Never Enough

What does vacation mean to you?

For us, it’s waking up with the dog and then going back to sleep. It’s breakfast at Perkins, and muffins for the next three days. It’s drinking peach tea in the sunlight while reading a good book. It’s staying up until midnight to finish 50 waves of Horde on Gears 4. It’s driving to our alma mater for the day because we can. It’s caffeine at odd times of the day when your headache reminds you of your addiction. It’s sweet and lazy and glorious.

The best part of vacation for me, though, is when I’m writing. Writing is not easy, by the way. Rewriting is THE WORST. You have to decide what to keep and what to cut, and you have to believe that the new direction is better than the dross you wrote last time.

The worst part of vacation is time. It’s never long enough. I could take a year off, and it still wouldn’t be enough. I could spend my entire life creating new worlds and writing Happily Ever Afters, and it wouldn’t be enough.

This time, I’m going to do better during my regular workweek. I’m going to continue this rewrite every night until it’s finished, even if my forward progress is only one sentence. Then, I’m going to focus on the novel I promised myself I’d submit this year. It may not sell, but dammit, I’ll be satisfied enough to shop it. At least then I can work on something new!

Yes, I want more time so I can work on something new. A forced vacation on a beach somewhere with no means of writing would probably kill me. I would write in the sand, and then snap pictures before the tide rolled in. If I’m going to write anyway, I’d rather have a stay-cation with fast internet and air conditioning.