Jigsaw Puzzle
August 6, 2001
7:20 a.m.
Rewriting a novel is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together without having a picture to guide you. You have all these pieces, and you kind of know where they go, but there are all these details that need to line up. And, oh, here's a piece with a rounded little lip. Don't you think it fits better right over there? It's fun, of course. But it's also exacting work.   We went to Indianapolis Saturday to see a movie and do some shopping. Brigid picked up a new Nintendo game, Lisa got some kitchen stuff, and I picked up a collection of short stories by Ann Beattie. We then capped the evening with dinner with friends. This meant I had only an hour or so to work Saturday. Lisa had a bunch of errands to run Sunday, but after I cut the grass, she sent me downstairs to work while she went and handled them. This worked for me, too. Knowing she had given me this time--and was out doing stuff that I really should have been helping with--made me focus as deeply as I could. I didn't, after all, want to have to look her in the eye and say I didn't make anything out of her sacrifice. And so I managed to get through twenty or thirty pages of the rewrite, and am now up into the 420s, or so. in addition, I fixed one of the two structural flaws I had captured from before. It's good stuff, too. I'm building the case better--presenting information in a more logical, accessible fashion. Maybe it's not quite right yet--I don't really know because I'm obviously really close to it right now. Is it good enough? I don't know? Will anyone else want to read it? I don't know. But when I'm "done" I'll go back over the last 200 pages like I did the first 350. Then, I suppose, I'll know. Have a good one.  So now you're going to try to write like Ann Beattie? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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