Friday, July 9, 2010

Technology: Stopping Time and Bodily Functions

As you write, does time stop? And when your kids play video games, do they forget to eat and go to the bathroom?

When I become immersed in writing, the world stands still and I lose all track of time. I'll tell myself I just want to revise one little paragraph, and it'll take 15 minutes. Next thing I know, an hour has passed--even though it only seemed like 15 minutes! Needless to say, I went beyond that one paragraph. And like my kids, I forget all about food while sitting with my laptop. Nice benefit! But the laptop is a further time drain when the writing's done for the day and I want to surf the Internet.

After my children have played video games for an extended period of time, and I force them to leave the "crack" alone, they're suddenly starved, not to mention in need of relieving themselves to the point of dancing.

On days my boys aren't allowed to play their games, they always beg for a fix. When I say they're addicted, they readily agree. Not long ago my kids told me that some poor guy was found dead by his computer. For days on end he'd played video games and forgotten to eat anything. I laughed. But they said, "We're serious!" To which I said, "See why you shouldn't play video games all the time, you could die!" I seriously doubt the episode happened, but maybe the story will motivate my kids to play less!

I don't know what can make me keep track of time when I write or surf the Net!

Does your computer make time stop for you?

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1 comment:

PK HREZO said...

Me too, Maria! I'm always surprise at how quickly time passes when I'm writing/editing. I'll look up at the clock and suddenly 3 hours have passed. It's very rare I get that long tho. Between my day job and kids, I'm lucky if I get an hour a day. Usually, I wake up at 4 or 5 am just to have some free writing time.... and before I know it, the sun is coming up (and so are my kids.)