An Editor’s Holiday

What do editors do when they take a vacation? I suppose some may go to Rome or to a warm, sunny beach, perhaps in Mexico. At this time of year, others may head to New England to see the fall colors. What did I do? I stayed home and read a book. I know, it doesn’t sound very exciting, but for someone who loves to read and rarely has time to read whatever I want for hours on end … oh, it was heavenly.

Picture this: A vacationing editor kicking back in an easy chair, a cat on my lap, a cup of tea at my elbow, a good book in my hands. There I was, reading happily, turning pages steadily, totally unbothered by the occasional missing period or quotation mark (I did notice the missing period and quotation mark, but there was no compulsion to do anything about these minor mistakes; I didn’t need to fix anything).Talk about a dream come true. I am still trying to figure out how to make a living doing this. So far, I have not come up with any solid leads.

The past few months have been busy. It’s not unusual for me to edit for ten or twelve hours a day. Trust me, that is a lot of editing. I wouldn’t edit that much if I didn’t love it, but sometimes at the end of the day my brain feels … well, I suppose mushy is the best word for it. Yes, my brain is mushy, and I feel like I can’t possibly read one more word. I hadn’t realized it until this week, but I had even lost some of the joy I once had for reading. Can you imagine? Instead of reading in the evenings I watched TV. On the weekends, I found it hard to read without falling asleep. Never, not even in my worst nightmare, did I think that I, Sarah Andrews, the kid who always had her nose in a book, would not want to read.

Not to worry though. I took a week to read whatever I wanted, got stuck into a good book (The Book Thief —I’ll tell you about it later), and cured myself. A couple of mornings I was up reading by six o’clock (yes, that’s AM, and no, I’m not insane). I read and read and read. I also played with my stamp collection, watched some movies and took two excellent naps, but mostly I read—with absolute joy.

And so I am now prepared to return to my real life. I’m looking forward to being back in the saddle, to working on books instead of just reading them, hoping that my work may bring hours of enjoyment to other readers. There is one thing that bothers me. You see, I started reading a new book just yesterday. I’m about fifty pages in and don’t want to stop, but I know I won’t be able to finish it this weekend. Do you think my clients would understand if I came down with “vacation flu” on Monday morning?