Writing while on vacation? Yes, you should.

You’re ready to go. You have your swim trunks packed, enough T-shirts to ensure you only have to wear them two days in a row. You recounted your underwear twice. And you’ve made sure you have access to your best socks. You remember to throw in your toothbrush, and off you go. Ready for a wonderful vacation. Or so you thought.

Vacations don’t have to be a complete drain in your productivity. There are a few things you can do while you’re on vacation to ensure that you still are productive, while enjoying yourself. Let’s discuss three different types of productivity you can achieve on vacation.

1) Passive writing activities
2) Actually writing first drafts
3) The other little nitpicky things that we all have to do is writers which sometimes get pushed aside.

So what do I mean by passive writing activity? We don’t often think about it, but reading is a type of passive writing activity. Laying on the beach is something that everybody can do to enjoy themselves and unwind. And, it’s not uncommon that people doing such an activity have a look at their side. With a little bit of preparation, you can do the same thing. I like to bring our copy of a book with me when I’m doing something like hanging out at the beach. This will make sure you have something in hand that you can put down in an instant and not worry about it.

You can also do some actual writing work.

Work on something new. You don’t even have to bring you computer with you for this. For example, you can write *gasp* long hand on paper. I do this sometimes when I am stuck waiting for something or someone. As a matter of fact, a good portion of my first book was written long hand then transcribed after the fact. This is a great way to work on new short stories you had been interested in doing.

You can also work on things that you have been putting off for a while.

Sitting around the pool is a great time to work on some correspondence, search for new shows to attend, maybe check in with the fans a bit. You don’t even need to haul that big old laptop around. You can use your phone for a lot of things with the voice to text feature your phone likely already has.

Build it into your schedule where you are going to have some time to sit by yourself and write. Don’t just pass on this because you are on vacation. Bring something along with you to do, even if it is sitting down and sketching out a short story you have been thinking about for a while now. Don’t skimp on this!

With some creative planning, that vacation time away form the day job can be creative worktime for you! 

See you next time!

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