Well, vacation time is over. The past few days have been the first in a very long time that I took off on purpose. Not sick days, not severe weather days that shut me down against my will but actual on purpose days off. By the calendar I couldn’t afford them, but by the state of my brain I couldn’t afford not to take them. I’ve been skirting the edge of burnout in a state I’m calling brownout. You know when the power grid is overloaded and the lights start to dim and flicker and things surge, but it’s not actually a power failure? The mental equivalent of this.

You know you’re in brownout when everything takes longer than it should because you just don’t have enough juice. The cure for brownout is to heed the warning signs and act before it becomes burnout, and then progresses to something worse like a full-on block. I made the choice to take time off while my parents were here, whether I was done with the projects I’m working on or not. (Not, as it happens.) I made the choice to celebrate and be happy and spend time with my family and take lots of walks. Last weekend I chose to spend two nights staying up late to read. Yesterday I chose to dive into Stray and read it from start to finish.

I still have deadlines. I still have revisions to finish and return. I still have more work than I like to think about right now to finish before 2007 ends. But the best way to get all that work done is to take care of the engine that drives it all. Laugh with the people I love, look for Bigfoot, watch a young bald eagle perch on top of a tree like a very awkward ornament, read books, listen to music, eat cake, and understand that there is more to life than work, and if all I do is work, pretty soon there’s not much flavor to life and not much fuel to feed the work.

Today I’m finishing revisions on Satisfaction and reading All About Evie. I love me some con artist caper romance! Happy Sunday, all.