Vacation Trepidation

I am experiencing anxiety over our annual road trip. The second leg of the trip comprises ten days with my oldest friend and our (five!) children. My husband will be home in Illinois, and I fear that solo parenting as a houseguest won’t leave much time for writing.

Everybody panic.

I write every day. Every day. In his memoir, On Writing, Stephen King admits that he has lied to fans for years: He doesn't take off on Christmas, birthdays or Fourth of July. He writes every day. I'm like that.

Writing, for me, is as important as water or food or air: I need it. If I try to skip a day (for vacation or a child's birthday or, yes, Christmas,) I get a little twitchy. If the stars have not aligned, or if I spend the baby’s nap on Reddit instead of writing, I freak out.

Hours past my bedtime, I will sit on the sofa penning at least 1000 new words before I can go to bed. [I'm not a slacker; a thousand words is my bare minimum. 2500 while editing. 9000 on final edits.]

That won’t work out for me on vacation, because once our children are in bed, my friend will be right there with wine. And 11 months of stories to share. By the time we’re done talking, I’ll need to hit the sack. When my children wake up at 5 a.m., as they surely will, it’s on me. 

So, yes, a little panicked over here.