The Time Is Fast Upon Us

        Have you ever thought about how much time you spend thinking about time?   When we're not planning what to do with our time in the future, we are often either pondering what we are doing with our time in the present or ruing about time lost in the past.  The subject of time can be a time consuming paradox. 

STS-133 Discovery rollout (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  The Final Countdown      

      I doubt whether there is anyone who now lives or who has ever lived who has not at some point or another marveled about how quickly time has passed.  That is, anyone who has grasped the concept of time.  When we are small children, before we've learned to tell time for ourselves, we will continually pester our parents with inquiries like "Is it time yet?"   Those special days like Christmas or birthdays will have what seems to be an interminable countdown until they are suddenly here and gone leaving us to look forward to our next big life event.   And so goes our lives.

      And once again for those of us doing the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge begins that final countdown until day one--April 1st, 2017.  This will be the eighth year of the April A to Z event with thousands of bloggers having participated with tens of thousands of A to Z blog posts.  This is rather impressive when you think about it and even more impressive when you consider the amount of time we have individually put into our A to Z posts over the years, not only in the writing of our own posts, but in the reading of many other posts by the bloggers who have participated in past events.

        The first year that I did the A to Z Challenge--it was 2010 with less than 100 bloggers--I figured that I was putting in twelve to fifteen hours per day with blogging.  But that was how I got other bloggers involved and kept still more engaged.  My A to Z time investment that first year paid off big considering the huge numbers who signed up in succeeding years.  Since that first year I've had to cut back on my blogging time, but still I continue to make a sizable investment of time with the Challenge.   Maybe it's crazy, but it's a fun sort of crazy I guess.

        So here we are with just a few more days to go before another A to Z Challenge kicks off.  The time is fast upon us it seems, but then it's somewhat of an illusion.  The pacing of time will be the same as always, but factors of our lives may cause us to feel like the time is going faster.  If you've procrastinated in preparing your posts like I have then you are likely feeling the pressure to get this done.  Where I am in my A to Z preparation is my own fault because I changed my theme with a matter of a few weeks to go. But then that's what makes A to Z a Challenge!

        The time until April 1st is shorter today than it was yesterday or last week, but the time is not going any faster.  The time might seem "fast" upon us, but that's only because there are fewer days.  More properly we should say "The time is short upon us" but that sounds silly I suppose.  The days and hours are closing in as we approach A to Z opening day, but time itself moves indifferently onward.

          If you're participating in the April A to Z, do you have all of your posts finished?   How much time do you normally devote to your blogging activity?    Do you spend more time blogging while preparing for and during the month of April than you do at other times?

          In addition to the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, on the 1st and 15th I'll also be participating in the Battle of the Bands which I will combine with my "Time" theme.   If you are interested in joining us in Battle of the Bands (we'd love to have more participants!) then please read about it at the blog of Stephen T McCarthy and let him or me know that you want to join us so we can add your link to the list.  

        Also, my April contribution to the Insecure Writer's Support Group will incorporate a time related theme.  The optional question for #IWSG during April will be related to the A to Z Challenge and reads as follows: 

  Have you taken advantage of the annual A to Z Challenge in terms of marketing, networking, publicity for your book? What were the results? 

  Since I don't have a personal answer for that question I'll be pursuing my own topic, but if this relates to any of you, I'm anxious to hear your answers.