The cases are packed, the tickets are printed – and your deadline is still looming. I’m a big advocate of taking real breaks and enjoying time away from writing, but sometimes circumstances conspire and you have to work while on holiday. If that’s the case for you, here are 5 top tips to make the experience as painless as possible – for you, and your fellow holiday makers!
Aim Low
First off, be realistic. You’re on holiday. However pressing that deadline, or however engrossing your story, you don’t want to lose a whole week of vacation to work. It kind of defeats the object of going on holiday in the first place! So, by all means, work if you have to – but remember to have a holiday, too. Keep your daily and weekly goals small and achievable – anything extra is a bonus.
(Note: if your deadline is so extreme that it’s going to take full work days to meet it then you have two choices: cancel the holiday or ask for an extension. Personally. I’d always ask for an extension first.)
Set Expectations
There’s no point trying to pretend you’re not working on this holiday. Your family, friends or companions are going to notice if you keep sloping off to be alone with your manuscript, and they’ll be a lot more irritated if you try to hide it than if you’re just upfront about the situation. Explain what you need to achieve and why it matters. Let them weigh in on the best way for your to achieve it. Things will go much more smoothly if everyone is on board – your spouse might take the kids off for an adventure while you get a writing sprint in, or your parents might offer to cook one night while you get some work done. Take advantage of any of these offers that come your way.
But also be very clear that you don’t want work to take over your holiday any more than they do. Give them an estimate of how much of each day you need to work – and then stick to it. Otherwise, resentment is likely to set in.
Start Early
If you’re a morning person, by far the easiest way to slot work into your vacation is to get it out of the way before anyone else is even awake. Yes, holidays are a time for sleeping in, but if hitting the snooze button means that you have to miss out on family fun later, I suggest that forgoing the lie in is the better choice. And if everyone else is sleeping late, you might not even have to get up too early to make this one work.
The best part about this strategy is that your work obligations are knocked off the list before the morning even really gets going, and you can relax and enjoy your holiday for the rest of the day. And it works for the school holidays, too – those lengthy weeks where the kids are home and in need of entertainment. Get the work done first, and you can spend the rest of the day up to your elbows in play doh and paint, or lego, or whatever they want.
Use Downtime
Even in the most exciting and energetic of holidays, there is downtime. That hour after the pool when the kids are exhausted and wrapped up in warm tops and playing on their tablets, or arguing over monopoly. The thirty minutes when your partner just wants to stretch out with a book, or take a nap. The hour before dinner that no one really knows what to do with.
You need to know what to do with this time. Because this is the perfect time to catch up on whatever work you couldn’t do before everyone else woke up.
Using the time when no one else really wants or needs your attention anyway means you can get your words written in peace, and without any of your fellow holiday makers feeling neglected. Again, this is great for the school holidays too, even if you’re not going anywhere. Wear the kids out first, then do the work when they’re too exhausted to do much more than slump in front of the telly anyway.
Know What You Want to Write
When you’re working within a limited timeframe, the best way to make the most of the minutes you do have is to plan ahead. Plotters, you probably have this covered already, in a general way, but this tip can work for Pantsers too – and actually, even Plotters can sometimes plan a little better.
This isn’t about outlining the whole book, or writing a vague sentence on a scene card for what needs to happen. You need something more granular than that. So, when you finish your words for the day, but before you close your laptop, think ahead. Picture the next sequence of action in your head, and make some brief notes about what is going to happen. You don’t need to know the next eight scenes, or feel tied down to an outline. You just need to be clear on the very next thing you’re going to write, so that when you sit down at your laptop the next day you can dive right in and get to work, without losing any time or momentum.
Give it a try. Your tomorrow self will thank you.
In the end, working on holiday all comes down to this: what is your priority?
If your priority is a family holiday, where you all spend time together, preferably not arguing, then that has to come first. If your writing is jeopardising that, you might have to put it aside until after the vacation.
On the other hand, if your priority is your deadline, well, you’ll do whatever you have to do to make it happen. Hopefully using some of these tips will help mitigate the annoyance from your loved ones.
And if, like most of us, they’re both super important to you… then you take it day by day, hour by hour if need be. If there’s a big trip planned for tomorrow, but today is just hanging by the pool, use the pool time to get as much done as you can then clock off so you can be fully present for the trip the next day. Figure out which activities really matter to you and your family, and be totally there for them. Make the memories you’re there to make – and make up the work when less important things are going on.
Good luck – and bon voyage!
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