For this twenty minutes, I am forcing myself to take a break from my manuscript. I’m finding, as I’m spending more time on it now, that it is increasingly easy for me to get lost in that other world and lose all sense of time.

For example, when I settled down to work on it on this morning, I anticipated spending an hour or so on it before moving on to other projects. Um. I was shocked to look at the clock just now and find that I’d been writing for over two-and-a-half hours straight. It felt as though I’d only just sat down! Hence the title of this post: I had entered The Time Warp, that magical place writers visit when they are neither here nor there; when their bodies slump carelessly over notepads or laptops, seemingly lifeless but for the scritching of pencils or clicking of keyboards; when the words come on and on, heedless of the passage of time (or the increasing insistence of full bladders, which is what finally broke the spell for me. I think this may be why so many writers I know drink so much coffee while they work: it creates a biologically timed round trip of sorts, forcing you to return to the real world occasionally. This is just a theory, but a plausible one, I think).

The Time Warp doesn’t always happen for me. Sometimes the writing is a grueling chore, where I count every word and swear that I can actually hear my hair growing while I wait for inspiration, so when I do ‘warp’ away for a while, I am extremely excited and inspired about it. It usually means something good just happened in my book. I think it did this time–time will tell, right?

It’s time to go back now, at any rate: I’ve taken my little break from the manuscript, attended to a few biological imperatives, and refilled and nuked my next cup of coffee. I am ready for my return warp–I hope it didn’t leave without me. See you next trip.