Monday, June 9, 2008

My First Work Vacation

I am doing today something I never thought I'd do:

I am working on vacation.

True enough. I am. I'm sitting at a San Francisco cafe down the street from my house, working on the Never-ending Book Edits. I'm sixty pages into the twelfth revision of my manuscript. Only 120 more Word pages to go.

Usually I am the guy who shuns people who work on vacation. My friends who bring Blackberries on our trip Greece..."A plague upon their white-washed house!" in the form of bad reception, I say. If you want to work, work. If you want to play, play. You accomplish neither by trying to do both. I once read that people who run with their cell phones generate fewer endorphins than those who don't. See. There's proof your body wants you to soak up your time off.

So, why am I working on vacation? Actually, I am on vacation SO I can work. This dual-life thing of putting 50-60 hours in at Second Life then working on my manuscript nights and weekends has been taking its toll. So, I took some time I've accrued (I've only taken one vacation in the last three years) and put it toward a week to myself and my book.

And I gotta tell ya, although it's no Santorini, sitting here with my coffee, my words, and the early morning mist is relaxing in its own right. The only way I can justify this time off though, when I could be visiting lands unknown, is if I deliver the goods at the end. So, this week, I have three goals:
  1. Finish the Never-ending Book Edits so I can send my manuscript and the interior artwork off to my typesetter.
  2. Finish building the marketing (non-database driven) pages of the Onyx Sun web site.
  3. (If I have time) Do all the miscellaneous tasks I've been putting off, like mailing out more of my books, contacting more potential reviewers, and updating the Pariah Publishing email newsletter list.
So, off I go!

Kalamazoo!





Christopher

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