"I'm a writer and I don't take vacations."
Diana Pharaoh Francis is among my favourite fantasy authors. Her Crosspointe series got me back into epic fantasy reading after rage quitting the genre. True story.
Hello. I'm a writer and I don't take vacations. Ever.
Isn't that pathetic? And it's not entirely true. I mean, every year I go camping on the Oregon coast and I love it. I also manage to sneak away here and there with the family. But the truth is, I don't really ever leave the job. That's because a writer is all about the experience and observations. Graham Greene said that every writer has to have a splinter of ice in their hearts. What he meant was that in even the most emotional, difficult situations, in the back of their minds, writers are taking notes.
Oh! So this is what that's like! How it feels or smells or looks or happens . . . We take notes. Even on vacations. Hell, especially on vacations because we go places and see things we might have never seen and done before and we are going to stuff those details into the vault of our creativity and use them.
Which means that vacations are ultra important. We need them to add to the creative well. But it goes beyond that.
Writers have a bad habit of writing all the time. Oh, sure, some are great about taking weekends off or even putting aside the writing for a couple of weeks and declaring a holiday. But sadly most of us have day jobs and have to fit the writing in around them, and even if we didn't, we get totally absorbed in the writing and can't force ourselves to leave the book.
But we have to. Like everyone else, we need to de-stress and relax and enjoy life. More than that, we need to remember that there is a life to be led beyond writing. It's really hard, sometimes. Especially since most writers write because it's a joy and why would you want to step away from the joy?
We're workaholics. Really. Ask me how many hours I put into my writing just yesterday. Go ahead . . . The answer? Between 10 and 12. And that didn't feel at all out of proportion to normal. Maybe I'm sick. Maybe I need a vacation.
Want to know where I dream of going? Belize. And Costa Rica. And Machu Pichu. Those are the three places I really want to go. I need to save up. I'm dreadfully afraid of heights but I want to do a zipline through a jungle. I want to learn to scuba dive, and even thought I've only been once, I love to snorkle. I also want to go to Hawaii and see a live volcano.
If you could go anywhere and cost wasn't a factor, where would it be and why?
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Mad Libs, my blog: http://difrancis.livejournal.com
