How Doing a Puzzle is Like Writing a Book

I did a puzzle earlier this year. My brother was kind enough to help me out when I ran into trouble with the border at the very beginning but, after that, it was all me. It was the first time I had ever done a 1000-piece puzzle mostly by myself and it took me much longer than I had thought it would. As I was working on it, I would think of how I could be spending the time working on my novel and that was when I realized there were a number of similarities between completing the puzzle and completing my novel.

1) It took me way longer than I thought it would.

I was naive enough to think that I could finish the puzzle in a few weeks. It took me closer to five months. However, that just made me that much more proud of the finished product. I took a picture, posted it to all my social media, bragged to all of my virtual friends (and real friends). It felt awesome.

Likewise, my novel has taken me much longer to complete than I thought it would. I completed the first draft in one year and, considering I work full time, I was actually pretty happy with that. It was all the editing that surprised me. As with the puzzle, I was naive enough to think that I would get some constructive criticism from a few friends, make the necessary touch ups, and hit "publish". Ok, I never thought publishing was going to be that easy but I certainly never thought I would spend three years editing! However, like I said about the puzzle, the extra time has made me that much more proud of my work. When I think of how far it's come from that first draft, I have to admit, I feel pretty awesome.

2) Attention to detail is important.

My puzzle was particularly tricky in that there were a lot of pieces that looked like they went together, but they really didn't. Some of these mistakes I realized right away. Some of them I didn't realize until I was down to the last few pieces of the puzzle and I realized that they didn't fit in any of the available spots.

Same with my novel. I thought some things worked really well. I was even really proud of certain narrative choices. My beta readers were kind enough to let me know otherwise. As much as I wanted to ignore them all as ignorant panderers to current literary fashion, there were times when I had to admit they were right, especially when I got the same comment from multiple readers.

3) The value of walking away.

If I hadn't managed to add any pieces to the puzzle for a significant amount of time, I usually found that the best thing to do was to just walk away. When I came back the next day, I was refreshed and better able to find matching pieces.

We all know the value of beta readers because they have a distance from the story that we don't. Stepping away from the story and working on something else for awhile can help us gain some of that distance. This might be even more true after having received a criticism you don't agree with. Step away from the manuscript, get your mind off of it, maybe do a puzzle, and then, when you come back, you might be able to see it from your reader's perspective.