It's That Time

Another Year Rolling Past

Dear <<First Name>>,

What the heck, it’s almost Christmas?

You’d think it would be difficult for Christmas to sneak up on anyone, given that those awful earworms of holiday songs start invading every year just as soon as the Halloween decorations come down. I’m not stressed out over the holiday itself since I don’t really travel or celebrate it in a religious sense, but for me the holiday season indicates the close of yet another year, a year that has flown by at the speed of light.

I remember reading that something about our brain chemistry makes us perceive the passage of time differently as we age, and I’ve always found it to be incredibly true. When I was a kid, summer vacations stretched long, and school years even longer. Now it seems like every time I turn around it’s time to renew my license plate or sign my lease…again.

I went looking for the article so I could cite it, and found something else entirely, a post at Scientific American that theorizes time goes slower as we age because fewer memorable events occur to us as we age.

Hah, speak for yourself, Ms. Scientist Person. This year I did scads of memorable things!

I released the second novel in my Mnevermind Trilogy, Forget Me Not. Writing from Elijah's point of view felt undoable at times, but I watched lots and lots of videos, read lots of books, and somehow managed to pull it off.

This year also marked the first translations of my writing, starting with Parmi les vivants in French by Terry Milien, followed by Croix de chair and L’imnaginaire.

In the summer I put out another hard novel, Meatworks, a story that had taken a couple of years to finally finish, one that I worried was too dark for the majority of my readership to enjoy. What a rush to see how well-received it turned out to be.

I saw Bristol for the first time—a port city I normally associated with the old video game Uncharted Waters. It’s a lot bigger in person! I visited Seattle for the first time too, where I had my first experience of Dim Sum.

When I returned from my travels I followed up with another foreign language release, this time in German, with Feliz Faber’s translation Unter den Lebenden.  I shot my first assault rifle at the Madison Citizen's Police Academy, and I stuck my hand in liquid nitrogen for the first time at a UW science lab.

But this year’s biggest first was hearing Victor Bayne brought to life by the hilarious, sexy and engaging actor, Gomez Pugh. The PsyCop audiobooks are at the front of my mind today for a few reasons. They’re stunningly well-done, so I’m beyond proud of the acting and the production value. We’re currently working on Body & Soul, so the first listen-through of the performance is fresh in my mind. And I’ve arranged for a huge gift for all my dear PsyCop readers: a free audio of the PsyCop flash fic, Thaw.

So given all I’ve had going on this year, the theory that I don’t have enough memorable events to mark the passage of time? I don’t buy it! But those science types may be on to something with the theory that time is whipping past because I don’t have enough time to do all the things I want to do. How can you, with so much to read and think about and see and do?

Enjoy the holidays however you celebrate them, be safe, and help yourself to this PsyCop gift with my heartfelt love and gratitude.

Love,

Jordan