getting back from a trip away is a lot like breaking up. You're left with a period of depression, of not knowing what to do with yourself. There's laundry to be done and the house to be straightened up, as if it magically got rearranged while you were away. You feel tired. Your friends all ask how it was, but you don't really want to talk about it. You find yourself with less money than before it started. And then you start planning your next one.

I got back Monday morning, and I'm already looking into going away again, but this time somewhere I really want to go; I wanted to go to Oregon the past few trips, but I'd much rather have gone somewhere further afield that I'm not so familiar with. For October, I'm looking into Europe.

Originally I wanted it to be a full three week trip, but as part of the whole I'm-thirty-now-and-need-to-be-a-bit-more-responsible thing, I'm actually acknowledging that I can't afford that, so it looks like it'll just be the British Isles. Scotland with the parents and grandfather, London with a couple of friends who live there and I haven't seen in years, and Ireland with another friend who I haven't seen in years.

My vacation time is very precious to me, and I don't get enough, but finally after six years with MGM Mirage, I'm on three weeks vacation, so of course I want to make the most of it. But another part of the sensible thing I'm trying, is that maybe I should start going to writing conventions. I should start networking, meeting people in the industry, and using up my precious vacation time to work on never needing vacation time. Most people I know who are in an industry go to the conventions as and when they can. My problem is that I wouldn't really go to listen to other people as much as I should. I write what I want, rather than what I think people want. I'd go to them and not really care much about the speakers unless it was someone I was a fan of. I don't know if I'd get anything out of going to one.

That's probably exactly why I should go. It's all very well typing away, and letting a couple people read what I'm beating out of the keyboard, but I should probably throw myself into it more than I already have, and by it I mean the industry. I should buy the books, listen to the podcasts, go to the conventions, sign up for the periodicals. I just want to keep myself happy with the illusion that writing isn't work, even after I get paid to do it. I want to see it as a treat, as theatre used to be and ceased to be a while ago.

So to use my coveted vacation time to do that? We'll see how I'm doing once I get book one back. Maybe it's time to look into it, put myself out there. Because if I do, then I have the potential to be a serial monogamist. I can go from vacation to vacation, writing all the while, and never having to go through the break-up period of malaise and frustration that I'm in right now.