It’s always dangerous to take a vacation in the middle of rewrites. The rewrites usually exact their revenge.
Here’s a current example. I just got back last night from a short, four day vacation. First thing this morning I opened up the True Story manuscript and began with the first paragraph of Chapter 27.
Before:
With all the extra chairs stacked about no one could mistake the room for anything but what it was, an office that was being used as a storage room.
After:
No one could mistake the room for anything other than it was, an office that some poor fool had unwisely allowed an extra chair to be left in an unused corner. Unwisely, because chairs, like every other creature in the universe, attract their own. Before the dolt knew what had happened, extra chairs from all over the building had migrated to his office and taken up residence in towering stacks that lined each wall. The poor guy tried to get someone to remove the surplus of chairs, but it was a lost cause. He finally gave up and carved out a nice little corner in the records room where he could do his work.
I’m not exactly sure how I got from B to A, and it certainly doesn’t look like an hour and a half worth of work to me!
I’d best move on to another type of work for today. Let my brain wrap itself around what it’s supposed to be doing and come at it again tomorrow.