Melissa and I are sitting in a bar at the Embassy Suites, not far from LAX. We have a giant Blue Moon between us. She’s looking through submissions sent to Cupid’s Arrow. I’m thinking about the next Mel Walker novel.

In a few hours, we’ll meet up and mingle with others in the Writing Excuses Retreat community. Tomorrow, we’ll board the Navigator of the Seas and enjoy a 7 day cruise.

What did it take to get here? I have a lot of ways to answer that question.

Physically, we drove here. Melissa, Mike Baltar, and I got up very early in the morning. Melissa and I took an Uber to the airport, grabbed a Ford Expedition from Dollar rental at 6AM, and we picked up Mike on the way. We dropped the car off at LAX and then joked about how much taxiing we endured before arriving at our destination. As Mike said, our stewardess did a great job.

Financially, Melissa and I spent some money several months ago, because this is our one big vacation we like to take in the year. Since so much is covered by the up front cost, it feels like a bargain. I consider us extremely fortunate to be able to afford taking the week off from our respective jobs and spending the tuition that allows us to take part.

With regards to our responsibilities, we both had a bit of extra work we needed to do with our day jobs in order to make this trip possible. Melissa had to wrap up as much of her work as possible, then prepare her other assistants to take up her slack while she is away. I had to work some insane hours in order to get the development to a point where it would go on without me for a week and a half. Monday this week, I worked from 6AM to 11:30PM. It didn’t feel great doing it, but the work was necessary.

As a writer, it took a lot of hard work and dedication to my craft, though that’s not strictly necessary to join the Writing Excuses community. They take people at all skill levels, and there is no expectation of me to perform as a writer. However, this is our sixth year attending, and I feel like if I hadn’t done something to advance as a writer, I would have a hard time justifying the cost of the trip.

We have the opportunity to learn quite a bit during these events, but it really is the community that is the true treasure. These are my friends. These are my people. It feels like coming home when we get together.

For the last several weeks, I’ve had this trip coming up, and I’ve had to put it out of my mind to keep the anticipation and excitement from distracting me from all the things I needed to do in order to make the trip acceptable. I’m here now, and it’s almost time to board the ship, and I’m having a hard time suppressing the instinct to suppress my emotions. It’s a barrier I’m going to need to topple pretty soon, so I can enjoy this trip to its fullest.

I’m a little afraid of getting Covid again during this trip. Everyone’s been getting it lately. It’s everywhere. Bryanna just had it. A few weeks ago, Mary Robinette picked it up during one of the events she attended. DongWon Song isn’t able to join us this year because they picked it up recently. If you’ve been looking around and seeing it spread like it was 2020 all over again, it’s not your imagination. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

Sitting at this bar, Melissa and I are both masked up. We didn’t mask in the car, but we’ve been masking while we’ve been around people. We also both got our vaccinations, just a couple of days after the new vaccine became available. We’re taking all appropriate cautions, but it still seems like some of our group are going to get sick this cruise, and we have to hope it won’t be us.

I think that brings me to the real trick with this whole trip. I need to relax and let down my guard, so that I can connect with other people and really enjoy myself. At the same time, I can’t stop worrying about a highly contagious virus floating around, a virus that almost killed me two years ago. And, as much as I love this community, there’s a part of me that feels like I have to perform, to meet their expectations.

First world problems, I guess.

I’m here. I’m glad to be here. I’m here to work the job I wish I had, so let the vacation begin.