Time Keeps Slipping Into the Future

I'm losing time again.

The other day, one of my aikido practice partners called to make certain I was coming to the dojo. I told him yes, that I was on campus, but I planned to leave there at 7:00.

"If you're leaving at 7:00," he told me, "you're late."

"Practice doesn't start until 8:00 tonight," I said. Sometimes, it starts at 7:30. I thought he might have his nights mixed up.

"If you're leaving at 7:00," he said again, "you're late."

He put more emphasis on what he was saying this time. He spoke slowly. Was insistent. I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. Under the worst conditions, driving from the university to the dojo doesn't take more than a half hour. Leaving at 7:00 gave me plenty of time to pack up my stuff, baby step shuffle across the icy sidewalks to my car, and still arrive at the dojo well before practice began.

I glanced at the clock on my computer. It said 7:03. How did that happen? The last time I checked the time, no more than a minute before the phone rang, it had said 6:42.

But I wasn't surprised. A little exasperated with myself, but not surprised. This always happens when I'm focused fully on a big project. The rest of the world, the outside stimulus that lets me know time is passing around me, disappears. One moment, it's midnight and I find myself thinking, I'll just finish this page, this scene, this chapter, this whatever, and I'll go to bed. The next moment, the sun is starting to come up over the horizon, the one more thing that I was going to finish is long since completed and I'm well past the point where I had said I was going to lay everything aside for the evening.

I have a love-hate relationship with this phenomenon. I hate losing track of my surroundings. I hate that I can't keep track of time, a relatively simple task that so many individuals seem to do effortlessly. I love the cocooned feeling I get when a project takes on a life of its own and I'm so absorbed by it I can see the individual components and how they flow and fit together, what works and what doesn't. I love when literature becomes more than words, when it becomes real, tangible. I love when I'm part of making that happen. I love my work.

The latest big project to capture my attention so completely is The Alchemist Review. It must go to the printer by the end of the month. Or so my assistant editor tells me. The actual drop dead date is in early March. My assistant editor knows what it is, but he won't tell me. I think it's his defense mechanism against my lack of time sense. He's a very good assistant editor. Next year, he'll be a very good editor.

Right now, we're in the middle of making the final selections. I'm absorbed by the selections that have made it this far. Reading them. Critiquing them. Corresponding with the writers. Looking at them in terms of the space we have available and how they flow together. Trying to find artwork that complements them. Convincing myself that a few of the submissions, no matter how well written they are and how much I like them, are going to have to be rejected because they don't work with the theme that is developing for this year's journal. They just don't complement the other pieces that I'm publishing.

I’m equally absorbed figuring out all of the details we need to include in The Alchemist Review's design. My assistant editor and I have been tasked with taking it to the next level. The Alchemist Review has been around for about thirty years. It's a very small journal with a limited circulation. In year's past -- I don't know if it's always been this way, but it's been this way for awhile -- the editor from the current year had had no connection with the editor from the past year. There was no continuity. Each year, the editor had to relearn what needed to be done and they did the journal the way they felt it should be completed, as an independent, standalone volume, rather than as something with a legacy.

This year, that changes. This year, I'm the editor. Next year, my assistant editor will be editor. The year after that, his assistant editor will be editor. Each one learning and growing from their predecessor. So, the design elements are important. The look and feel of The Alchemist Review is important. These are decisions that will impact The Alchemist Review for years to come, because they're going to have to remain largely consistent from this point forward.

I'm very pleased to be a part of that, to be able to make that impact and leave that statement behind.

The other great part about working on The Alchemist Review is how many new writers I get to work with. I've discovered that I really do enjoy teaching craft to people, helping them grow and learn how to write. Since The Alchemist Review is a small journal, most of the individuals submitting are first-time writers. This is the first time they have submitted anything, the first time they have received feedback from an outside source. It's been both an enlightening and a heartwarming experience.

In other, personal writing-related news, I've received three rejections on my first novel, Long Way From Tomorrow. One was a form rejection in response to my query. Two were based on partials, one from JABberwocky and one from the Nelson Literary Agency. I've also received rejections on two poems and two short stories. One of the short stories has been temporarily trunked. It's a seasonal piece and its window of opportunity has expired for the moment. It gets favorable rejections, though, so I'll start submitting it again later in the year. I also have been following up on some outstanding submissions. I have a few more I need to check on. I also need to talk to my advisor about my thesis, work on it, and write and submit a few non-fiction articles that have been pending in my head for far too long.

What about you? What's going on in your world?