Undercutting my cutting

I had a little burst of energy yesterday afternoon (or disinclination to do my paying work, depending how you look at it), so I put in an extras session and started on Ch. 2. Continued this morning and got in a longer a.m. session than usual. (Still rocking the Ken Ken puzzles over breakfast, by the way. 6 for 6 so far this week.)

I didn't find a lot of material to cut. About 6 pp. in Ch. 2. And then I undercut the cutting by adding in a lot of new material. I've been dealing with the problem of how well developed one minor character is, and, as noted before, developing usually equals new drafting. It's been a pleasure, because it's back in the imaginative space rather than analytical and editorial space. But it's not doing anything for my anxiety about the length. Maybe Ch. 3 will offer up more places to cut. (In fact I've been toying with the idea of cutting Ch. 3 entirely. Quite drastic.)

So, in theory, I start with Ch. 3 tomorrow. But I think I've finally become conscious of a pattern to my work that has been with me since the very beginning. Quite often I finish a session at a natural stopping point and feel confident that I'll go on to the next stage the next day, but as the rest of the day and evening passes and I sip the next morning's coffee, all the stuff I rushed over and that needs more attention becomes apparent and I end up taking another day to tidy up. Right now, I feel like I'll tackle Ch. 3 tomorrow, but I suspect some solutions to the organization/length of Ch. 2 will occur to me today and I'll feel the need to spend some more time with it.