What I Did on My Winter Vacation

 I'm not great at balancing work and play. It had been eighteen months since my last vacation (meaning actually walking away from my house and all the chores and projects and work stuff that inevitably happens if you stay on the premises instead of fleeing into the night). The truth is, being a control freak, I find it difficult to let go enough to take a real vacation. 

BUT I DID IT. AND LET ME TELL YOU, THIS VACATION THING COULD REALLY CATCH ON.

Anyway, my sisters and I went to Catalina Island (right off the coast of Los Angeles) for seven nights and six GLORIOUS days of sunshine--well, no, it rained A LOT (which we love even more than sunshine) and talking and walking and drinking and eating and streaming every documentary, every everything we could find on the Murdaugh trial. We laughed, we cried, we sang to the ocean waves (but really, we did). We watched seals and tried to find pelicans. We had wine and cheese on our balcony overlooking the beach. We had many, many Blue Hawaiis (which is my new cocktail to master).

Anyway, it was genuinely restful and rejuvenating. I can't tell you how much better I feel. Calmer, happier, and inspired.

So I thought I'd share view vacation pics. 

On Vacation....

As of yesterday morning I am officially on vacation. :-)

The thing about being a writer is you go nowhere and speak to no one that it isn't all potential story fodder. Which is a good thing! Even if it does mean scribbling notes on cocktail napkins and writing in the margins of books you didn't write and asking nosy questions of people who just met...

Part of why it's so necessary to travel -- at least get out of the house! -- for a writer is that you need something to write about that doesn't strictly come out of your own brain. You need to interact with the world (and not the online world where you don't have to look into people's eyes or imagine their reactions).

Part of being a good writer is being a good observer.

But anyway, I plan to do a lot of reading and walking and spending time with the SO where I actually concentrate on what he's saying and not just absently agree because most of my brain is still grappling with the imaginary conversations of characters.

I plan to drink and eat and get a massage. I plan to watch sunrises and sunsets and breathe deep lungful's of ocean air.

So that's me for the next nine -- NINE -- days.

What about you? When was the last time you had a real vacation? What did you do? Who did you do it with?