A Working Vacation

Yay! I’m on holidays for two weeks in Maui! I’ve always wanted to visit Hawaii, so now that I’m finally here, why am I spending my time writing blogs?

Don’t get me wrong. We’re definitely doing the tourist thing and enjoying the glorious weather. But for me, this is also an opportunity to catch my breath, to take a step back, and figure out where I go from here in my writing career.

This past winter has not only been long and cold, it’s also been very busy, and in some ways, quite difficult. From November until the end of February, my part-time day job was pretty much full-time. We moved to a new office on the other side of town and my ten minute commute has tripled to about thirty minutes. Not a big deal in good weather, but the weather this winter has been less then ideal, and just added to the stress.

I’ve got two new books being released this year. That’s the good news. The not so good news is that I had to do edits on both of them in January and February. I spent most of my weekends working on these edits and also on a book that I hope will be the third in a series I’m working on. I managed to finish it and send it to my editor a couple of days before we left on holidays, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed and hoping she likes it.

Anyway, with everything that was going on over the winter, I didn’t have time or energy to blog, or update my website. I haven’t figured out what I’m going to do to celebrate the release of my book in May. I don’t even know what I want to write next. So this two week vacation is going to be a little about doing some planning. I finally have a little time to think.

Have you ever taken a step back to plan your next move in your writing career? Or are you one of those lucky people who keeps it all together – day job, family, writing? I’d love to hear how you do it!