Tuesday, 9 April 2013

Putting The Pieces Together


For Christmas, some elderly friends of ours bought the boys a 500 piece jigsaw each.  Initially I thought the boxes would be consigned to the cupboard, unopened.  How could a jigsaw possibly compete with today's technology?  But I was wrong, I'm pleased to say.  In the quiet days between Christmas and New Year, we opened up the box, picked out the edge pieces and started to put it together.

At first I thought we would never finish it, there were too many pieces in the box and a huge blank space in the middle of the board, but gradually we started to fill in all those spaces, moved some pieces around that had been put in the wrong place, and eventually we had the complete picture.

And while we were doing it, it struck me how like writing a novel, doing a jigsaw is.  The edge pieces are the plot, the middle the slog of the first draft, and trying the pieces in difference places is the editing.

The whole process is both addictive and frustrating but the final picture at the end is well worth the effort.

Just need to find the time to do the other one. Oh, and write that novel of course.

3 comments:

  1. I've never thought of it like that before but you're right. Jigsaws are also very frustrating!

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  2. ... and that really annoying moment when you think you've finished, only to discover there's one piece missing!
    Good luck with the novel!

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  3. Hi both, yes it was frustrating. I've just discovered Suduko which is just as bad if not worse!

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