Summer Activities for the Writer and Artist

As a writer and/or artist, how do you schedule your summer activities? Do you try to plan vacation trips that will later enhance your writing or your art? Or do you want to get away from all of the craziness a creative life involves?

"Hotel Del Pool" ©Mary Montague Sikes

I have to admit that, good or bad, I can't seem to get away from using any trip, vacation or otherwise, as an opportunity to create a writing, photography, or art project. With the wonder of digital imagery, creating articles, stories, and paintings has grown far easier. I always enjoy having a picture to go along with a story. Even with fiction writing, it's helpful to have reference photos to remind you of details of a setting. Also, I have found that it's wonderful to have your own image to use for a book cover when the occasion arises. The cover for my Passenger to Paradise novel, Secrets by the Sea, is a beach photograph I took on one of those vacation trips.

Recently, I've started taking photographs of meals in restaurants. After all, you never know when you might need your own picture of crab cakes or quiche to go along with the story you're writing.

As a artist, you can never have enough good reference photographs to inspire a new painting. When I made a painting a day for Blogging A to Z, I was happy to have my own photos to use most of the time for that project. There are free photographs available on the Internet, but I always feel more comfortable using my own.

What about you? Do you really take a vacation, or are you, like me, always looking?