Tag: time travel

A Writing Daydream

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 9 Comments

Early this morning, I’m sitting here listening to Beegie Adair, a marvelous piano player who is a master at playing songs long gone by (she can be found on You Tube), thinking of a half-asleep thought/dream I had last night.

I found myself thinking about a beginning of a book — the third in a series I have never published. The first two are about a middle-aged woman who crashes her car and wakes up in the 1880s. The first book is about survival, the second love. 

Last night I thought — what if I wrote a third book from the point of view of her 73-year-old character?

What would she have to say? What would her life have been, living in a world that already played its part in history? 

She would not have been able to tell anyone about the first landing on the moon; about World War II or computers or covid.  It would have been madness to talk about vehicles that move hundreds of people through the air to other continents or technology that enabled one to have instant answers and communication with a touch of a button.

She needn’t share any of her knowledge of the future — she would have learned that what she knew didn’t matter anymore. Not if she was happy.

Yet she left behind a daughter and a husband. How could she not wonder … what pain did she put them through by disappearing?  Did she have grandchildren? What happened to her husband? Did her daughter grow up to be an executive of an influential business or a back street junkie?

The one thing my character has in common with all of us is that we are a result of our decisions. Some may be corrected to run a more favorable path in the future, some may lead to further destruction. But our future (for the most part) is in our own hands.

Choosing to stay in the past cut off her ability to affect what she left behind. No more chances to strengthen relationships or mend fences. No chances to see what she could have become, because she changed the rules of the game in ways she never dreamed. 

My character will never know how her decisions affected the world she left behind. I guess she will never know how her time travel affected the world she chose, either.

As Beegie Adair plays Once Upon a Time on a grand piano, I am left sentimental and melancholy. I cannot change the things that have happened in the past 73 years, nor will my passing change the next 73. But for the time I’ve got left here I hope to change every  now into something positive and loving.

It will be my contribution to a never-ending story.

Maybe I will write that third book. I have a lot of knowledge I can share with her, along with a lot of hope for the future.

After all, that’s all any of us have.

 

 

Feeling Better = Writing Nonsense

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 6 Comments

Now that the pain in my back is almost gone, my mind is free to wander — and that’s always a scary thing.  Here are some cosmic thoughts (past and present) to get you going this fine Tuesday evening —

  •  If you ever get stuck in a time warp and wind up in another time, you can always become a bard. Think of all the lyrics to rock and roll songs you know!
  • If time travel is impossible, why do I hear myself saying things I said ten years ago?
  • Coca-cola is green without coloring. Ewww.
  • They say it’s better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Does that mean if I tried to read the dictionary backwards while sitting in a bathtub and singing God Bless America and I didn’t want to stop until I was done singing and the house caught on fire because my cat knocked over the candle I had burning in the other room and I had to stop reading the dictionary, was it better never to have tried that stunt in the first place?
  • If infinity is infinite, and we can see no end to it, how do we know it’s even there?
  • Barbie’s full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
  •  It is a fact that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more time slows down. So isn’t a moot point to drive faster, when you actually arrive at your destination later?
  • Why does everyone on TV eat Chinese food out of the carry out container with chopsticks? I have yet to see one actor eat Chinese on a plate with a fork! I mean…come on…
  • The theory of relativity suggests that before the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, space and time did not exist and matter was packed together in a tiny ball. Okaay…how tiny is tiny? As if it matters…
  • You spend your entire life living and eating and dancing in three dimensions. But according to superstring theory, there are at least ten dimensions in the universe (M-theory actually suggests that there are 11 dimensions to spacetime; bosonic string theories suggest 26 dimensions). Try walking and talking in that! (fyi the article is amazing..you have to check it out..10 Dimensions)
  • Most of us are a walking storeroom of facts — we’ve just lost the key to the storeroom door.

Have a great rest of your week!

 

Oh Euglena … Come Out and Play …

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 5 Comments

euglena2The other day I blogged about the light-bulbs-growing-on-grass-thing. Inspiration, getting the growth going and all. Then I had the day from Hades — personal flubs, everything from losing my debit card to a momentary lapse of memory to indigestion. I wondered how I would ever live up to the growing thing. The writing thing. The inspiration thing.

Then I found my little notebook that had the plot line of my second novel scribbled in multi colors.  It’s like someone really did turn the light bulbs on the grass on. A plot! A direction! Ideas! I remember looking fondly, wistfully, at the little 3 x 5 thing, not really interested in my character’s continued adventures in Tinaria.  But now — here it was. Waving. Calling. Teasing.

What made this adventure even sweeter, though, was that I overcame my “do not share” mentality and actually asked for advice for my story. I was stuck on a premise I started in my first novel, and had no idea how to manifest an explanation in the second. So I talked to my good friend Cal The Science Guy about colors and blood and time travel. I actually told him about my story idea and asked for a feasible way around my blockage. I was able to get an educated — and fun — opinion about my work and my ideas.

The point of this evening’s conversation is that I learned to share my work. Not hide it. I always wanted to make sure my writing was perfect before I shared it with anyone.  Like, if I didn’t tell them about it ahead of time they would like it better. All the grammar hadt o be perfect; the conversations, the encounters, all had to be smoothly  orchestrated. If I was stuck, so what. I just changed ideas. All because I wanted to “surprise” my reader.

You would think at my age I would know better. The best kept secrets are nothing but secrets. Who cares about the stories you’re not telling anyone? Publication is a a fleeting thought; a dream, possible in some spheres of reality, impossible in others. Winning first place in an art show or  graphic competition just as nebulous. What matters is NOT keeping these things a secret. No matter if you are a painter, a jewelry maker, or a writer. If you are stuck, ask someone. It’s not like they’re going to take your idea, or laugh at your idea, or tell everyone your idea.

We all get stuck in life. Some landmines can’t be helped. It’s life. But not sharing your stories, your poems, your creativity because you are afraid someone might not like it? Pfffttt….what does that matter? Did you like making that necklace? Did you enjoy stenciling that room? That’s what it’s all about. Need a little boost, a little clarification? Don’t be afraid to share your creation with someone. Everyone needs help now and then. I mean, even Van Gogh painted side by side with Gauguin.

OK, Cal…about this alien/time travel/gladiator  thing….

Where Do You Want To Go?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

I know most of you peek in and out with a whiff of the air; life is busy like that. I am the same way. Too many things I want to do, too little time. The story of all of our lives.

As you know, my passion (outside of my family, grandbaby, cooking and the latest Star Trek movie), is writing, followed by reading. I have been trying to read the Grey thing; I think I’m too old to be impressed by it (although I must say it goes where no one has gone before). Everyone likes to read different things: everyone has their own style, topics, and interests. That’s why reading is ssoooo much fun.  

My bigger obsession, though, is writing. My style is all over the place, but the bulk of it is more on the imaginary side. A favorite theme iof mine is the “middle age woman” traveling through time, in one direction or the other, exploring the new worlds from a middle age woman’s point of view. (Original, eh?)

So……a question for you.

If you were whisked through a “veil” into another world, what would it be like? Know that you would know nothing (or little to nothing) about the time period, or, if it were another planet/world, their society.  What kind of world would you like to explore?

I’ll go first.

My most current novel is about a middle aged, New Age woman who is whisked away to another planet where the inhabitants are a mixture of Ancient Rome and Spaceship City.  She does her best to try and adapt to a society who are based in ancient superstition and futuristic technology, while trying to solve a murder.

Your turn!