Puzzles

No doubt I’m not the first to compare writing a novel to working a puzzle. The difference between a jigsaw and book, however, is that a jigsaw comes in a box with a picture to guide you, and someone has provided the precise pieces to fit together. The puzzle of a novel, by contrast, is a wild amorphous thing that rarely lies flat on the table and is just as like to have a piece of cheese mashed in where a corner piece belongs.

I feel, these days, like a puzzle maker and a puppet master combined. I’m looking at the sections I’ve written already, trying to see how they fit together, and knowing I need to invent new sections that exist currently only as foggy, lurching, recalcitrant entities around my ankles.

Still, I’m happy. It’s my puzzle, mine alone, and I can tinker with it as the daylight fades and the leaves outside blow their wistful, golden shapes about the yard.