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So this is what a vacation is supposed to feel like, relaxed. Or rather I’m supposed to feel relaxed at the end of it. I’ve been on vacations before, both as a child, and an adult, and I’ve never really felt this. Okay, the last time was the trip to England which is about five years ago. But even then the eight hour and some plane trip loomed and took some of the fun out of it. Hell, that’s not even true. I was ready to go home. I was homesick. We loved England but Jon and I felt the same way.
What made this vacation different for me? Work. It was a working vacation. I wasn’t suddenly thrust from working as hard as I could to being told, don’t work. Changing gears that abruptly throws me. It makes me feel itchy and uncomfortable. But this was work, and so I had goals, things to accomplish. Of course, my goals had to totally change once we got on the ground due to a lot of things. So, for a few days when it looked like this trip wasn’t working for work, I had to let go and just try to enjoy the down time until we could figure something else out. Then, when I let it go, it began to work.
The motto for this trip has been, “What a pleasant surprise.” Most of the nice stuff both work and fun has been unplanned, or so different from the original plan that it might as well be something else. But it’s all worked. It’s all been fun, even the not fun parts. I got an entire book idea out of the worst room and the worst noise. An entire new book idea, that I wouldn’t have gotten if the plans had gone the way that I wanted. Heck, we wouldn’t have been here for a week if they weren’t spraying our house for spiders. I’ve always tried to go for less time, five days tops on vacation (except for England) and I think five days isn’t enough. Seven is about right. It gives me a few days to fight the whole relaxing thing, and be grumpy, then a few days to enjoy, then a day or so to get back in the saddle for work. Seven days, like most people take. I always try to short change myself on rest and relaxation, but damnit, even I need it.
We’ve enjoyed the trip. We have our research done on the ground, for now. There may be another trip in future, but not for BLOOD NOIR, for the next Anita book. I’m pretty sure this is the next one. Though there’s an idea in the middle that maybe a smaller book, or even a smaller story. Not sure. I may write it because I want to know what happens, not because it’s under contract. An interesting concept that.
We’ve enjoyed the trip, but we are both eager to get home. We’ve missed Trinity. We’ve missed our house, our stuff, our routine. We saw a woman walking a pug today and you would have thought we both had lost about twenty points of intelligence right off the top, the way we oohed and ahhed. We miss our dogs. So, we feel better, more rested, did good work, and we’re ready to go home. I am looking as forward to going home as I was to leaving on the trip. A working vacation, it just works for me.