About a month and a half ago, I wrote a blog post called You Deserve a Break Today.
That’s right: I totally copped out on creating an original headline, and instead used a McDonald’s jingle from the 80s. Hey, I’m old. And the whole post was about how I needed a break.
Not only did I take a break after that, I’m pleased to report, but I also took one this past weekend. Yes, I took an entire two days off from work, including all writing.
I feel refreshed. Slightly. After all, I’m talking two days, not two weeks.
More About Guilt-Inducing Advice
Last year, I wrote a post about “guilt-inducing advice” for writers, in particular the worst clichéd offender, Write every day. It got some chatter going on Twitter, mainly because of the “write every day” dictum. I used the famous Ionesco quote: “A writer never has a vacation. For a writer, life consists of either writing or thinking about writing.”
And, a year later, I took a little four-day weekend off, which I mentioned here.
I get the whole compulsive drivenness thing. I even mentioned it in the guilt-inducing advice article. But the older I get, the more I value the constructive aspect of downtime, meditation, serious play. In short, I’m 100% in favor of people taking time off—including writers. Heck, especially writers.
Prioritizing Play
With all that, I’m happy to say my wife and I look forward to finally taking time off together later this year. While I won’t post details online ahead of time—my humble website, after all, withstands over 20 million attacks per hour—I will say it’s a real vacation. We can’t wait.
It’s not a working vacation, either. I might write a few things that pop into my head, but I’ll be an absentee parent to this blog for a couple of weeks.
Did I mention we can’t wait?
As always, thanks for stopping by. I’d love to hear about your favorite vacation memories in the comments below.
