Vacation Suspense – Part 1

Blog 13 01

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…

6 comments

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    • Claire Murray on November 26, 2014 at 10:02 pm
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    Nice slice of life story, Sue. I enjoyed it.

      • Sue Remisiewicz on November 30, 2014 at 3:58 pm
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      Thank you, Claire.

    • Kelly Bixby on November 20, 2014 at 12:14 pm
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    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.

      • Sue Remisiewicz on November 22, 2014 at 5:33 pm
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      We all need time to take it easy and decompress. It helps us keep things fresh.

    • Book Lover on November 15, 2014 at 11:28 pm
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    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.

      • Sue Remisiewicz on November 16, 2014 at 5:12 pm
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      Hey, even limited output is still output!

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