Vacationing Like a Writer
Using a family vacation to re-ignite my creativity.
One of my goals as a writer is to take a writing retreat vacation. It hasn’t happened yet. The closest I’ve come is all of the Writer’s Symposium events I do at Gen Con every year. How cool would it be to take a week off to write and connect with other writers?
Unfortunately, the money isn’t there to take time off of my day job for the luxury. So I have to make my own retreat where I can.
I just came back from visiting my family in Arizona and looking at houses. So many houses. I’m not moving, so it got a bit boring quick.
Until I realized that I was taking notes on each location so we could remember my parents’ likes and dislikes. Each house had its own character. I now have a handful of locations I can use when I need to have a house for my characters.
When I started framing it that way, my eyes were opened to all of the possibilities around me. And my brain started churning.
What does my seat partner do for fork that means she acts like a veteran flier? What causes the people at bingo to have their little rituals? What meme is my nephew referencing?
Of course, all of these questions led to me writing the roughed in sketch for a scene in book five of the series I’m writing (with only book one finished), but it means I can lay groundwork and hints in other books to tie it in.
I came home with a bunch of notes scribbled in a smaller notebook, a new scene, and some other ideas for other books. Not bad for not a “real” writer’s retreat.
It makes me wonder what else I am missing in the day-to-day that I could be using for inspiration.
Weekly Goals
Write 7K words: Failure. I didn’t actually type up most of my writing this week (I probably hand wrote enough to be a success, but I only count it if my word count says I did).
Go to class: Failure. I was on vacation.
Go to the gym twice: Failure. I ran on my sister’s treadmill once, but didn’t make enough time to run a second time.
Sew ten dice bags: Failure. Vacation.
Read one book: My only success this week. I read No Pants Required by Kim Karr. And I set myself up to succeed this coming week because I almost finished a second book while flying.
