I love puzzles. Maybe that’s why I began my writing career as a mystery writer. I have a new mystery series about Sudoku and a puzzle museum curator. All my romances have a mystery to them. I can’t help myself. I even have a puzzle room in my house. There’s always a jigsaw in progress. It’s a great way to relax. Quiet. Without all that incoming stimuli from TV, CDs and DVDs.
And boy does my puzzle room come in handy when I’m writing and my characters are going somewhere I hadn’t planned, and the plot has thickened and I wonder what the heck is going to happen. I just sit down for a few minutes, pick up one of those lovely little pieces of cardboard and look for a spot where it fits.
Out of total confusion comes a pattern and finally a picture. Writing is sometimes like that. I look at all the different pieces, the characters, the setting, the plot, and I think, Yikes. Part of me knows I’ve got the total picture in my mind somewhere. But part of me just hopes that I can get them pieced together into a fulfilling story.
Then slowly the story begins to emerge and I know all the pieces had always fit together, even though I didn’t always see how.
Puzzles are like that. I guess that’s why they’re so intriguing. And why they’re so helpful for focusing your mind.
Anybody have a favorite technique for seeing the whole picture?
I am to anal to do puzzles. I have this unhealthy obsession with finishing whatever I start and puzzles are one of the things that I have given up. I will do the little puzzles with my kids, but the big ones that take days or weeks drive me insane. I will even dream about them. I’m the same way with books, I can’t stop in the middle of a chapter and I normally have to finish the book with a day or two at the most.
I’m also obsessive with puzzles, once I start, I can’t stop! To find a solution for a problem/mystery in my life, I step back and look at the different outcomes that may develope. Then I guide the problem in the way that is most beneficial.
I love to do puzzles, but for relaxing not to solve a problem. Although if I start the puzzle, I find that I am drawn back to it – when I should be doing other things – with the old adage one more piece and then I will go do whatever. I am the same way with books, I am always reading just to the end of this chapter and then setting another boundry, especially if I am really into the story.
To solve a problem I may be having, I tend to look at the pros and cons and try to make the best decision.
It’s wierd. I’m working on a new series proposal and today I took the twenty pages of notes I’ve written at various times during the last month and started cutting and pasting them. (physically with scissors and scotch tape.) Then I reordered the parts in different ways until I had the skeleton for a sequence of events. Kind of like working a puzzle
Gemma
It’s wierd. I’m working on a new series proposal and today I took the twenty pages of notes I’ve written at various times during the last month and started cutting and pasting them. (physically with scissors and scotch tape.) Then I reordered the parts in different ways until I had the skeleton for a sequence of events. Kind of like working a puzzle
Gemma
It’s wierd. I’m working on a new series proposal and today I took the twenty pages of notes I’ve written at various times during the last month and started cutting and pasting them. (physically with scissors and scotch tape.) Then I reordered the parts in different ways until I had the skeleton for a sequence of events. Kind of like working a puzzle.
Gemma
Oops
I think I must have leaned on my mouse
Gemma