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Sunday, November 01, 2015

End Radio Silence – It’s Been a While

It’s been a long time. A long time since I posted anything on this blog, and a long time since I got back from my extended holiday.

I haven’t been around for a while because I was off gallivanting around Australia with my hubby and two young children. We drove, we bushwalked, we went places we’ve never been, we pushed boundaries, we swam, we ate, we drank, we met amazing people, we relaxed, and we had the most awesome time ever. The pink line on the map still blows me away …


I had every intention of keeping everyone in the loop. But the truth is, I enjoyed the time away, and the solitude of the open roads, and the quiet of the Aussie outback far too much to worry about keeping up with everything and everyone else.

I went into the trip filled with optimism, and with the best intentions of writing every day, because I should have had all the time in the world. But even though we did so much in the three months, what I didn’t do much of is write. I did keep up with my daily blog post on our personal travel blog which sometimes equated to more than 1k words a day, and I made quite a few entries into my notebooks as we were bumping along those outback roads, but not once did I turn the laptop on and write new words for any of my current WIPs.

At the time this was perfectly fine, because I was so busy with everything else, and all the fun we were having, that I didn’t give it a second thought. When I got home, I felt conflicted. One minute I wished I’d set aside a little more time to spend with my laptop, then the next I remembered all the things we did instead. The first few days back at home I felt guilty because I hadn’t reached my goal of getting the draft done for the final book in my series. I was on a downer because our adventure was over. Then while I was slapping myself on the wrist, telling myself to get over it, reality was whacking me in the face. And when I thought about it some more, I was actually glad I didn’t spend any time engrossed in my imaginary worlds, because I had all that time to spend with my children and reconnect with my family.

We’ve been home for over a month now, and the holiday seems like a distant memory. But apart from broadening my life experience, it taught me a very valuable lesson.

Even though I’m a writer and author, it’s not the only thing about me and my life that matters. I’m also a wife, mother, friend, reader, artist, graphic designer, adventure seeker, uni student, and so many other things. I have goals, and I should try my best to achieve them, but sometimes it’s okay to take time off … from everything. Sometimes doing that is the best thing, because I don’t ever want to lose sight of what is most important to me. Even though I have a million and one things I want to do before I die, my family is at the top of my most important list, and if I needed to take three months off from doing something I love to spend it with them, then it was totally worth it, because I can only watch my kids grow up once.
Our trip was amazing. So amazing I can’t really put it into words. And even though I didn’t write like I’d planned to, I’ve come away with more worldly experience, priceless memories, and a brain full of fuel for future writing.

It would be impossible to show you everything we did in one blog post, but here are some of the amazing places we visited.

Ayreshire Hills


Darwin


Lichfield National Park


The Horizontal Waterfalls


Cable Beach, Broome


Coral Bay


Shell Beach, Shark Bay


Monkey Mia


Steep Point


Kalbarri National Park and Aussie wildflowers






K x

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