a special rule for writers, allowing them to keep their regular time?

Even our computers, though, change the time automatically.  It used to be that only the gods had such power.  Well, with Silicon Valley being what it is, maybe it's still the gods in charge of our clocks.

Where did I leave off that story?  Funny, I don't recall being so fuzzy-headed yesterday morning when I got up to write.  I have nothing against the Germans, of course.  They were only being practical.  Logical.  Now, with advances in technology, it would be logical to stop shuffling the time around.  If Daylight Saving Time is better, why not keep it all year round?

Don't mind me.  I'm just headed back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.  And maybe then I'll be able to remember what I was writing about just twenty-three hours ago.  Or was it twenty-five hours ago?  Only the gods know.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dusty

  My, this thing is dusty.   My fans—hi, Mom!—perhaps believe me to have perished in the pandemic.   No, it was nonfiction’s fault. Since the pandemic began I’ve had two nonfiction books published and have written a third.   With a nine-to-five job something’s got to give.   Unfortunately it’s been fiction. Well, the groundhog didn’t see his shadow yesterday, so it must be safe to come out.   I shuffled away the rejection notes and began submitting again.   I’ve got a backlog of weird stories and maybe some new publishers have emerged? The thing is, don’t you just hate it when you’re in the mood to submit and some lit journal has its window for submissions firmly shut?   My last story, “ The Hput, ” was published about three years ago.   Oh, I’ve submitted since then, but with no traction.   Well, it is winter. I’ve got a lot of stories lined up.   I’ve been sending them out again, dreaming of making a dime at what I love doing best...

Creative Righting

  Rejection of my writing is a rejection of my imaginative world.   That’s why I was cheered by the acceptance of one of my stories this week.   That makes number 31. I’ve been working on a lot of fiction lately, even as nonfiction book number 6 is going to press.   The ideas are still there, and bizarre as ever, but publishing venues just aren’t welcoming. The other day I had lunch with a professor whose wife is also a professor.   She just had her first novel published, and so he pointed me to her indie publisher.   I went to their website to learn that they’re closed to submissions.   I have to admit that my latest accepted story, “Creative Writing Club,” was probably given the green light because I know the editor.   That seems like a pretty dicey way to get any notice, doesn’t it?   You have to know the right people even in the low circulation world. My fiction is difficult to classify.   It’s got speculative elements to it.   ...

Creativity

  Maybe you’ve noticed this too.   When you step away from fiction writing for a while, your creativity becomes flaccid.   I’ve had to step away from this blog for a while because I was writing my sixth nonfiction book.   God, I’ve missed fiction! Now that I’ve entered that phase of waiting for publishers to respond, I’ve turned my limited writing time back to fiction.   I submitted a couple of stories this week and am waiting to hear about those as well.   When you’re a writer, waiting is a way of life. Opening my software where I store my fiction stories, I was amazed by how many I found.   Some of them are bad—so bad that they’ll never (rightfully) be published.   Some are surprisingly good and have been sitting around while I finished up my nonfic. The vast majority, however, are unfinished.   Some years back I realized that when I’m writing in the heat of inspiration but don’t have time to finish a story that I need to write down where I...