Family vacations are not the proper place to write, at least not for me. On my last family vacation, I had all the best intentions. I brought my laptop with me, fully committed to writing every day. I even had a plan: wake up every morning, before everyone else in the house got up, and sit in front of that screen to write. I needed to make progress. I’ve been sitting on this draft for months with only incremental steps (more like shuffles) forward toward my goal of finishing Draft 2. 

But with every family vacation, plans go out the window. Mine called for packed agendas filled with tourist attractions, a never-ending flow of food and drinks, and an inordinate amount of family time. Maybe too much. 

I barely had time to myself to think. 

I’ve been back from my vacation for a little over a week, and after a few days of recuperating (jet lag, tiredness from family time and the constant go go go of exploring), I finally have the energy to get back in to my normal routine of daily writing. 

Now, the struggle I experience is finding the time to write on top of my full-time job and my social commitments. During the week, when I map my day out, between the morning routine, commuting to work, the work day itself, commuting home, cooking, maybe working out, I’m left with about 1-2 hours left, if I don’t have a work project I need to put in extra hours for. And for me, I require a mental break from the screen. I’ve experienced back issues for years, partially due to the hours I spend sitting (likely incorrectly) in front of a computer at work. It’s a lot of me mentally, which makes it hard to find the time. 

I’ve heard people say, if it’s important to you, you’ll make the time to do what you love. But work is also important to me (bills and all that), and writing a piece that maybe people will read, maybe not, seems daunting, even draining.

Summer vacation was supposed to help fix that. Two weeks of habit-forming would remind me of the importance of this personal mission. But family can sometimes kick that out of you, and that glass of wine becomes much more important.

I think taking a day off to dedicate an entire day to writing will yield better results. 

My vacation did teach me one thing as it relates to my writing: nothing is perfect. There will always be someone there holding you back, or judging you, or telling you what to do. You need to decided what’s important to you. And writing is important to me. It makes me feel invigorated: to build these worlds from scratch, hold the fate of these characters in the palm of your hand. I don’t want to lose that awe. That feeling when I know something is working. 

For me, I’ve determined that vacation and writing do not mix. And that’s ok. As long as when I come back home, I make my writing a priority.