Time marches on

Paul Baines | @ICFWriters

Time is a curious thing. It exists. We can measure it and we are aware of its presence. Yet we cannot touch it. We cannot hold it in our hands or store it in jars. It may appear to travel at different speeds and, according to the theory of Relativity, it actually does, but we cannot stop its relentless march onward.

It is now well into 2018. I remember in 1978 as a ten-year-old reading about the year 2000 and being astonished. I tried to imagine so far into the future. I tried to picture being so incredibly old.

Someone once said that we do not conceptualize about space and time. Rather we conceptualize within space and time. Trying to imagine no space or no time is impossible for us because we were designed to exist within it. So you could say that we are prisoners of time. There is no escaping it. The clock is always ticking. In 1978 I could not imagine living to 2000, and yet it came and went just as 2017 did.

As a sci-fi writer I enjoy playing with time. While I believe time-travel is impossible, it can be used to great effect to tell stories. Who of us hasn't wished we could turn back the clock and do things differently? This past year has been a painful reminder for me that things done cannot be undone. If time-travel were possible I would be the first to sign up, even if it was just for a few seconds so that I could tell my wife that I love her one last time.

As a Christian, I often wonder about when Jesus will return. He lived and died 2000 years ago. At the time the New Testament was written, His return was seen as imminent. You can almost feel the anticipation within the pages. In the lead up to 2000, prophecies of Jesus' return sprang up like mushrooms. I remember watching Gloria Copeland discuss starting a new teaching series--if they "had time". That was in 1997 and all those prophecies were proven wrong.

Last week I heard a Christian speaker talking about Isaiah and his prophecies of the Messiah. I have always known that Isaiah foretold the coming of Jesus, but something the speaker said struck me straight between the eyes. I had heard it before but it never sank in. Isaiah's prophecies of the Messiah were made 700 years before the events actually took place.

Think about that for a moment. It would be like someone in the Middle Ages predicting events of today. Or somebody 150 years before Columbus discovered America prophecying that Donald Trump would be president of a country that would not come into being for another century and a half.

In 2 Peter 3:8 it says "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."

I find great comfort in this scripture because it show that, in God's calendar, 700 years is only a brief period of time and 2000 is not much longer. Jesus may return today or it may be in another 2000 years. Only God knows. All I know is, I want to be ready.

Sometimes life gets in the way

About two years ago I had these ambitious writing plans. I had just finished my first secular novel, had a Christian novel with a publisher preparing for print, was getting another ready for submission, and had finished four chapters of my next story in the Alpha series. More projects were forming an orderly queue behind them, jostling for attention.

Then, something happened. Actually, a few things happened. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that my head was spinning so fast I had neither the energy nor desire to work on any of these projects. The only thing that did go anywhere was the secular novel. This made the final step to print but with absolutely zero marketing it may as well be sitting on my spare hard drive at home.

It has taken what feels like forever but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and am slowly working towards it. I am not in the clear yet and the anxiety of what may happen means I get precious little sleep, but I can now imagine a time when I will have the desire and energy to start putting pen to paper. Contributing to this blog is part of that.

In the meantime, as a way of keeping the creative juices flowing, I started a little webcomic featuring conversations between a programmer and the Artificial Intelligence he created, loosely based on Brett and Jay from Alpha Redemption. The artwork is very basic, initially taking an hour or two to create using Serif Drawplus (great for simple projects) while the comic itself takes about five minutes to prepare each evening. I think of some dialogue during the day and jot it down. Then, when I get home, I add it to my comic and publish it.

You know what's the surprising thing? For almost two decades I slogged away at a keyboard in an attempt to produce good quality fiction, doing courses and reading everything I could lay my hands on about how to create attractive prose. I spent countless hours sending out manuscripts, and reading the rejection letters. In 2010 I finally made it to print and have enjoyed a modest level of success. Then, something unexpected happened. During one of the most stressful periods of my life, a daft little comic that takes almost no effort to produce gets more readers each week than all of my novels put together. Last time I checked I was getting almost 2,500 views a month.

I can only scratch my head in amazement and wonder if perhaps God isn't trying to tell me something.

Anyway, it's good to be back and I look forward to chatting with you all again.

Why I Don't Read Much in My Genre

I was reviewing my 2013 reading list the other day and it struck me how few science-fiction titles are on that list. Not so odd, you may think, except that science-fiction is my chosen genre. My very first story was sci-fi and so too was my debut novel, Alpha Redemption, as are my two upcoming releases. So why don't I read more sci-fi? Surely it makes sense to read within your genre to improve your own writing? Well, yes and no.

Back in the day, when I had a full head of a hair and a readily-identifiable body shape, I worked in the fitness industry. One thing I discovered was something called cross-training. The idea is to do more than focus only on those muscles you use for your particular sport, but to supplement this with other activities. There was a time when professional athletes followed a simple training regime. Tennis players practiced tennis. Golfers played gold. Swimmers swam. Today, the benefits of cross training are common knowledge. Tennis players use weights to improve their power and they hit the running track to increase stamina. Even golfers can be found doing things other than golf. It is no longer enough to just focus your energy on one activity. To improve your game you have to supplement your training with activities not quickly associated with your sport.

In 2013 I read twenty three books, of which only two were science-fiction. The reason for this is that, while I love the genre, I so often find the writing to be lacking soul. When I pick up a piece of science-fiction I pretty much know what to expect. As a rule, writers of sci-fi have a lot to say about worlds filled with exotic technology but seem unwilling or unable to populate those worlds with believable characters. Many of these stories are best-sellers, so people must like them. For me, however, I need a main character I can care about. Last year I ended a book by a best selling author and could only wonder what people were raving about. You know something is wrong if the main characters are in dire peril and you don't care, simply because the author has not taken the time let you get to know them.

Whatever you may think of Star Wars, there is a good reason why it was (and still is) so popular. The stories may be set in fantastic worlds filled with interesting technologies. It may have flying cars and light sabers. There may be droids and laser guns and weapons the size of small planets. These, however, merely enhance the experience. What makes the stories so compelling is that they are, at their heart, about a boy trying to discover who he is and where he came from.

Writers of science-fiction can learn a lot by studying Star Wars. I'm not talking about all the whizz-bang technology, but the human element. Another good series is Firefly. Why it only ran for one season is a mystery to me because it has more soul than just about anything out there, in any genre. Perhaps there was not enough whizz-bang technology to keep the mainstream sci-fi buffs happy, I don't know.

All I know is that, as long as sci-fi continues to produce writers who care more about technology than they do about people, I will be looking elsewhere for my inspiration. I will do what modern sportsmen do and employ some cross-training. I believe this can only improve my game and make my writing stronger.

The Reason I Don't Read Much Modern Sci-fi

There must be something seriously wrong with me. Last week I was listening to an audio-book version of a modern sci-fi novel and there was this scene in which a baby was sucked out of a ship into outer space. I laughed. I know, it's terrible, but I actually laughed out loud.

Before you condemn me, perhaps it will help if I explain.

I chose this particular audiobook because it was published by Penguin and it had enough good reviews for me to take a chance. The author has written a number of books and is regarded quite highly. I have to admit that the book did have its strong points. The science was interesting (albeit over my head at times) and the plot kept me intrigued.

There were, however, three problems.

The first was that there was an almost total lack of character development. I've noticed this as something of a feature in the "hard" sci-fi stories I've tried recently. When it comes to a plot in which the characters are essentially facing a live-or-die scenario, you should at least care whether or not they live or die. Sadly, in this last book, I honestly felt as though the people were just names. I didn't care for them one jot.

The second problem was that the story felt a little like an instruction manual. It was basically all tell and no show. At the half way point I realized that I couldn't remember hearing a single metaphor or simile. I spent the second half of the book listening out for them, but can tell you that I didn't hear one. Perhaps they were there, but I didn't hear any. I can tell you exactly where the action took place, but I couldn't tell you what any of those places looked like, because the author made no attempt to show me these places. He told me about them, but he didn't show them to me.

The final problem has to do with babies, which leads me to my opening statement. When it comes to creating tension, the author seems to have only one literary device at his disposal: infants in peril. Dotted throughout the book are babies lying in craters, babies being thrown, babies crying, babies, babies, babies. I thought perhaps it was just me, but I checked some of the few negative reviews and, sure enough, others were saying exactly the same thing. The author seems to have a problem with babies. At least in this book he does.

So when I came to the part where a hole opens in the hull of the ship, and someone inside looks out of the window into the vaccuum of space, and sees "a baby" floating by, I couldn't help myself. What little  tension had been built up during the scene cracked. I laughed.

I finished the book, realizing that the best line in the whole story was actually the very last one. Now if only the author had written the other 400 pages like that, I would have been a happy reader.

I recently started and abandoned a new sci-fi book. Popular author. Interesting premise. Good reviews. Forty pages in and I was bored. I'd heard so many names I didn't know who was who and I honestly didn't care anymore. At least the author was trying to show me the environment a little bit, but it was too little too late. All I started hearing was names, names, names... I stopped reading for fear that a baby might get into peril at some point and I'd laugh and feel like a terrible person.

At least now I know why I don't read much modern secular sci-fi. I am currently reading "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury first published in 1951, and loving it. It's sci-fi, but the main character (Montag) has soul and I care what happens to him. Prior to that I read "The Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula K. Le Guin published in 1971. Again, I really cared about the characters.

Perhaps I've been unlucky in my choices, but it worries me that I have to read books published half a century ago to get sci-fi stories with decent character development.

Is it just me? Am I unlucky? Or has anyone else noticed this?