I use the metaphor of essay writing being like sewing a tapestry but wonder if making a house of cards wouldn’t be better?

In many respects this is how I now write: notes from copious reading reduced to frames in a presentation, and even notes on Rolledex cards that are in time grouped into a coherent argument and then ‘stacked’ into shape to form an essay. Looked at in this way an essay is a case of assembling the right parts in a logical order. Looked at this way, on reading through, you can identify a card that is out of place or faulty. It takes great care if the entire edifice is not to fall, or, however reluctantly, you have to dismantle the thing and build it up again from scratch. THIS is where I fail to get the illusive distinction – faced, inevitably with such a house of cards, I am loath to fix that card, wherever it might be, knowing that to reassemble the ‘house’ will take time and effort and a degree or repeating a task you thought was done.