Wow. Another night, and still no earth-shattering climax. If I go with how I’m thinking, I’d be faking and there would be no satisfaction in it.
I am, of course, referring to the closure of “A Seasonal Life” but it obviously can be metaphorically represented as a sexual act. I’m hung up on an ending and it’s hard to break away from it and admit it just isn’t working and approach it from a different path. But the good news is that I’ve changed bad habits; in this case, just typing words regardless of my gut feeling—faking it—just to come to a conclusion and the bliss of release into resolution and an ending. I want to write well, not just be spitting out words that leave a reader feeling unfulfilled or worse, resentful and let down. Even though this story needs heavy editing, it has up to this point, I think, been building in a pattern leading somewhere. I need to clarify where that is.
Oh Tiffany, where are you now? You were so good at making up endings to other students’ stories, even when they were already written down. But what this student proved to me was that yes, no matter how pleased with himself an author may be, the reader who has really gotten interested enough in the narrative to this point is frustrated by a less than proper ending, whether it came inspirationally or was planned.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology