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Making Time Travel Work - Sophie and the G-Man

Time Travel is impossible but we're obsessed with it. What would it be like to go back to 1956 and see Elvis perform on the Ed Sullivan show? Would you have fallen all over yourself to touch his arm? Would you have been scandalized by his swinging hips?

Would I have been? Perhaps. It's easy to get caught up in a moment like that. And Elvis was  a fox.

So what is it about our obsession with revisiting the past? Is it the need to reach out and touch a piece of living history? Because we can do that every day, right now. Sure, it's not as interesting as touching something we grew up seeing as an icon in American culture.

But it's out there. History is being made every day.

Time travel. Take a few minutes and think about it. If the science or magic worked, how would you do it? Would you go forwards or backwards in time? Can  you go forward? Doesn't that mean all of time is fixed? What about free will? Where would you go? Paradoxes aside, who would you see, talk to, have sex with (yeah, we've all thought about it)? What are the social implications? Can you have a modern girl go back to the 1920s, for example? Sure, the 20s were somewhat progressive, but by modern standards?

How would you do it?

I've been thinking about all of this because my current work in progress, Sophie and the G-Man is a time travel story set in 1947. I've thought about how they travel both forward and backward. Not sure if I have it all figured out. The worst part is wrapping my head around all the things Sophie sees in the future that she's going to see happening in the past. How cool is that?

I started writing on April 1. I plan on having the rough draft finished by the end of May. Keep your fingers crossed I make it and I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Snippet!

I wrote up this little gem when I was at Context in 2011. I was attending a workshop by Lawrence C Connolly--one with lots of writing prompts. I've never known what else to do with this paragraph...maybe I do nothing with it. I don't know. But I like it.

Joni cracked open the bedroom door, the stale wave of airborne nicotine washing over her. She coughed, glancing at the bottle strewn living room floor and the ashtray nearly overflowing with a night’s worth of bad choices and thought, the arsenic isn't working fast enough on that bastard.

The post con blues......

Con drop 
(As defined by Urban Dictionary)

A sudden period of feeling generally down and/or depressed after attending a convention. It is usually preceded by a time of being "high" on endorphins and energy, feeling really great about the con before it hits you like a ton of bricks.

Con drop can happen anywhere from a few hours to a few days after leaving, and is accompanied by an intense need to go to another convention or be with friends who were there as well.

Someone in con drop will be particularly susceptible to signing up for the next convention they're told about.

This is an accurate description and I am currently neck deep in this. I think it is made that much worse by the endless parties, the drinking, not eating well, etc. You feel run down which gives the post con blahs the opening they need to make you feel even shittier about having to go back to real life.

Now, usually  I have cons down to a science. I know how much sleep I need, the amount of food, the water/caffeine/alcohol ration I can tolerate or need. However, when I attend my first con of the year (this weekend I attended Minicon 48 in Minnesota) I tend to throw it all out the window.

Which I did.

So here I am Monday morning, working the day job and wishing I could write, hang out with friends and just generally do whatever I want. None of those thing involve being where I am at this very moment. I'm in a moment where I know I have to do something or I will wallow in the blahs for at least another 24 hours (maybe longer).

How do I do it?

1. I email, text, tweet and Facebook friend/message the folks I met over the weekend so we don't immediately drift away back into the oblivion of real life. Sometimes someone beats me to the punch, which makes my day. 
2. I make sure I stay away from con websites and Kayak--I am very susceptible to Con suggestion at this point. I know I am. I also know my budget can't handle another one this year....
   Okay, I admit it. I looked up World Fantasy in Brighton and crunched the numbers a bit. It's NOT happening. It's not. **
3. I write. 
4. Then I write some more.
5. Then I take a trip somewhere to get me out of my funk. This is never intentional, but it seems to happen more often than not. in just a few days I head to New York City for a long weekend with a girlfriend. After WisCon? I got to San Francisco for almost a week. After In Your Write Mind? I go to Alpine Valley in Wisconsin for 2 days of Dave Matthews Band and Grace Potter. 

Am I going to make it? Yeah, of course I will. But, I'm already looking forward to May and my next one. 

**UPDATE:  I just reserved hotel for Windy Con. I am an utter failure. (But I DO feel better.....sort of)

writing = happiness

I can't keep the stupid grin off my face. I started thinking about a cute scene between my protagonist and her love interest and I'm dying to get it on paper.

DYING.

I have no idea where I'm going to put this but I'll figure it out. So much rewriting to do.....

{{PS: I LOVE this!}}

Eek!

Time is kind of a jack-ass.

 At least for me. I don't ever seem to have enough of it to do all the things I wish to do. And when I try and spend one day in relaxation, I feel guilty as hell for not accomplishing anything!

 These first nineteen days have been jam packed with the following:

A Murder Mystery

Muse

The Wild

Dress Making

17 days of Green....

To celebrate St Patrick's Day (and the shenanigans, of course)

And of course, an endless stream of edits....

Throw a daylight savings time change in there and THAT'S why I haven't been blogging as regularly...all that and of course because of Platypope. 

His Holiness is very distracting. So is his large bill.

Because I miss my SHUsters so very much....

On the Ghost Tour of Campus

The creepy weird cemetery at Seton Hill University. If you look in the trees just right you'll see a rather large Jesus statue hidden there.

He is also known on campus as Sniper Jesus.

Just hanging out in the halls of Admin shooting the breeze... 

The Admin Building at Seton Hill University

Jason Jack Miller holding the poster he brought for me of one of his books, Hellbender. This poster was printed by Hatch Show Print, one of my favorite print shops.

Jennifer Barnes and John Edward Lawson of Raw Dog Screaming Press ham it up too

Heidi Ruby Miller and Michael A Arnzen

The shrine to de-cannonized St Philomena. We like to take the new students of the Writing Popular Fiction MFA program up here and scare the bejesus out of them.

Jason Jack Miller presenting on personal brand.