I know that many writers have had to write under censorship and yet produced good novels; for instance, Cervantes wrote Don Quixote under Catholic censorship.
If you look closely, there is no book more visual than Three Trapped Tigers, in that it is filled with blank pages, dark pages, it has stars made of words, the famous magical cube made of numbers, and there is even a page which is a mirror.
Puns are a form of humor with words.
I read the Odyssey because it was the story of a man who returned home after being absent for more than twenty years and was recognized only by his dog.
No, absolutely not, writing doesn't have to be like a jigsaw puzzle, it can be a very linear undertaking.
I think that I've tried many times to get Cuba in my writings, especially Havana, which was once a great and fascinating city.