SiteCan You Really Enjoy Your Vacation and Write About It Too?
In my last episode here on RW blog, I encouraged you to think about your vacation plans, and how you might use them as story fodder. I just noticed that there were a couple of comments on that post that I didn’t see, and I didn’t want to let them evaporate into the void!
So, Tiffany wrote in and said that she and her husband were taking a trip to the Danube Bend. And then she asked:
I’ve always wondered if I could enjoy my vacation *and* use it for writing fodder, so I am definitely interested in any ideas on how to do both without compromising either.
What a great question Tiffany! Let me try to sort through an answer.
Traveling as a writer is quite different from traveling as a “civilian” on vacation. On assignment, you’re trying to always be alert to what’s happening around you, trying to render that smell, that sound, that intriguing little man with the marionette, into words. You might push yourself beyond your comfort zone, doing things you might not do on your own, taking tours that you wouldn’t necessarily take, asking total strangers for interviews. I don’t know about you, but I don’t usually interview people for relaxation.
On the other hand, there’s no reason why you have to be completely “on duty”. You can just keep your eyes and senses open for sensory details and ideas that are intriguing, carve out a little time in the morning as you’re enjoying your coffee to make a few notes, casually gather a few more brochures than you might otherwise scoop up, and see what that gets you. You might find that it’s enough for a story once you get home –and if not, you’ll have a great diary of your vacation.
After all, we often integrate a little “off-duty” fun into our work trips, so why not integrate just a little bit of work into a fun trip? For instance, I’m leaving tomorrow for an assignment in Nashville and fully intend to enjoy the dinner I’m going to have with my family there –and I’m not going to write about it either! (Okay, okay, I’ve already written about the restaurant we’re going to…but I’m not insisting that we go to a restaurant I haven’t yet tried, which would be the proper, hardcore travel writer thing to do!)
And really, are we writers ever off the clock completely? I mean, if were just lying on the beach somewhere and a totally fabulous idea just walked up to our beach towel and leaned over and planted a big wet sloppy on our cheek, would any of us honestly shoo it away, saying not now honey, I’m on vacation ?
The question though, was whether you could do work and do you vacation without compromising either. If you don’t want any work to sully your vacation time, and any vacation to get in the way of your research, the best idea is probably to set aside a couple of days of your vacation to do some research. Whether that feels like too much of a compromise or not, is of course up to you!
Chris-who-is-going-to-Costa-Rica on honeymoon, I haven’t forgotten about you either! You will be the subject of my next post. 
–[Alison Stein Wellner]
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