How to make time stop!
I’ve heard published authors say we ought to enjoy the time of writing our first unpublished works as we have no pressure of time on us (only our own pressure) - because the moment you are published, you will have deadlines for the next novel (and the next).
The modern world is governed by time: the chronos, tick tock of time, where productivity is timestamped and every post we write is tracked. The act of writing invites a different type of time, kairos: a slow, deep time, where meaning, not metrics, is what matters.So for writers, chronos is indeed a factor.
But let’s consider for a moment that our writing is not actually done in tick, tick time - it’s done in the slow, deep time of meaning, and sometimes that can be challenging to enter. Kairos.
I’ve felt the slowing of time or the quickening of time when I’m writing. If stuck, the hours and days will go slowly while I work out what to do, but they’ll also feel fast, as if I’m running out of time to “sort” my story.
Other times, I will fly through the chapters and time will seem to stop while I do so.
I wonder if there is a trick to harnessing the best of both worlds?
And how do we harness that in the first place?
There are places where time seems to stand still. I experienced this often - by the shore, or in the forest, or listening to the flow of a river. Things that seem to remain unchanged despite the passage of time, but of course they have changed. There’s river and beach erosion and protection that’s needed for natural forests.
How can we enter this kairos then if we are stuck at home or live an ever-busy life?
TIME TRAVEL IN SCOTLAND
One of my most recent acceptances is a story set in the late 1950s in my home-town, Kirkcaldy in the Kingdom of Fife, Scotland, where I was able to languish in a time when my town was very prosperous with factories, cinemas, and music theatres, a clothing firm and a fledgling NHS hospital. Yes, we do call it the “Kingdom” as we are an ancient, historical town!
Photo by Jackie Morrison: Kirk Wynd in Kirkcaldy, Fife
I was lost for hours whilst I wrote that story, weaving together fact and fiction. Lost in time.
Mr.M caught sight of me while I was writing and murmured “She’s at it again.” He spots when I’m in “flow mode”, that when I’m in the moment, I don’t hear him speak.
In the silent space of writing, I felt time ripple backwards, returning to my gran’s kitchen in a long-ago street, the smell of mince and tatties, linoleum, and the sounds from the radio. It wasn’t nostalgia because those were not my times. It was as if I floated through a crack in time, anchoring there in time, and I wrote.
Virginia Woolf called this the “moment of being”.
I wonder if all writers in some way are time travellers?
Yes, dear writer friend, you can play with time.
SETTING THE TIME TRAVEL DEVICE
You’ve seen it in movies, read it in books: the hero uses a “thing” to travel through time: a car (Back To The Future), standing stones (Outlander), a tardis (Dr.Who).
What if, as a writer, you could propel yourself in and out of time….or simply sit in time in the deep time that enables words to flow?
Oftentimes, this simply happens to me because I remember a smell, or a place, or hear a piece of music - something propels me and sets me off to explore, and I produce a piece.
What if we can set the scene to help this happen? What if we could flick a switch in our brain, set a cue to help us get there?
YOUR PERSONAL WRITING RITUAL
Before we go into what that might be, let’s consider for a moment why it might work.
In Atomic Habits, James Clear calls this kind of intention setting a cognitive cue: the cue-routine-reward loop eg like brushing your teeth signals bedtime.
We can try that too with writer routines or writing rituals.
I’m sure you’ve read about writers who do this. There is a lot of information out there about the routines of famous authors - I won’t replicate that here!
I must admit I am a fan of rituals in the dark months of autumn and winter where I will light a fire (or a virtual one on the PC), play some mood music and sink into the writing feeling. I find that harder to do in summer, so need a new summer routine. If you have any summer routines that might help, do share!
Setting the scene for writing helps bridge the gap between our busy daily lives and our creative space.
This may be something as simple as cradling a cup of tea or coffee in your hands, the lighting of a candle, the opening of a document, settling into your comfortable chair, or sitting in the shade of your favourite tree. Anything that signals to our brain that now is the time to sink into creativeness - or at the very least, invite it in!
They may seem small things, but they are powerful signals to cross the threshold into a different kind of time. Especially if you repeat it. Time after time. Deep time. Kairos.
When we’re writing in the times in between, we may not have time (or the place) to perform such a slow ritual. For example, I’ve written in an airport lounge during a flight delay. If we can’t do something physical like lighting a candle, we can take our mind to a specific place in our story and use our senses to trick us into sitting with it for a while. Take yourself to your intended story setting and think of one thing from each of your senses. You may soon find yourself in deep time.
THIS WEEK - TIME
When I was travelling this last week, a young bird sat down outside the motorhome, no doubt awaiting crumbs. As I sipped my morning coffee, we observed each other and the bird wouldn’t leave until I did. It reminded me of an encounter I had after my mum died when a robin sat on a gate post and tweeted to me, as if in deep conversation, and would not leave. Next time, I’ll whisper “I love you too.”
It was such a lovely encounter and time stood still for a few moments – in that I mean time seemed to go on much longer than if you’d counted how many seconds the interaction lasted for. See, I’m telling you about it now, so of course it has lasted for much longer than mere seconds, because now it is in your timeline too!
A STORY ABOUT BIRDS TRAVELLING
A huge irruption of waxwings brought people from far and wide to my area, the Kingdom of Fife.
Bird-watchers descended to an area outside my house - many of them had never seen a waxwing before. The first waxwings of winter are often seen in October in the north east of the UK after departing their own country to seek suitable food. I wrote a story featuring that irruption of birds and it will appear in the People’s Friend later in the year. It was simply a moment in time that I revisited and wrote about. For a while, during Spring (when I wrote the story), I was transported to late Autumn.
Those moments where time stood still, will stretch out to reach readers and take their space in readers time as they sit with a cuppa to read.
I’d almost forgotten about those tiny, little encounters that made time stretch. They are in my past and the memory in my present - and now the experience has stretched time as they are in your timeline and in your thoughts now too.
Isn’t escaping into kairos simply escaping reality? Why, yes. But that’s still important if it enables the creative to produce something. Imagination isn’t frivolous, it can be essential when headlines close in and life becomes all too real.
How often have you heard someone say that writing is their escape, or that reading is? Writing isn’t an act of escape per se, it is an act of returning to ourselves and sharing it with others. And that might be just what the reader needs. Frivolous or not.
So, in this world that pushes a reaction to chronos via our timelines, demanding our lives are time stamped over and over, will you spend time this week in kairos - float as time stands still, fall through the crack of time and write your heart out?
As always, love and best wishes from Jackie in the Little Writing Corner in Scotland x x
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Notes:
Chronos and Kairos are terms from ancient Greek later explored by Christian theologians and popularised then for writers by Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water. She describes kairos as “real time. God’s time.” She explored the connection between faith, art and human experience. She suggests that creating art, like walking on water, requires a leap of faith and a willingness to step outside of one’s comfort zone. It has been written about in many ways by many philosophers and writers.
James Clear, Atomic Habits:
The RSPB and Waxwings:
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