One of the biggest challenges writers seem to face is finding the time to write. If you don’t have the privilege of writing for a living, one must contend with a day job, spouses, kids, pets, or any number of things higher on the priority list than putting word to paper. This month held an extra challenge for me in that I dared to take a vacation. Oh the horror! The blog deadline! The explosion of submissions for critiquing! The book study! Blog editing! Would I ever be able to keep up? The answer, in a word: no.
On the first day of vacation, I let my Twitter followers know that I would try to answer the question: Will a writer write while on vacation? After that, I kept them updated with daily statuses on how things were going telling them each time to ‘Stay tuned.’ Did I write anything? Yes, on the third day I penned a paragraph while sitting on the beach. Yea! On the fifth day I caught up with email, sent out some tweets, and wondered if that counted as writing.
In the end, my writing mind rode the vacation trail and did not create a blog post or anything more than that paragraph on the beach. As I read that sentence, I realize I’m falling into a trap many writers set up for themselves which is to think you are only succeeding if you achieve some arbitrary amount of specific work. The truth is that I did compose something. I also thought about what I might write which is an important part of the process. So, despite being on vacation, I produced this piece on my first day back.
It is, however, two days late to my editor. Will she forgive me and find a way to help me polish it in time for posting on the 24th? Will Part 2 offer interesting and helpful insight on suspense?
Stay tuned…
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Nice slice of life story, Sue. I enjoyed it.
Thank you, Claire.
Sue, I love knowing that I’m not alone in struggling to turn thoughts away from writing. There’s inspiration around us all the time! I’m glad you were able to keep things to a minimum while you were vacationing. Rest is good for us.
We all need time to take it easy and decompress. It helps us keep things fresh.
Better late than never. Good for you. For me, vacation writing seemed so much easier said than done. While visiting family recently, I felt guilty sneaking off to work on my writing. So I focused on family friendly activities and tried to write at night. Exhaustion set in, so my output was limited. Now it’s time to catch up.
Hey, even limited output is still output!