Word by Word, Paragraph by Paragraph

Writing a novel is like working a jigsaw puzzle. When you begin a puzzle there are lots of pieces, a jumble of confusion. There's a picture on the box that shows you what it's supposed to look like in the end. But there are 1,000 pieces and many of them look the same. So, what do you do?

The answer is simple: just begin. You find one piece that connects to another, and another, and yet another. Before long the jumble of confusion begins to take shape. There may still be a lot of unconnected pieces, but you're a little surer of the direction. Sometimes you'll tryto force a piece in a place where it doesn't belong. But you don't throw away that offending piece. You simply put it aside for later.

So, how do you write a novel? Word by word and paragraph by paragraph.Think of it as a big jigsaw puzzle. With perseverance and determination the picture becomes complete.

Here now is the Day 2 progress on that jigsaw puzzle. It's taking shape ... just like your novel.

The puzzle is taking shape now.