I was thinking about how time got away from me this week, as I meant to post on my blog yesterday, then I reverted straight to the realization of how silly it is that humans think they can control time, buy time, hold time in their hands…you get the idea.
Time doesn’t get away from us, time keeps moving at the same pace, never stopping to consider what we humans think about it. I’ve written about this before, especially upon the approach of dreaded Daylight Saving Time. When humans are silly enough to think that mechanically turning back clocks actually means something to the universe.
This time, DST is not my primary focus, because it’s only early January when we control-freak humans merely engage in the silly patriarchal theory of father time being in charge of our lives. But I did remember not to erroneously place an s at the end of Saving. There was a time when I didn’t do that. I am, however, looping back in time to revisit this subject of time herein.
Why? Because the passage of time features frequently in my Other Worldly novels. It is especially prevalent in my latest work in progress, Aliens Watch, which isn’t actually about watches or any device that keeps time (as if time is something that can be kept or contained), yet spending great and copious amounts of time in drafting this seventh novel of my Other Worldly series is why I’m a day late in posting this blog. And it’s also why I’m feeling a bit loopy as I do so.
First, let me just admit that the concept of time as being circular is one that boggles my brain. So much so, I write about aliens poking fun at humans for their dogged persistence that time occurs in an orderly, controllable, linear fashion.
I’m still grappling to comprehend the decades-old movie Terminator, specifically its premise that someone from the future can go back in time as their younger selves to save their mother and therefore make sure they’re born so that they can also save the world. Alrighty then. Positively loopy.
You’d think my ongoing (like the concept of time) confusion would make me run screaming from the prospect of writing about it. But no, I’ve challenged myself to address this little picadillo of a theory called time travel. And, as always, I’m putting my own twist on it, not engaging in the usual sci fi or fantasy concept of humans going back to the future.
To do so, I’m channeling that feeling of when I’m deeply engrossed in drafting chapters, trying to keep track of the chronology of what’s happening with my Other Worldly characters, wherein I often feel like I lose time. I will look up and realize hours have slipped by while I’m immersed— literally—in another world.
This is also the point at which I start to misnumber chapters, causing endless frustration and confusion because neither I nor Rowan is a numbers person. Come to think of it, that’s another confounding thing about time passage—that humans have made it all about numbers. Like it’s money to be saved, wasted, or run out of. Like it’s a gift you can buy. But I digress (or I went back in time to the beginning of this blog post).
I’ve used this strange surreal quagmire of feeling immersed in the seeming suspension of time and space in Aliens Watch. Indeed, protagonist Rowan Layne is so confused that I have to keep reminding myself to try not to confound the reader while portraying both her bewilderment and bafflement at somehow losing time.
Rowan’s no stranger to déjà vu, that feeling like’s she’s seen and heard things before, but this is an altogether different, mind-bending (for me, too) time loop that’s discombobulating and downright wackadoodle.
Will I pull off this latest transcendence of time tryst twist for Rowan and her human-hybrid, fae, and alien pals in Aliens Watch? Not to mention tackling the subject of a few more supposedly mythological creatures roaming Earth because, well, it was time to do so.
Only time will tell if I’ve tackled this time conundrum with clarity and creative flow. Tick tock. I’m nearly half way there. That is, if I’ve numbered the chapters correctly and haven’t let the story timeline get away from me.