I had to give this post a ludicrously exciting title, because today we’re going to talk about…
Good time management skills.
*crickets chirping*
*tumbleweeds tumbling*
It goes a little something like this. We are now up to Chapter 49. No, you can’t read that far ahead yet, but that’s how far we’ve gotten. And, we’ve been asked a few times — how do you have the time? Or, we’re told, I wish I had the time to do something like that.
It’s a not unreasonable sentiment.
Or, at least, it’s not an unreasonable sentiment from people who are not the Clock Keepers, Masters of Time Manipulation!
*rad guitar chord*
…
Okay, that’s just a big lie. We do not have magical powers that allow us to change the weave and weft of time. We are not Sorcerous Tempus or Zeitmancers or anything, though we’d pay good money to anybody who can teach us those skills, perhaps via a shady photo-copied manifesto? No? Moving on, then.
What we do have is a basic understanding of how time works.
I have 24 hours in my day. You have 24 hours in your day. Marty has 25-and-a-half hours in his day, but that’s because of a deal he made with Jesus when he was a wee lad — it really doesn’t count, though, because he has to spent at least an hour-and-a-half a day drawing portraits of Jesus on his walls in rustwater and strawberry jam. Hey, I dunno. That’s his business. That’s between him and Doctor Christos, y’dig? Point being, for all intents and purposes, he has 24 hours in his day, too, because Jesus commands that other gifted portion.
I’ve been guilty of saying, “I don’t have the time,” which isn’t an entirely accurate way of saying what I mean. If I say, “I don’t have the money,” that’s possible. Money is finite. If I have five bucks, and that sweet llama ride is six bucks, I’m fucked unless I can get all bargainy on that llama-jockey. Time is infinite. I have 24 hours. You have 24 hours. If I say “I don’t have the time,” what I mean is, “I choose to allocate my hours differently than you.”
That’s all that is.
So, when it comes time to work on this here Shadowstories, we both make the commitment to allocate hours toward it. It’s not like we’re not busy. Marty has children. I have a pornography habit. Marty is captain of the Ladies’ Macrame Auxiliary Union. I have a pornography habit.
Now, yes, sometimes time is allocated in a way that is outside your control. Eight hours at the day job is an intensive affair, and might not leave you time to write. But, during that time you’re telling me you really work straight through every second? You don’t fiddle with your nuts or make push-pin pigs? Don’t you fuckin’ lie to us, now. We’ll smell that lie. Marty has the power of Jesus. The power to smell the stink of deception is just one of his many gifts from the Lord. You eat lunch during that day job, don’t you? You can grab a few minutes here and there to take some notes, devote a little thought toward the project you really want to be working on, instead of that spreadsheet devoted to the cost analysis of new push-pin pig materials.
All I’m saying is, you wonder how we have the time — well, it’s because we have it. Same as you. It’s not like we “make the time,” as some people will say, because that is a magic power we sadly do not possess. That’s pretty much left to Jesus. He makes time in a little factory outside Ronkonkomo. (Did I spell that right? Do I care? No.) We simply choose to allocate some of our time toward this endeavor.
Time is infinite. But life is short.
Allocate your time wisely.
Or, put differently:
Become a Clock Keeper, a Master of Time Manipulation!
* gnarly drum solo*
