A Writing Vacation.

No, not a vacation from writing, because that would be silly.  I'd have to actually have writing as my paying job to take a vacation from it, and even then, I don't know that I'd want to.  Gods know I'd still be coming up with new ideas whether I was trying to be on vacation or not.

Years ago, my work had this weird vacation time schedule.  The calendar for vacation time went from July to June, so you had to use up all your vacation time for that twelve-month period by the end of June, or you'd lose it all.  Lots of people took vacations in June, which should surprise no one.  But I ended up taking a few writing vacations, usually in March or April, since I had to use up the time.

I'd love to say something incredible came from those writing vacations, but the only thing of significance that happened was a story I tried so hard to tell and couldn't make work in three different versions I wrote across three years.  At least it had a cool title.

I'm thinking about doing this again at the end of this month.  I get nearly a month of vacation time every year, and with DragonCon in August and family time at Christmas the only time off I have planned for the year, that leaves me with a week to spare.  Of the two books I want to write this year, one is pretty much ready, the other nearly so.

Now, I know I blogged before about not wanting to start a book before I moved.  While I'm still trying to find a job in Seattle, I've come to accept the blunt-force-trauma-esque truth that getting a new job will take longer than I hoped.  I've always been an optimist, and I tend to think things will be much easier and take less time than they actually do.  (Don't knock it, it's this bullheaded optimism that's kept me trying to get published.)  So, in an effort to not let a huge chunk of the year pass me by while I'm being hopeful, I've decided to start a new book soon.

And go figure - while I was writing that last paragraph, my computer started playing a song about going on a journey.  That's what I get for naming this machine GLaDOS: a wonderful sense of ironic timing.

It's funny.  Now that I've actually written it down, I'm starting to look forward to this.  I'll be able to do a lot more writing on a vacation than I would otherwise; being able to do morning and evening shifts could get me as much as ten pages a day, if all goes well.  Being able to sleep in and stay up late will help too.  And there will be a lot of time to read and play video games, which is just good in general.  ^_^

So now, all that stands between me and the next book is getting the time off from work.  And preparing good writing food.  And polishing up both plots in case the first one crashes and burns and I have to start the second one in order to not waste the week.  And paralyzing insecurities.

And I need a title that doesn't spoil the whole damn story.