Wipe that smug look off your face\u2026 you didn\u2019t catch this technical writer misspelling \u201cVocation.\u201d The word \u201cVacation\u201d is intentional and entirely appropriate.<\/p>\n
As a contract technical writer I have traveled a lot. It\u2019s one of the perks of what I do.\u00a0 It\u2019s less hard on the family now that the children are grown, so I tend to do more of it and in fact\u00a0I seek out interesting assignments in interesting places.<\/p>\n
I have some wonderful memories of my writing \u201cvacations.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve prowled an amazing used book store a few miles from Texas A&M University.\u00a0 I\u2019ve partied at a Moscow restaurant with Russian engineers watching barely-clad showgirls through a vodka-induced haze.\u00a0 I\u2019ve returned from a \u201chard\u201d day of writing and walked to a lake a hundred feet from the front door of my apartment in Virginia and fly fished for bass until it was too dark to see the fly.\u00a0 I\u2019ve called my wife from the beach in La Jolla to tell her it is 70 degrees and the skies are blue, and she\u2019s told me it\u2019s twenty below, the pipes are frozen, and maybe it would be a good idea for me to get my ass home.\u00a0 I\u2019ve worked on the set of a simulated nuclear plant control room on a sound stage in Pittsburgh\u2014surrounded by the set of Mister Roger\u2019s Neighborhood\u2014making last-minute edits to a videotape script.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been welcomed like a long-lost relative by the hospitable folks at a Virginia church.\u00a0 During the last few years of my father\u2019s life, when my work took me to the San Francisco Bay Area, I\u2019d stay with him in my childhood home and we\u2019d just talk the evening away.\u00a0 And my wife and I have turned writing assignments into real vacations; a week in Vienna, a warm mid-winter stay in Florida, and more.<\/p>\n
Even the writing projects close to home are vacations.\u00a0 Invariably, you make new friends, learn about new (to you) technologies, lunch at new restaurants with your colleagues, and generally expand your horizons.<\/p>\n
Do you write?\u00a0 If so, you are a lucky man or woman\u2026 count your blessings and enjoy your vacations. \u2013 Dennis Owen<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wipe that smug look off your face\u2026 you didn\u2019t catch this technical writer misspelling \u201cVocation.\u201d The word \u201cVacation\u201d is intentional and entirely appropriate. As a contract technical writer I have traveled a lot. It\u2019s one of the perks of what I do.\u00a0 It\u2019s less hard on the family now that the children are grown, so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t