Time Wasters That Keep You From Writing.

Greetings fellow bloggers, writers and those that just follow me.  Today I thought I might spend a little time with you talking about …time…

Have you ever chimed in on a conversation on social media? 

My personal feelings on Facebook are, it is a great way to keep up with family and friends without actually calling them.  Let that sink in.

The simple facts are very few people have 681 real friends.  I would define what a friend is but, I don’t think that is necessary.

My friends are the people on my favorites list on the phone. Everyone else is an acquaintance.

Yes, there are hundreds of people that I know, chat with online, and so on but, I usually don’t require their phone number.  Truth told, I don’t have the time to visit with many friends.

Scanning through social media has turned into a pastime that unfortunately zaps time away from other things.  Way back when, I used to teach a class on time management.  

In the business world today, they attach different names to it but Scrum is the latest tool.

From timeboxing to working in sprints, this is a high-pressure environment for programmers.

Where the program breaks, and the world of missed deadlines occur is a failure to take into account the human equation.

The smart phone and social media are two stumbling blocks. 

Not long ago I hired a landscaping crew to clean out the weeds, remove and replace dead plants and so on. The PM, or in this case the team lead, walked back and forth between the front and the back of the house.  As soon as he disappeared, his workers would stop working.  The cell phones came out of their back pocket.  It was almost laughable. They weren’t talking, they were playing games or checking social media.  The job took much longer than it should have.

The human factor can only do so many sprints before their mind needs to focus on something else for a while.

There were many time-management tools in the day.  As a manager of many programmers, I kept a spreadsheet of where they each were on their part of the project.  Hiring from sourced talent, if I got a dud, it was easy enough to replace them.

That by the way, is why most companies hire from such firms. They get 6 months to see how you will perform.

I would never work in a scrum environment. While the tool is meant for projects that might change with scope creep or unforeseen issues, the pressure on everyone involved comes down to time.

In our writers’ group we have writing sprints, which was taken from Scrum but, the sprint is just a way for you to dedicate time to your craft, or hobby.

Most writers that fail are those who have piss poor time management skills.

On my desk was an Alexa, my phone and some clutter that has shown up over the years.

Alexa had to go.  While a nice tool for some things, the screen displaying news feeds and so on was distracting.

The phone must be face down.  I don’t want to see anything that will cause me to deviate from my task.

Alexa has a ‘do not disturb’ function, use it.

I shut my office door to keep the distractions at bay. The phone is silenced and my list of what I want to accomplish is in front of me.

People ask me how in the devil I manage to crank out so many novels.  Time management is key.

I watch very little TV. Most of what I see is mindless dribble aimed at those with the functional IQ of a houseplant.

It is no wonder why so many shows have piss poor ratings.

If you are trapped into watching TV, examine the writing, the structure of the story and yes, any arcs.  In this way if I am stuck watching shows aimed at fifth graders, at least I can learn something from it.

Where this all started was a friendly post on Facebook.  Someone was reaching out for assistance.  I offered some advice. There were many who chimed in on my advice. Several gave very bad advice and attacked me in the process.  Delete post, and go back to my task at hand.

I live in the world I create most of the time.  Before I nod off, the story I am creating is running through my mind.  I don’t plot a story; I write from a stream of conscious.  If the ideas that pop up in the wee hours of the morning and I think there is a chance I will forget them, I get up and make notes.

Stephen King once said that he doesn’t keep a notebook with him.  If an idea pops into his head and he forgets it, it was most likely not any good anyway.  He also said a notebook like that, is just a book full of bad ideas.

I write very much like him but, I do keep a notebook. A simple three- or four-letter tickler, to have the MC fall into a crack in the ice at the end of a chapter is gold.

Best -TW

Time, Do we Understand it?

As a science fiction writer, I tend to think outside the box.  Sometimes, the ideas become so esoteric that I have to fall back, and re-think them.

As I read about the Parker Solar Probe, I just wonder if there is a way to run one more experiment.

The purpose of the experiment is to determine if, “Time close to the sun,” is the same as we experience on earth.

For eons, science fiction writers have gotten it wrong.  Thinking about the time machine, for instance, we see the walls build, and crumble, around our intrepid time traveler, as he goes forward and backward in time.

The authors of such novels did not take time-space, and celestial mechanics, into consideration when they wrote their novels.  Who can blame them?  The ideas are obscure, and few would try to truly understand what is going on.

If our time machine did more than twirl a huge disk and had some lights blink, we would see that in order for it to travel in time it, would necessarily jump outside of the time-space that the earth is in.

Said another way, it would become separated from the earth and this solar system.  Therefore, what would that look like and why?

It is my contention as a science fiction writer, and nerd, that this solar system is in its own time zone.  That time zone is created by mass, and how that mass actually warps space around it.

The idea came to me when there was an anomaly with one of the Voyagers. As it went further into deep space, outside of the effects of the Heliopause, they said it was slowing.  NASA reported that it was slowing down. Is it, or is it simply in a new time zone where time is perceived differently?

It is my contention that it is the latter, which means time, and light years, and so on, are not as we perceive them at all.

If our time machine left the Earth’s Space-time, celestial mechanics would move the earth in several different directions at once.  Not only is the earth rotating on its axis but also it is orbiting the sun on the X-axis.  The solar system, carried along by the Milky Way, is moving both on its X, and Y,-axis, simultaneously.

Once our friend pulled the magic lever, he might pass through the earth, or find himself in space.

As I write about this in Under Roswell, or The Saga of the Starduster, time, as we understand it is not correct.

Not many years ago, there were reports by airport personnel, including air traffic controllers, and pilots of a UFO hovering over the O’Hare airport. Like a shot, it suddenly went vertical, “faster than a speeding bullet.” Leaving holes in the clouds, on its departure.

We know from our understanding of space travel, and so forth, that the G-force would have made the occupants look worse than any bug, on any windshield.  Because we “know” that to be true, we dismissed it, as it could not have happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_O%27Hare_International_Airport_UFO_sighting

Because of our understanding of physics, using the Abacas and slide rules, that we have. We could not make sense of it; the incident was passed off, as “swamp gas, or a hoax.”

Even though there were several that saw it, all saying the same thing, it did not happen.

Well, my feeble brained friends, and those of you who are not so feeble, what if those in that disc-shaped object, pushed their magic lever, and found themselves outside of our space-time?

If you accept that not all of the UFO sightings are hoaxes, then we must look for other answers.

If they are not hoaxes, how did they get here?

“In Under Roswell, I write about a Point in Time modulator, which of course is something I made up, as a plot device.  Unlike the infamous Flux Capacitor, I try to dig into the science, of how this could happen, without using the proverbial slide rule.

What I would love NASA to do, is devise some test, that they could perform with this sun probe, to see if the time-space around the sun is different from what it is here on earth.

I am assuming that there will be telemetry from the device.  That data stream may change in baud rate or frequency, as it gets closer to the sun.

Most will want to blame the heat from the sun, but just possibly, someone will think about shifting their algorithm to match that of the data stream, to see that there might indeed be a time change.

If correct, the way that we perceive time and distance would change.  The distance to the stars would necessarily change.

What is the time zone like in the void between galaxies, where there is no mass to create warpage of the space-time?

If you like my way of thinking, you might enjoy:

• <

li>Under Roswell

 

 

• The Saga of the Starduster

 

 

 

• Ghost Signals from Colorado Springs

 
If someone with a string of letters after their name, resembling the alphabet, comes up with this theory, remember that you read it here first.

Much Love -TW

What if an Alien visited us tomorrow?

I am rather amazed to see actual real footage of UFO’s caught on military aircraft cameras released to the public.  This is from 2012.

More and more we are seeing actual footage of alien type anomalies reported and making the news.  Is Trump allowing the American people to actually see some of the truth about this subject to grasp how we react?  Was the 1947 Roswell crash true?  Are we being groomed to allow us to learn the truth or is it all lies and deception?

Will we ever know the truth about Area 51?

It is no secret that I am a huge science fiction fan.  It is also no secret that in many of my novels currently selling worldwide, I talk about the danger of being discovered by an alien interloper.

While Hollywood paints this picture of friendly aliens trying to phone home or aliens that are benevolent that want to come and assist us, I fear that the more accurate representation of aliens would be that of Independence Day!

Had someone asked me when Carl Sagan was sending a roadmap to the earth on a golden record out into space complete with our human anatomy on it, I might have dissuaded him.

I found it interesting the other day when Michio Kaku said we do not need to be meeting with any aliens.  He said it would be like an intellectual trying to talk with a squirrel.

I disagree “respectfully” with him, however.  I think it would be more like an intellectual trying to talk with a cockroach.

The significance is that they would think nothing of squashing a cockroach, and at least a squirrel has some redeeming qualities.

In The Saga of the Starduster, one of my latest novels, I humorously portray what an alien society might make of earth and its population.  While my point was on target, I try to always interject humor.

The absolute truth is that we are a people ruled by our emotions.  The society that abducts Don has decided to do away with feelings as they are unpredictable and can cause war.

Our petty squabbles on this planet are purposeless.  We go to war for what someone else has.  From Cain and Able to modern day, we go to war if not literally then certainly figuratively.  We get this case of the “by gods” and stop listening to anyone else’s point of view.

No, I fear that the visits, if they are indeed happening are trying to decide just how dangerous we are.  Should we be allowed to leave our planet?  They might be researching what our natural resources are before deciding what to do with us.

Currently, as we presently are, I would say we have no business greeting other races outside of the human race.  Can you imagine the bigotry that we have today on any difference what so ever pushed out into a population of aliens who can travel light years in hours?

Given technology to reach to the stars would be dangerous for advanced civilizations.

Some of the happiest, most well-adjusted people that I know, are people who have very damned little stuff or money.  They make do with what they have.  Family, friends, enough to eat and nobody messes with them, is what they want.

The better off people are it seems to me the more screwed up that they are.  Is that just my perception?

I once met a man in an elevator going to see his oncologist.  We were in a clinic in Houston, I was bringing things up to the doctor to sell him.  As we waited for the elevator the water from the recent rain shower, we both walked in from the parking lot, dripped off us.  There were puddles on the tile floor as we closed our umbrellas and tried to look as though we had just not left a sauna.  I was not thrilled with the weather and wished that I was not working that day. I was, in fact, sure that a warm bed with a purring feline and good book would have been a much better use of my time.

Man, was I wrong!

I asked him how he was, and he said… “Every day the good lord lets me wake up and suck air, is a good day!”

I never forgot that bit of wisdom from an old gray-black gentleman.  He was wearing a suit to see his doctor, and I was thrilled to meet him.  That meeting was the most important meeting of that day and probably that year.

We should all be like that!

I stopped complaining that day.  Changed my life.  I was there doing my job, and he was there to see how much life he had left.  He was happy and cheerful, even in Houston’s miserable hot rain.

In a way, I would like to try and live in an Amish community for a bit.    The more that I know about the world that we live in, the less content that I am. Without the smartphone reminding me every few moments about how evil Trump is, or why the Democrats are so great, just possibly I might think for myself.

Why Yahoo news has joined with the likes of Facebook and Google to cast dispersions on the president of the United States is beyond me.

“How can a people this advanced be this damned stupid!”

If you want to take over a country you take over the media.  Google, Facebook, and Yahoo are the media that most look at for their news.  Ninety-Seven percent of it is negative on Trump!  Even with American’s getting fatter paychecks they still trash Trump.  Why?

It would be ok if they were balanced but they are not. Every report on the president has a negative spin on it. Triggered much Google?

Stupid might not be the correct adjective.  Possibly we are just short-sighted. Our values seem to be turning upside down and for what reason?  Who is selling this pack of lies and why?

We can only hope that if we are being visited by aliens from another galaxy or solar system, that they are more intelligent and benevolent than we are.

From what we have seen of them “which is very limited” it would appear that they do not comport with our understanding of physics.   Flying at right angles at incredible speeds would not fit our understanding of physics.  They have apparently figured out how to manipulate time.

While it appears to us that they are moving at right angles at incredible speeds they are just cruising along in a “different time zone” if you will, and when they need to get away from us they just change the time variable.

Time as we understand it is incorrect. It is not a constant as most of the world believes.

In Under Roswell, I go into detail on Time as well as in Ghost Signals from Colorado Springs.  I believe in my Hole in Time series I talk about it as well.

I certainly talk about it in The Saga of the Starduster.  Check it out!

Thanks for the purchases of my novels.  Follow me here on this blog, or on Twitter and of course, check out my website and http://www.AuthorTWscott.com

Much Love  -TW

Is space the final frontier?

As a science fiction writer, I often wonder what space travel would look like for “normal” folks.

If you have ever been stuck at your house because of inclement weather for a few days what happens?  Cabin Fever. Not too many years ago we had snow here in Dallas that kept us all indoors for several days.  We don’t have chains here in the south, and we don’t have snow shovels or snow machines.

A snow storm here in Texas is usually a pleasant diversion from the ordinary.  Schools close at the first flurry, and people rush out to the stores to buy up supplies like they were going to be stuck for weeks on end. No, usually just a few hours to a few days tops.

Realizing that cabin fever is a reality for a few days, I have yet to travel to Australia, not because of money or lack of invitations but the sheer terror of being stuck on a plane for 20 hours! The only way I made it to Hawaii was to layover a few days in Vegas, catch Hawaiian air from there to Hawaii making that leg only six hours.  Did the same on the return trip where I visited the spa at the Hard Rock and fell asleep during the massage.

That was somewhat troublesome when you think about it, naked and asleep while some person is kneading your body and you have no idea if you enjoyed it or not! Or did they enjoy it….? No, let’s not go there….

So let’s take it to the next step.

How long does it take to get to Mars?

For argument’s sake let’s say a year.

A year without going to the mall.

A year without Facebook or any of the other trappings of life that you are used to.

A year of drinking processed urine… Yuck!

A year just to get to your destination and then what?

Why go to Mars, other than it is there?

It is not like you are going to go outside and catch some rays…

What if you get a toothache?

What if some other medical abnormality afflicts you?

Yes, they medically assess your body and rank you as far as your probability of having issues.

How many times have you heard of someone getting checked out by their cardiologist telling them that they are fine? Once they get checked out, they walk out the door and suffer a myocardial infarction?

Imagine you are so far from earth that messages take up to 15 minutes just to go one way?

That would make surfing the web really slow.

That would also eliminate the possibility of some surgeon on earth using something like the Da Vinci machine to remotely do surgery on you. Ruptured appendix, some accident you name it you must depend on a crewmate to do whatever it takes.  What if you are the doctor and you need the emergency procedure?

So, you get to Mars, and you have managed not to see REDRUM on some wall.

Wisely NASA has kept all the axes off the ship.

Why go to Mars?

It is a cold dead planet that has been sterilized by the lack of atmosphere and radiation. No matter what mineral you found the cost of getting it from Mars to the Earth would be prohibitive.

Mars is not the final frontier.  Getting to Mars and setting us some sort of colony would only be beneficial for what we would learn from it.

When situations arose, and we came up with workarounds to fix them as we have done in space travel before.  Yes, we went to the moon, another cold dead rock in space.

As a science fiction writer, I have time travel as a component of space travel.

The physics we have today that we think we understand are not complete.  Imagine taking the formula 2.1+2 and coming up with 4, not 4.1.

We are close, but we don’t have the point one or the point 000001.  There is a margin of error which is enormous.

We don’t understand time.  We think of it as linear, and it is not.

When you think outside the box, you realized that time is consistent with the zone that you are in.

Gravity warps space thus space-time.  The time around the sun is different than the time around the earth.  The time in this solar system is different than the time outside the solar system.  Outside the heliopause time is different.

NASA has a conundrum on their hands in that the Voyager spacecraft are decelerating. They are slowing down.

“How can that be?”

There are many theories.  The one they have settled on is based on a byproduct of the power supply on the craft.  They assume that the tiny (infinitesimal) amount of heat produced by the reaction of the power supply is acting like an ion engine pushing against the fabric of space.

OK, nice try but could it be that space-time where the craft is, may not be the same as it is here?

The space-time around a black hole is much different than it is here so it only makes sense that the further away from sources of gravity “warped space” that time would act differently.

Now if true, that means that the distance between galaxies and stars is different as we perceive it to be!

What if the constant speed of light is not constant at all but fluid depending on the medium through which it travels?

Time is the next frontier.  We need to understand the physics of gravity and time.

We mark time with our watch or a calendar which is punctuated by events, a series of linear events.  I would posit to you that time is not linear at all.  Dilation of time is provable, we need to take it to the next step.

If we assume that the recent reports of alien craft visiting this earth are accurate, and I am willing to believe that they are, then we must deal with the how and the why!

The craft over O hare shot up at an astounding rate, faster than a bullet.

The craft captured on the air force pilots camera took off at a similar rate.

If we stick to our stodgy understanding of physics, we just deny that it happened.  “That is not possible as the inhabitants would be flattened against the inside of the ship… F=M.A don’t you know…? What you say happened does not fit our model of physics, therefore, it did not happen…!  “But it did!”

In my latest novel and in Under Roswell I posit that time can be modulated or manipulated.  If our alien friends switched their craft to a different time constant for them, they would just be floating along having a beautiful day.  To us, they would shoot off like a bullet.  That is what we saw so ergo we must assume that they have figured it out.

Why can’t we figure it out?

The first part of the problem is we have to think outside the box!

If you like my reasoning, please take the time to read either of my books Under Roswell, Saga of the Starduster or Ghost Signals from Colorado Springs.

The ideas are mine, they are not borrowed from anyone.

The concepts belong to me and nobody else.

I can be reached through my website on the contact page www.authortwscott.com.

Follow me on twitter @authortwscott.com

Or here on WordPress!

The final thought for this blog is we must understand better, that which we take for granted, Time!

Much Love -TW