Time passes

9 April 2012

Easter Monday already.  I've been told that time flies by a lot quicker as you get older.  Of course it doesn't actually pass any quicker, it just seems to.  A second is still a second, a minute is still a minute and a hour is still a hour.  But I wonder, have you thought just how artificial time is?  By that I mean the actual measurement of time, seconds, minutes, hours, a day.  I wonder who was the first person who decided to measure and then stipulate our current timings.  Seconds, minutes and hours are all based on a circle of 360 degrees and straight away there is another question.  Who decided that a circle would be made up of 360 degrees?  Why not 100 degrees?  Everything else these days is intervals would different to.  Would that make time pass more slowly or faster?  No answers to this of course, just playing and musing seeing as I don't have Dorktown News to pass on today.

I subscribe to two monthly writers magazines.  Both Writers Forum and Writing Magazine are worth their price and I learn so much from them.  One item they both agree on is, to be a writer you need to be a reader.  And here's my problem see ... my reading speed is very slow.  A standard paperback will take me 3 or perhaps 4 minutes to read depending on font size and style.  So imagine my surprise last night when at 0007hrs (yes, just after midnight), I finished a 310 page novel by Shaun Hutson.  But hang on a sec (see, time again), ... that was the second of his books finished in around 5 days.  I started his Body Count first and last night finished Unmarked Graves.  They are not the first of his books I have read, and these two were as good as the others I have read.  I mention these two because of the speed at which I managed to get through them.

It's quite obvious that all writers write differently.  So I wonder why the mag prints articles like, "Write like ...".  That's all well and good I suppose but I want to write like me, not like ... .  Some writers make plans for their books from start to finish; others, me included just sit and write and are sometimes surprised where the character go or end up.  That yesterday for instance.  I sat and wrote around 4000 words on my latest effort and one of my characters ended up in Lisbon, Portugal.  He's on the run from the British cops because they have now learned his real name and he's wanted for murder.  See, I had no idea he was going there until I sent him there.  What will he do in Lisbon?  No idea, but I bet he has some fun somewhere along the lines ;-)))

A week tomorrow I shall be off on my travels again.  One of our neighbours has a caravan at Chapel St Leonards and they are letting go there for a few days.  I've been in the area before but now to stay for a few days.  I shall be having a good look around seeing what I can point me camera at and also what ideas I can get for any new book.  I have one idea that came to me in a dream last week.  Basically it was to do with a snapper taking photos - but of what?  I do know that, but not exactly how he goes about it.  A few days in Lincolnshire will hopefully help me there.

I don't seem to have any photos of the area either, strange that but I do have this one ... 

which is of Cleethorpes pier, not too far away.

A woman goes to the Doctor in Glasgae, worried about her husband’s temper and threatening manner.

The Doc asks: "What's the problem, Janet?
The woman says: "Weeell Doctor Cameron, I dinae know what to do. Every time ma hubbie comes home pished, he threatens to slap me aroon'."
The Doctor says: "Aye, well... I have a real good cure for that. When your husband arrives home intoxicated, just take a wee glass of water and start swishing it in your mouth. Just swish and swish but don't swallow it until he goes to bed and is sound asleep."
Two weeks later she comes back to the doctor looking fresh and reborn. She says: "Doctor that was a effin brilliant! Evrae time ma hubbie came home pished, I swished with water. I swished an' swished, and he didnae touch me even once! Tell me Doc....wha's the secret? How's the water do that?"
The Doctor says: "Janet hen, it's really Nae big secret. The water does b*gg*r all…...It's keeping your mouth shut that does the trick...."