Deb Lund ad lib

A novel is one picture, one glimpse of life, with a sky-full of stars tucked inside to discover as you read. I’m reading my novel in progress for the first time. I’m discovering loose ends, meanderings that take me away from the story, and also some gems that dropped in there as I created the big picture piece by piece.

Writing is a jigsaw puzzle, and for me, novels are the ones with thousands of small pieces, each one holding a meaning, each piece striving to bring light to the whole.

So what have I been doing on this first run through? Well, I’ve mostly been cutting. While I see visions of scenes not yet in there, I’m first deleting all those details the reader doesn’t care about. The places where I humored myself and followed whims that were distractions in disguise. The wanderings that pulled me out of the story. To appease the part of me crying “But this is valuable information!” I saved those sections in a “cut” file. When I’m done, I’m hoping each piece of that puzzle will take its place, fitting together like a mosaic. Like this one of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Here’s a wish that all your puzzle pieces fall into place…