Ahh – I don’t like the time change that happen with the seasons – “fall back one hour,”  and then in the spring the hour ahead! So, I’ll spend a few days now not sure what time is it, making calculations in my head, subtracting numbers from the clocks that didn’t get changed. Why can the time not just stay the same? Do we really need to change it twice a year? There are some places on Earth that have wised up and left the clock alone. Or, at least if “they” would make clocks that can keep track of the time changes, and do it automatically (I know there are some clocks that do this now, but not all of them), so we don’t have to do it manually. It’s nice that computers and mobile phones can update their times automatically – now I just have the rest of my clocks to change!

I guess it’s small thing in the scheme of things. We didn’t lose power here due to Hurricane Sandy, while many around us did. We did have high winds for days that took out some trees around the neighbourhood, and rain for about a week. I made sure all the patio furniture and loose items from the garden were stored away, lest the wind whip them up. But, we weathered the storm with no damage – lucky, and thankful.

I’m formatting a paper edition of my novel Brainjob so that should be out in time for the holiday buying season.

Also, I finally transcribed/dictated about 90 hand-written pages for a new story. It’s about robots who are not very nice, I’ll say that much now. It’s up to about 30K words so far, so at the novella stage, and I’m still writing it. The hand-written pages were done years ago when I was working a full-time job, on my lunch breaks. I would go into the empty and quiet conference room, quickly eat my lunch and then write for the hour, longhand. You can get a lot done using what time you have wisely. (The founder of IKEA expounds on how even using 10 minutes at a time you can get a lot done!)

I’ve continued this method other times when I’ve had a full-time job and used to look forward to my daily, uninterrupted creative writing time and seeing the pages add up! Sometimes when the weather was nice, I’d jump in my car and drive to a quiet spot to write for my lunch break, or sit out at a picnic table, or folding chair. I thought of bringing a laptop, but then you have the worry of power for it, and it’s hard to see the screen in bright sunlight. Plus, a paper notebook is much more portable, never crashes, and there is something about the physical sensation of pen on paper that is stimulation to my imagination – though, pens do run dry! (I always tried to carry a spare.)

Another thing I liked to do when I had a full-time job was to get up early and write before I went to work. I found this was a good practice, and left me with a feeling of accomplishment to get some writing done first thing in the day. There are little interruptions early in the morning, and you can get a lot written. This is a good habit for a writer to get into with a full-time job, or not.

So, here we are about 6 weeks before the Mayan Calendar ends…Yes, I’m interested in the subject. I even wrote a book that is based at this time. It’s a paranormal-horror story called Deathsun 2012. It’s an interesting time to live through, that’s for sure!