Vacation means different things to different people. To some, it means travel. To others, a break from school. To me, it’s a respite from my job, and a chance to do my work. (There. is. SUCH. a. difference.) I like my job as much as anyone can like a job that’s not their calling, but that’s what’s so great about vacation – I have time to get lost in my calling, to allow myself to actually heed the call, rather than just hear it.

They say that if you find something you love to do, it’ll never feel like work. They say that you’re meant to do the thing you lose time doing – that is, you’re so immersed, so invested, and so focused, that you don’t notice hours going by. For me, that thing has always been creating. As a kid, I explored all kinds of creation – singing, dancing, drawing, coloring, and, of course, writing. These days, I’ve found writing to be the one that’s stuck, the creative endeavor in which I can still completely lose myself.

On any given day, I’m lucky if I get around 1,000-1,200 words down. That’s on a good day. Often, I manage between 500-700 before real life takes over – working, cooking dinner, spending time with my husband in the small handful of hours in which neither of us is at work or asleep.

But this week we’re on vacation. There are some things we need to do – like cleaning out my storage unit and saving that monthly expense – but mostly the days are long, lazy, and full of whatever we want. For me, since I have trouble writing while anyone else is awake in the house with me, and because Matt is naturally a late sleeper, that means my mornings are full of writing. I sit down at my computer, open Scrivener at around 08:00, and when I look at the clock again, I’ve written just shy of 5,000 words and it’s around 10:30. That’s happened today and yesterday. I thought the world had stopped, but it went on, and I didn’t notice.

It’s only Tuesday, and I’ve written almost 10,000 words this week. It feels amazing, and I expect to finish the first draft of EHP this week. (Had I finished it by 10/16, it would have been done in 90 days. But 97 ain’t bad either.) I feel so productive, and the steam I’d started to lose in the last week or two is back with a vengeance.

It’s funny – I’m starting to sense that Matt, although he enjoys having a break from work, is already starting to get bored. Me, I could spend my days like this forever. #writerlife