Jack of Many Trades

So This Is What It Feels Like

Originally posted: 2010-01-21

So this is what it feels like to finish something. Wow.

That's overstating it, honestly. I finished my Nano novel this year, and that was technically the first time I finished an original fic piece. But it's damn nice to be done with my 2008 novel as well.

Ending things is hard for me. Everything but beginnings is hard for me, really - I tend to have an idea I like that wanders off and never goes anywhere. But ending is really hard. The first draft of Sic Transit Fidei ended, no lie, at the end of Chapter 14. I have spent over a year agonizing over the absence of those last two chapters.

I'm not sure why I've always had so much trouble with endings. I think I hate tying things off - stories don't end, in real life. The characters go on. I think I'm learning to accept that the story can end without saying anything about the characters ending.

STF isn't great art. I never intended it to be. But it was a good exercise, and now I can move on.