Cape Cod – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Update from Cape Cod

Wow, it has been forever since the last time I blogged.

So I’m at Cape Cod right now, vacationing with family for the next full week. Since my parents are moving from Massachusetts from Iowa, this will probably be the last time that we come up here, at least for a very long while. I’m doing my best to enjoy it, which means that I’m not doing much writing at all.

However, I have a lot of things in the pipeline to come out soon. At the end of this month, A Hill on Which to Die will be out not only on Amazon, but all the other retailers as well. And after nearly five years of work, I’m finally getting Heart of the Nebula ready for publication. If all goes well, that should be out over Thanksgiving.

Lots of other stuff going on behind the scenes, too. When I get back, I’m going to finish writing Captives in Obscurity (Sons of the Starfarers: Book V), which I started back in June. I hit a block midway through, but after taking a break to let the ideas percolate, I think I can jump back in and finish it before the end of September.

There are a few other projects on my mind too, including one with the working title Gunslinger to the Stars that’s a bit of a mash-up between Firefly, Monster Hunter International, and Guardians of the Galaxy. That one is going to be a lot of fun to write. Then there’s The Sord Keeper, which I hope to finish (finally!) before the end of the year.

As for the vacation, it’s been pretty fun so far. My sisters are all here with their families, and it’s been good to catch up with them and their kids. We’ve all mellowed out a bit over the past decade, so it’s not nearly as stressful to be around each other as it was when we were all teenagers. We can actually play a full game of Shanghai without someone rage-quitting midway through! Okay, okay, usually it was me doing the rage-quitting, but still…

Cape Cod is a nice place, but I have to admit, I kind of miss Utah. I’ve lived ten years of my life in New England and another ten years in the Intermountain West, and I have to admit, Utah feels a lot more like home. When my parents move, I won’t have any roots to pull me back to this part of the country, and I don’t anticipate ever coming back except to visit.

I used to say that Cape Cod was my favorite place in the world. It’s definitely still up in the top ten, but it’s not at the top anymore. If you asked me which place was, though, I honestly wouldn’t have an answer. It’s been almost three years since I did any serious traveling, and I’m starting to get antsy to get out there again. We’ll see what the future brings.

I’m back!

Wow, I’m back from vacation. Not “back” as in back in Utah, but “back” as in no longer at the cape. We drove home to Western Massachusetts this evening and arrived just a couple hours ago.

Family vacation this year was lots of fun! It was me, mom and pop, and Sarah and Mykle at a local cottage for about a week. We went to Nauset Light Beach, Coast Guard Beach, Race Point Beach, Provincetown, Hyannis, Moby Dick’s restaurant, the Cape Cod Natural History Museum, and, of course, good old Sheep Pond in Brewster (Brew-stah). When we weren’t out and about, we were either watching movies or playing Hearts and Shanghai, the Vasicek family card game of choice.

It was a lot of fun to hang out with the family at Cape Cod, but after a week I’m ready to head back into life as usual. My back is fried, I’ve had enough Shanghai to make me sick (especially considering how CRAZY our family games can get!), and I’m looking forward to no longer smelling like salt water or sun tan lotion.

I’m also looking forward to writing again. I kept up the writing at the cape–about 1k to 2k each day, mostly in the evening–but man, stuff like moving and vacations and travel and having fun tends to throw out your daily routine. I haven’t had one for the last week and a half, and I want to get back to something a little more stable (not to mention productive).

Alas, the summer is just about over. I’ll be flying back to Utah on Tuesday, moving all my stuff into my new apartment on Wednesday (Ben Crowder is going to be my roommate–I think it’s going to be a fun and interesting semester!), helping a friend move her stuff out of storage on Saturday, and doing other get-ready-for-school things on the other days, including filling out the FAFSA, getting parking stickers, books, figuring out what’s going on with my double-major capstone, and blah blah blah other boring annoying stuff.

Gah! Why can’t I just write all day, every day? Looks like those days are over…<sob>.

Someday, inshallah, I’ll make that dream a reality. Someday soon, inshallah!

To write on vacation or not to write?

That is the question.

These last couple of weeks have been very unproductive. I hate it. Yeah, there have been reasons–moving apartments, sister’s graduation, coming home, etc. Worthless excuses–I should have been writing more, and I didn’t.

At the same time, taking a break every now and again is very important. Sometimes you just have to sit back and recharge your creative batteries–otherwise, you’ll overwork them and they’ll die. What better way to kill your productivity than that?

I noticed, back at the beginning of the month, that I needed a break. I produced about 85k words each month in June and July, and I’ve been sloshing through the middle of Bringing Stella Home 2.0 for some time now. Consequently, my creative brain seemed to shut down about two weeks ago (or at least switched to power-saving mode) and I haven’t been writing at a consistent rate since. Blargh.

So I know I need a vacation. I’ve needed it for some time. And now that I’m here in Massachusetts, heading to the cape on Saturday, I’ve got the perfect opportunity to relax and recharge my batteries.

Trouble is, if I stop writing altogether, will I lose momentum? Will it take me another week just to get back into the story? I’ve already lost so much productivity, it makes me feel disgusted. I need to be so much further along in this story than I am if I’m going to meet my (self-imposed) deadline.

So, I’m wondering–should I write while I’m on this vacation?

Of course, I’m not going to spend eight hours a day writing full time, the way I have been for most of this summer. I’m going to relax. But should I set a modest goal of 1k words a day while I’m there? I kind of think I should.

Don’t worry, though. I’m going to take time off for fun as well. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for a very long time!

As if writing weren’t fun enough already. 🙂