Welcome back to Time Travel Wordcraft. By the time you read this, I will be in London in 1852. As I write this column, I wonder what my feelings will be regarding time travel—after Ada is gone. Right now, as I type these words, I can hear her in the next room tinkering in the time travel closet. I can already feel the emptiness I will experience at her passing. Yet, I keep my spirits up remembering that after her death I have important work to do. Ada has given me detailed instructions. I must dismantle Ada’s time travel closet and bring it back to my Time Travel Writing Lab using the time travel bracelet. As I outlined in last month’s column, that will mark the start of a new beginning, and a journey that will hopefully allow a new collaboration with Ada.
Enough of what will or may be. This month, I’m taking the time to focus on some of my favorite things about writing Time Travel Wordcraft for Time Travel Nexus. One of my favorite things is my tremendous gratitude! Specifically, the gratitude I feel when I look back over the past 24 months and reflect on the high honor I have enjoyed writing for Time Travel Nexus—finding an audience willing to venture into my Time Travel Writing Lab, ready for whatever time travel exploration and Wordcraft lesson I’ve crafted. I am graced, I am humbled, and I am eternally grateful.
This December’s column marks the end of my recurring monthly publishing schedule, but I have no plans to leave completely. I will do quarterly columns starting in 2020, with my first column of the new year coming out around the end of March. I’ll use that column to keep you apprised of my progress in London.
Over my 24-month tenure at Time Travel Nexus, I have had the opportunity to share many of my favorite things with you, and I’d like to revisit some of them again.
I’m going to start with the lessons. Most months, I try to give my readers something practical they can use in their writing craft. Often my instruction centered on writing time travel. Over the last 2 years we have dived deep into paradox on many occasions. But my favorite lesson was about writer’s block, and I think the information could be helpful to any writer experiencing the problem. This lesson appeared in my March 2018 column, Busting Up Writer’s Block. In it I laid out a few suggestions to break up writer’s block, but the best part of the column was the writing exercise. The following is an excerpt from the original column.
When I was a child, I had a fear of gravity—the loss of it, to be exact. I had this recurring dream where I was lying in my bed and I would notice the blanket ripple. Then, one corner of the blanket would begin to float. Soon, all of my bed covers would be floating, along with everything else in my room. I would call for my mother, but before she could hear me, I would see the ceiling breaking apart. Then, the roof of our home would come off and I’d see my mother along with all of our neighbors being gently pulled up into the bright morning sky. I’m terrified—and quickly come to the understanding that the laws of gravity have been broken. Then, just as quickly I come to the realization that at some point, we—everyone on earth—will drift out of earth’s atmosphere and die. I wake up screaming!
Why am I telling you about my childhood trauma? Because, I want you to think of fear.
Open your eyes, sit up and look to your left. You’ll notice I’ve placed a small mahogany table next to you—the same style of table where the bust of Dr. Cook is resting. On the table you’ll find a yellow legal-sized pad and a pen. Let’s begin the 10-Step writing exercise:
Step 1: At the top left corner of the legal pad, write a fear.
Step 2: At the top right corner of the legal pad, write a color.
Step 3: At the top center of the legal pad, draw a picture of either a star, the moon, or the sun.
Step 4: Write around 200 words about water. It can be anything involving water: rain, a lake, a flood, a glass of water. Doesn’t matter. Anything. Write approximately 200 words, then write the word STOP in all caps.
Step 5: Write around 200 words about fire. Any kind of fire. It could be a gas stove top, a campfire, making s’mores—anything with fire in it. Write approximately 200 words, then write the word STOP in all caps.
Step 6: Write around 200 words about dirt. How soil feels in your hands, or how it looks—its color, moisture content or its dryness. Again, write approximately 200 words, then write the word STOP in all caps.
Step 7: Write around 200 words about air. The smell, or the way it makes you feel. Write approximately 200 words, then write the word STOP in all caps.
Step 8: Now, lie back. Place the legal pad on your chest and put the pen on the legal pad.
Step 9: Take three deep breaths and clear your mind.
Step 10: Now, open your eyes. OH WAIT! Um…before you open your eyes, I want you to be prepared…. The pen that was resting on the legal pad is now floating about four inches off the surface of the pad. Sometimes gravity goes a little funny in the Time Travel Writing Lab. You know—because of my fear. Anyway, back to Step 10. Open your eyes! You can take the floating pen and put it on the table next to you. Once you touch the pen, gravity will re-engage. Sit up. Pull the legal pad up so you’re comfortable. Now, read the fear you wrote on the upper left of your page. Next, read the color you wrote on the upper right, then look at your drawing on the upper middle of your page. Now, slowly move your eyes across the page. Read the words you wrote about water until you hit the word STOP. Go back to the top of your page. Look at the fear, the color, and the image you drew. Then, go back to your text and pick up where you left off.
Once you have completed reading all you wrote—about water, fire, dirt and air—ask yourself if this little exercise has left you feeling more connected to your imagination. If your answer is yes—wonderful! But if your answer is no—then do one more thing. Close your eyes and ask yourself, why I am having a hard time connecting to my imagination?
Now, open your eyes and write down the first three things that come to mind. If you get more than three things that come to mind, write them all down.
I have used my column to feature many grand and extraordinary libraries. Out of all of them, there was only one that haunts me. It was the location of my September 2018 column, Breakthrough Storytelling. Here’s just a short excerpt about The Garden Library in the Neveh Sha’anan neighborhood in South Tel-Aviv.
As you can see, we’re once again in a library. Not a conventional one, but an important one. We’re in The Garden Library in the Neveh Sha’anan neighborhood in South Tel-Aviv. It’s an emotional library—by design—with books categorized by the readers’ emotional responses. Quoting the library’s ARTEAM member, Marit Benisrael, “The library is a small and parallel world: the books wander between the shelves as their readers wander the world, carrying with them their emotional history.”
I have used many YouTube clips in my column, and this next one is still my favorite.
I have so many wonderful people and things I’ve been able to include in my work with Time Travel Nexus: going back to the Titanic, seeing Slavoj Zizek in a Titanic lifeboat, Sponge Monkeys on the moon, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Gypsy Rose Lee, Woodstock and our visit to CERN. All wonderful, but of course for me my most favorite thing was having the digital presence of Kate Bush in several of my columns.
Curious as it may seem, many people have no interest in reading about writing time travel, the craft of writing, or the art of cultivating their imagination. But it was my good fortune to find this website that not only loves to publish time travel in any form but encourages its writers to write without bounds on their imagination. Once again, I’m so grateful to Time Travel Nexus, and specifically to our dedicated editor, Craig Richardson. And my hat’s off to all of my fellow writers at Time Travel Nexus. I would encourage you to visit each and every one of them, explore their perspectives, and challenge your imagination as they continue to challenge the bounds of time.
I will let you know via Twitter @julierodelli and Instagram @julierodelli when my next publication date will be.
Alright! Play me out, Kate…
Latest posts by Julie Rodelli (see all)
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i was thinking about kate bush + time travelling before i see this post wtffffff is happening