Finding time to write? …Time? …What time?

Apparently (and this is the philosopher in me) there are two distinct viewpoints on time – at least according to Wikipedia. (Oops, did I mention that particular research tool?)

You might belong to the camp that believes time is part of the fundamental make up of our universe. In this camp sit those of you who believe that time is a measure that allows for events to occur in sequence. The “schedule” says I have a blog post to write on “Finding Time to Write”! This post, for example, comes in sequence after those of my fellow writers. But there are only so many days between one post and another – a finite measure in which I have to allocate a proportion of my activities during those days to write said post!

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Oh! And I have so many other activities to complete within these days… how could I possibly “find” time to write a blog post – let alone continue with writing my second novel!

Some chance!

Like Greg, after a period of enforced “light work”, I now find myself back in the corporate world and faced with more activities than I can possibly sequence comfortably within the schedule before me.

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If time is real and measureable, time cannot be elastic and perhaps we should not feel so bad if we cannot “find” time to “fit” in the writing. There are so many other things that also need to be done… we cannot control time. I am excused. I cannot find the time!

Oh, but there is the weekend, you might observe! Should I not find time in this schedule at an early stage, during the weekend, when I might have fewer activities on the go?

What… and risk writing something that, by the time it comes to publish, I find has already been covered by my fellow writers? (What a challenge it is to find something to follow the great posts of C.J., Greg and Supriya!)

The opposing view is held by those in the “time is not real” camp… Could time possibly be neither an event nor a thing? If it was, time would not, itself, be measurable. (And neither could it be travelled… but I am not a Science Fiction writer, so enough of the time-travel thingy!)

[caption id="attachment_2545" align="alignleft" width="98" caption="What (is) time?"][/caption]

If time is not real, it cannot be measured and, as such, surely it would be impossible to find! So, no time, no problem… I am excused!

Now, to me, this is a much more exciting way to think about things! If time is not real, then perhaps the activities we are dealing with – such as writing – are not real… Now there’s a thought (and have I lost my mind? you ask).

Consider that the act of putting pen on paper – is that writing? What about pressing keys on a key board? Is that writing? Is scratching a mark on a slate with a piece of chalk writing? If all these activities are writing, could not even the act of thinking a word be writing? I’d say so!

But thinking is not real! It is as real as time. And, for the sake of this post, it allows me to go blindly through my week, saying “…Look! I am “writing”…  In fact, I do so much “thinking-writing” during the working week that I can’t afford to buy enough paper to write it all out on (even if I could find the time).

And, as I sit here with an hour to go before my self-imposed deadline for writing this post, I finally crystallise only some of the “thought-writing” I have been “doing” all week, by tapping for an hour on the key board.

And I can tell you, it works for me.  I write so much in my head during the week that when it comes to having the opportunity to type or put pen to paper, then the words flow easily! And what does it matter if I have forgotten most of what I have written in the past week, anyway! I can easily write thousands more words next week!

Happy writing… :)