When I write, I am alone. I'm physically alone in a quiet room but I'm also alone in my thoughts. Sometimes I become so absorbed in the text that I literally do not hear anything, including the sound of my husband's voice if he walks in and asks me a question. It's a solitary exercise, writing, from the first sentence I type out on the screen to the moment I hit "send" on the email to my editor.
So I'm always a little amazed when an acquaintance calls up to say she stumbled across a piece of mine in a magazine and enjoyed it. It seems magical somehow that a piece I wrote in such solitude has made its way out into the busy, bustling world and has a life of its own, interacting with people that I have never met and probably never will.
So I'm always a little amazed when an acquaintance calls up to say she stumbled across a piece of mine in a magazine and enjoyed it. It seems magical somehow that a piece I wrote in such solitude has made its way out into the busy, bustling world and has a life of its own, interacting with people that I have never met and probably never will.
Setting cryptics is the same but even better, I'm discovering. When I write a mystery story, I'm providing all the content. All the reader has to do is absorb it. But a cryptic crossword requires the person solving it to get involved. Cryptic solvers become part of the narrative of the puzzle, doing the work that the detective in a crime story would.
I owe this realization to a woman named Julie whom I have never met. She lives in Melbourne and avidly decodes crochet patterns and cryptic crosswords, blogging about how she made her way to the answer. A few weeks ago, she tackled one of my practice puzzles. Once she had the whole thing figured out, she asked if she could blog about the process and I said "sure".
The exhilaration I felt as I read her blog post amazed me. "Yes!" I kept thinking as Julie described the process of figuring out certain clues. "That's exactly what I was going for!" It felt as though Julie had crawled into my mind and was tracing each line of thought back to the source. I had left a trail of breadcrumbs and Julie found every one.
The exhilaration I felt as I read her blog post amazed me. "Yes!" I kept thinking as Julie described the process of figuring out certain clues. "That's exactly what I was going for!" It felt as though Julie had crawled into my mind and was tracing each line of thought back to the source. I had left a trail of breadcrumbs and Julie found every one.
At home, I have a framed copy of the November 8, 2004 issue of the New Yorker. The illustration, by Adrian Tomine, shows two people on subway cars moving in different directions reading the same book. I framed it because one day, I hope to come across someone on the metro (or subway, or tube) reading a book that I have written.
This feels like the equivalent for cryptics.
Thank you, Julie.
- Sarah
This feels like the equivalent for cryptics.
Thank you, Julie.
- Sarah
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