PUZZLING THROUGH MY WRITER'S BLOCK

I am currently sitting at my desk in my study, gazing out at a rainy street and slowly losing the will to live. What I am meant to be doing is working on my latest book, but I appear to have hit yet another brick wall - unfortunately my imaginary friends are not talking to me today. I'm trying not to be too disheartened, the book is coming along quite nicely - I have a healthy wordcount of 61620; relatable characters; an interesting plot; a beginning, a middle and an end - but it's not quite there yet. Where ever 'there' is.

I have now read through my work in progress more times than I care to say, adding and deleting, tweaking and polishing. It's got to the stage where I'm not even sure whether I'm enhancing the work or doing more harm than good. It feels like I'm attempting to complete an extremely intricate jigsaw puzzle and I've lost the lid that shows the picture. You know the sort of jigsaw puzzle I mean- a thousand or more tiny pieces picturing a view that is mainly foliage so that you keep accidentally wedging in the wrong piece. When you try to remove the offending piece, you end up destroying what you've already completed. To add insult to injury, just as you're nearing completion you realise that one or more pieces are missing, lost under presses or down the sides of the sofa. You know you had them at the start of the venture, but now they're mislaid. That's about where I'm at with my work in progress - it's nearly finished but not all the pieces are fitting in properly and try as I might I can't find others, I'm rummaging around for them but so far they are proving elusive.

I guess I'll get there eventually, it's not called a work in progress for nothing after all. I'm definitely further ahead than I was a few months ago. I shall just have to take a deep breath, find all the corner pieces and the straight edges so that I know my framework is sound, and work from there. Slow and steady wins the race. And if that final piece is lost, I shall just have to find a blank piece and get creative.

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