Maybe some pieces are fitting together

Synopsis progress: I have no idea.

What I will say is that I have been working on jigsaw puzzles in the evenings here and there because it has been actually cold enough to have a fire in the fireplace and a jigsaw puzzle is a nice thing to work on for a few minutes while my toes warm up. When I was little, my sister and I would do jigsaw puzzles on the floor of the sanctuary after services while our parents yakked with parishioners. When we finished, we would flip them over and do them again only looking at the gray sides. Peeking at the pictures was forbidden. We were very quick and good at them. So I am fond of puzzles, although I usually don't like the pictures on them.

Now, puzzles are really not a hobby that I will ever "pursue". They are great for fireside tables and for rainy stretches during vacations, but they are not a goal themselves. However, because I'm a competitive person, I do like to do whatever I do as well as I can, and hopefully better than the next guy. Over the years, my process has evolved into a very unlinear process that is more like clumping algae than anything else. Eventually I end up with large chunks of together pieces -- pieces themselves, you could argue -- that must be fit together. It is a much faster method (for me) than working from the outside in.

Besides puzzles, I think of myself as a linear person. I don't really have a map in my head, for instance; I have a lot of routes. I make the bed with a particular order of motions. Every time. I do things in routes, recipes of tasks.

So now, with this synopsis problem, I'm discovering that my novel is really more algae aggregation than a series of events, and figuring that out is a major big deal.