It is that time of year in my day job when I start getting emails from Europe saying , “Hola/Bonjour/Hallo, I am out of the office for the rest of the summer and will be returning in late August/early September. Do not expect me to answer my emails, return calls or do a lick of work until that date. Good luck.”
The British part of me is happy for them and slightly envious. The American part of me is outraged – although this, I admit, is almost certainly a by-product of envy. Who do these Europeans think they are? Don’t they understand that the work will still need to be done and that I will have to do it while you are sunning yourself on a beach, alpine lake, or casino terrace? To which the European answer would be: “Adam! You sound so angry. Perhaps you should take a vacation.”
In all honesty, with the delta version of Covid still at large, I have not felt the slightest urge to go away on holiday. Even though I’m vaccinated, I don’t want to expose myself to the (reduced) risk of getting sick, or the (reduced) risk of getting someone else sick. Knowing myself as I do, worry about both those things would suck the joy out of any leisure travel I might otherwise have planned, so why bother?
Except….
I think I may need to free up some time for the writing gig.
I never really thought about the consequences of writing. I would write, I would get rejected, I would write something else. Not a problem. For me, writing is fun and relaxing: a de-stresser from my (in theory only) nine-to-five.
But when the stars suddenly align and you are not rejected, other things happen. All at once you have what my corporate colleagues would call “deliverables”. Someone has put their faith in you. You can’t let them down. You have to produce, well, product. “Write” now I have the following on my plate:
- Finish the outline of E________, my proposed third novel. I need to do this now because the threads will fall apart otherwise on account of the need to….
- Complete the final edits for The Wrong Shape to Fly, a short story that the wonderful folks at Baen asked me to contribute to their upcoming anthology, Worlds Long Lost. The deadline for this is the end of the month. Which is also when I am required to….
- Deliver the final draft of Braking Day, as requested by my editor at DAW, the redoubtable Leah. And once I’ve done that….
- Work on edits for V______ R___, my already written second novel, as suggested by my agent, the estimable Brady, and his assistant James. I don’t want to hang about with this either, because the sooner I can get that done, the sooner I can….
- Settle down to writing E________. See item 1, above!
So: a lot to be getting on with – and much easier to do if I take some time off work to… work.
The more I think about it, the better this idea sounds. I can take vacation! I won’t need to travel! It’s a win-win!
How very American of me.