My mom studied English in college so I had a professional on hand at all times, but I rejected her help week after week. I’d say, “I want this to be a gift for you! I don’t want you to put any work into this.” I’d never seen her make that sort of face before, she was defeated and elated at the same time.
After I turned 20, I told myself I would finish Seas the Day by the end of the year. At this point, I was no longer living at home with nothing else to do besides puzzles all day long. I had just moved into a formative Catholic Men’s household run by Saint Paul’s Outreach (SPO). I couldn’t wait to get done with my homework so I could pull out a new puzzle and start chipping away. This helped the academic rigor of junior year to fly by, especially considering all ASU classes had shifted online. By my 21st birthday on May 1, 2021 I had connected four 10,000 piece puzzles!
The summer of 2021 I dumped another box out onto the dining room table of a Morrison Hall dorm at the University of St. Thomas and was shocked to find no corner pieces. After much thrashing and swearing unprintable words at my screen. I deleted more words than I wrote for three straight months. I had hunted and pecked my way through 40,000 words, I often wished I just had three or four options of keys to press, 26 was so awfully daunting. Everyday that summer I woke up hating my book and dreading the process.
The beginning of my senior year at ASU I moved back into SPO household again. Looking at my incomplete puzzle everyday was so infuriating I started cutting corners to make them fit. If I couldn’t trust myself with something as small as a puzzle piece, why should I be trusted with bigger things? How could I have writer’s block telling my own story? I could tell this story from start to finish verbally, so being unable to translate it onto paper was maddening. I decided to send my baby off to a professional editor to get some professional feedback for the first time.
“You’ve got a book, but it’s halfway done.”
This felt like the worst news I had ever received in my life. I had been working on this puzzle for a year and a half. The light at the end of the tunnel was extinguished.
Before I could start trying to do backflips in the backyard again, the professionals sent me a fresh box. It was full of only border pieces! This sent me into the most prolific writing session of my life, for 10 hours on a Saturday in September 2021 I brainstormed, whiteboarded, and wrote into the wee hours of the night using a new tool called, dialogue. When I placed the 50,000th piece the light at the end of the tunnel flicked back on…