Writers and vacations
Aug. 5th, 2013 10:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marinessA number of other people have already objected more eloquently than I can to the "Ten Questions to Know if You're a Pro" questionnaire here ("pro" in this case meaning "pro writer.") John Scalzi, for one, has noted that by that definition, he's not a professional writer, and several other full time professional writers have jumped up to say the same. I'm with them: it's a terrible list. But apart from all of the major, major assumptions appearing all over that list, I was particularly struck with this comment:
"5. Do you plan vacations around writing opportunites (either research or networking potential)?"
I'm going to (mostly) skip past the obvious responses of "Can you afford vacations?" and "Is a research/networking thing actually a vacation or, you know, part of your job, whatever your job/field," and instead say this:
Writers, real, unreal, pro, hobbyist, don't go on vacation.
Ever.
In the literal sense. I have, at that all time premier vacation spot, Walt Disney World, written various Tor.com posts (six of the Oz posts were written there), flash fiction pieces, the story that recently appeared in 16 Single Sentence Stories (that was written while I was in line), and bits of other things. Admittedly this is partly because I know Disney very well, so it's not a particularly big deal for me to whip out a notebook (or these days, the Nook) and type things out (especially in line). But this has also happened in other "vacation" spots and times, on road trips, on planes, in places very far from home. When words come, I grab them. It's not just me. I have lost track of the number of writers who assured me that they were really truly really going on a nice relaxing vacation where they would not even think of writing only to return with a completed short story or poem or two.
But even when we are not physically putting words down on a notebook or electronic device, we are still, as writers, observing, watching, imbibing. I never know what might or might not appear in a later story. Going mangrove snorkeling, for instance, just seemed at the time to be fulfilling course requirements until it popped up in a fairy tale, years later. I have taken bits and pieces from other travels, other quiet moments, and put them in various stories and various poems; sometimes I don't even recognize these bits for years. Sometimes I know them immediately. Sometimes it's important to know.
And very often I have no idea that I'm doing "research." A trip to watch the space shuttle go up turned into a paragraph that thankfully I did not have to research, but at the time, I thought I was just watching the space shuttle.
Other times I need to see something new, something different, to find words again.
I'm not by any means saying that writers have to travel to write. Obviously, many writers and poets have written beautifully and deeply while rarely if ever leaving home (Emily Dickinson leaps to mind, but she's hardly the only example). But I do think that writing requires two things: one, time to focus on words, just words, time that may, or may not, require a "vacation" (however defined) to achieve, and two, above all, living. And if a writer needs that vacation to live -- well, I'll still think that writer is a writer.
"5. Do you plan vacations around writing opportunites (either research or networking potential)?"
I'm going to (mostly) skip past the obvious responses of "Can you afford vacations?" and "Is a research/networking thing actually a vacation or, you know, part of your job, whatever your job/field," and instead say this:
Writers, real, unreal, pro, hobbyist, don't go on vacation.
Ever.
In the literal sense. I have, at that all time premier vacation spot, Walt Disney World, written various Tor.com posts (six of the Oz posts were written there), flash fiction pieces, the story that recently appeared in 16 Single Sentence Stories (that was written while I was in line), and bits of other things. Admittedly this is partly because I know Disney very well, so it's not a particularly big deal for me to whip out a notebook (or these days, the Nook) and type things out (especially in line). But this has also happened in other "vacation" spots and times, on road trips, on planes, in places very far from home. When words come, I grab them. It's not just me. I have lost track of the number of writers who assured me that they were really truly really going on a nice relaxing vacation where they would not even think of writing only to return with a completed short story or poem or two.
But even when we are not physically putting words down on a notebook or electronic device, we are still, as writers, observing, watching, imbibing. I never know what might or might not appear in a later story. Going mangrove snorkeling, for instance, just seemed at the time to be fulfilling course requirements until it popped up in a fairy tale, years later. I have taken bits and pieces from other travels, other quiet moments, and put them in various stories and various poems; sometimes I don't even recognize these bits for years. Sometimes I know them immediately. Sometimes it's important to know.
And very often I have no idea that I'm doing "research." A trip to watch the space shuttle go up turned into a paragraph that thankfully I did not have to research, but at the time, I thought I was just watching the space shuttle.
Other times I need to see something new, something different, to find words again.
I'm not by any means saying that writers have to travel to write. Obviously, many writers and poets have written beautifully and deeply while rarely if ever leaving home (Emily Dickinson leaps to mind, but she's hardly the only example). But I do think that writing requires two things: one, time to focus on words, just words, time that may, or may not, require a "vacation" (however defined) to achieve, and two, above all, living. And if a writer needs that vacation to live -- well, I'll still think that writer is a writer.