As I’m writing this, I should be boarding a plane home from vacation. Should. What I’m doing instead, what I’ve been doing all week, is working.

I mean, there are worse things, sure, and our reasons for delaying this vacation until the end of the year were solid. Still, it hurts.

Like, I should be somewhat tanned, slightly rested, and maybe a little ready (for what, I have no idea). Instead, I’m four days into one of the busiest weeks I can remember. Four days in and the next three weeks will be even busier.

Listen: I’m bad at vacations. Partly that’s because I’ve got weird dietary issues. Partly that’s because, well, because I work really hard to make my home somewhere I want to be. Leaving it when I’ve got time off always feels a bit silly.

But! But, travel is good, right? Sure, sure. Wait, that sounded condescending. Yes, travel is good. Personally, I’d like to spend some time in the American Southwest, in California and Seattle; I’d like to take a cruise. I’d like to bounce around Europe for a bit.

I would like to travel, it’s just that travel often feels like more trouble than it’s worth. What I’d like to do is fill a backpack and vanish for a couple weeks. I mean, it sounds great, right? In practice . . . less so.

I mean, boo hoo, poor guy who can, ostensibly, afford to travel, doesn’t get to. What is the world coming to?

But the bigger point, I think, is this: if we had gone away this week, I would have spent almost the entire week working in the hotel. Today is Thursday and, no joke, I’ve spent twelve to sixteen hours, easily, each day this week in front of my computer, working.

Not writing — working.

Writing is a whole other issue. When I’m working on a book — which is always — I work every night. Some nights that doesn’t happen, but working, writing, that’s my default. If I don’t, there’s a reason for it. Sometimes, it’s even a good reason.

On vacation, I’d have my laptop or a tablet, and I’d sure mean to spend an hour tap tap tapping away on my keyboard. The last time I took a vacation (this was December of 2017, if anyone’s keeping track), I had my manuscript in tow, but it didn’t get much red ink on it that week. Vacationing is tiring, and busy, and it’s not really conducive, in my experience, to the place a novelist goes when they’re noveling.

Yeah, yeah, suck it up, you say. And, you’re right! Still, the point of taking a break is, well, taking a break. And as much as I enjoy writing and even editing (side note: that’s not a joke, I really do enjoy editing. I feel I may be alone in this), it’s rough telling the family, Okay, see you in two hours, I’m going to go do some writing in the lobby.

Like, if you’re on vacation, be on vacation. Or don’t. The gears don’t stop turning, after all. One thing I do try and do, if I’ve got a trip coming up, is to make sure I’m at a good stopping point in whatever I’m doing. In 2017, I think I finished whatever draft I was on the book I was writing about a week before the trip. That was on purpose. I rewrote a lot of the last 1/4 of the book, but at least I wasn’t thinking about writing that while I was on the beach.

Writing is one of those jobs that doesn’t have days off. My other job is like that, too. Mush the two together and, well, you really have to steal your moments. That’s just what I try to do — mostly I fail, but sometimes I surprise myself.

My ideal vacation? Probably someplace warm but not hot, cool, but not cold. Someplace I can see the sites, but not feel overwhelmed by all there is to say. Honestly, what I’d like to do is go away for a month or two and actually get to experience a place beyond that week of travel / unpack / do as much as you can / pack / travel.

Maybe someday.