Battle Spent
Submissions open for Sidereal Times
Hey! What is your greatest achievement?
Whether it took a lifetime or a lifeline, I would be willing to bet it took more than a day.
The very idea of finally achieving a goal, at least to me, implies a certain amount of concerted effort over time.
One may even be inclined to call it a battle.
Sidereal Times
In that ever-soft manner that is my style, I announced the launch of Sidereal Times with no real plan—as one does.
What even is a side-real?
Well, for starters it’s not from English and doesn’t break down into those easily identifiable words. Instead we have to dig into 📜 LATIN 📜
So, it’s an adjective relating to stars and constellations. The most common use that I know of is in relation to describing the rotation of Earth—or more specifically a sidereal day.
A fancy word for a specific period of time (the passage of a day) in relation to the fixed position of the stars rather than our sun.
This doesn’t get us much closer to the writing contest, but hopefully it’s interesting enough to keep your attention and keep you reading.
We’ll get to how you can submit your stories soon!
In the diagram above, you can see how the day we think of as a day correlates to solar time and equals our familiar 24 hours.
However, our pathetic reality-bound physics are ever subject to inertia and entropy. The former being relevant here. The latter just being a curiosity I enjoy bringing up.
All that to say a solar day is more than a 360° rotation—our usual day is more than a 360° rotation.
To measure the mathematical oddity of a single rotation, we need a fixed position—exactly what we have with a sidereal day. In everyday use, however, time would end up slipping through night and day as rotations and hours quickly end up mismatched.
In fact, on a cosmic scale this is called diurnal motion and is yet another overly complicated word that describes our experience of the stars. All it really refers to is the apparent westward movement of the sky and those distant constellations in relation to Earth.
I enjoy this kind of shift in frameworks for something as intuitive as a day. Looking into these objects in the cosmos and finding the idea of 24 hours and 360° being mutually exclusive is fascinating to me.
We have no perfect way to describe the sum of our experience of light and dark on a rotating sphere.
We slip through space and time no matter how it is defined—a surrealism that matches my style.
A battle for meaning in how measurements are made.
The play on time and times then works rather well for a new publication.
Issue One
Now, to make everything more concrete, here are some guidelines:
Submissions are open until the end of June and are non-exclusive.
Write or record one page of content.
Double or single spaced.
Margins however you like.
Themed around the idea of a battle.
Send your writing to: siderealtimespublication@gmail.com
After submissions close, I’ll take a good two weeks to read over what you sent, and with a panel of fine judges, select three winners who will have their stories published in the inaugural edition.
Who are these judges?
Well, that’s a secret for now, but rest assured we will cover a wide breadth of taste that should lead to a more interesting final decision.
What is the prize?
Being featured in Sidereal Times.
I have no money to offer, but I will promote the winners and record videos of myself reading at least the final three.
That’s a non-committal way of saying 🌟 E X P O S U R E 🌟 but I don’t have the means or les moyens to do much more than that. I hope to create a celebration of self-expression more than a glorious paved path of good intentions.
Why should I submit?
If you are still asking yourself “what’s in it for me?” I’ll try stating it as plainly as possible:
Not much.
On the scales of prestige, Sidereal Times falls into the illegal open mic night category more than your traditional writing contest.
Waging War
If you’re still interested despite my limited enthusiasm and lacking motivational incentives, I look forward to reading what you have to write.
At the end of the month, turning this nascent idea into a successful Issue One will be nothing if not a battle-worthy achievement.
JMB