the hardest part; or, why i always leave the last piece of cake.
It has dawned on me, with increasing frequency of late, that I have a really hard time finishing a story.
Before you go and think "Well, yeah, sure, I have a couple of stories I have a hard time finishing, too," allow me to enlighten us both on something.
We're going to find out at the same time how many unfinished stories I consider "in progress". Right now.
*goes to count stories on the flash drive*
50. Fifty stories, excluding those that actually have an ending, however poor they may be.
This does not include the random stories I have stashed in dusty corners of the two computers I use, and this does not include every story I consider to be "in progress", at best, 90% of them - the ones I could remember off the top of my head when I migrated a bunch of stuff to the flash drive in the first place. This does not include art, or stories that have a vague ending, but that need major revision, a process I find as difficult as ending something.
I always leave the last piece of cake, too. I might want it later, or someone else might want it more than I do now, or I might not be in the mood for it by the time I get around to eating it, or maybe it will be Exactly the Thing I Need tomorrow, and if I eat it today, it will, obviously, not be there tomorrow when I need it.
And then tomorrow comes, and I see the cake in the fridge, and I say "Well... it looks really good, but... I shouldn't eat it now, I'll have this other snack instead." And then two months later, I see the same piece of cake, and I remember "Oh yeah, I had a piece of cake. Damn. That would have been really good." And I remember a dozen times and more that I would have really enjoyed that piece of cake, and now it's stale and I have to throw it away.
I think these concepts are related. The cake is best in potentia; the ending is perfect before I've screwed it up trying to write it out; the story is still in progress, and therefore any flaws are still able to be edited out, rather than the both of us trying to brave it out when the story is sent into the world with an ending packed into its lunchbox, a pat on the back and a few words of encouragement whispered into its ear.
If it's not finished, I can still worry about it and fuss over it and "make it better", which has obviously turned into some travesty of "well, I'm working on my novel" brian/stewie argument in my head.
For many reasons, This Needs to Stop. I don't know how. "Oh, just write the ending!" obviously does not work, because the few endings I have written suck. I finished writing Dog, and the few people who have read it said "Hm. Well, it's kind of anticlimactic." And I wholeheartedly agree, and thus, Dog has gone back to the "unfinished" section of my head. I know the ending it needs. I know the ending they all need, I know that cake will taste damn good when I get to it. But I'm always afraid it will be stale, or that I will later, after I have eaten the cake, written the ending, have a moment where I find myself thinking "Good god, that wasn't the right time at all! This would be much better now!"
No, that's not entirely accurate. I am not afraid of this, I know this fact, as surely as I know that my ass is planted on this chair, as firmly as I know that my fingers are banging against this keyboard. Whether this is accurate knowledge remains to be seen, but does not change the fact that I know.
Maybe I need to just glut myself on endings for a while, and write those instead of writing all these beginnings.
Please share thoughts, comments, and complaints. Even if you want to yell at me for not finished Dog properly so you can read the ending it's meant to have. ;) Anything helps, I think.
Before you go and think "Well, yeah, sure, I have a couple of stories I have a hard time finishing, too," allow me to enlighten us both on something.
We're going to find out at the same time how many unfinished stories I consider "in progress". Right now.
*goes to count stories on the flash drive*
50. Fifty stories, excluding those that actually have an ending, however poor they may be.
This does not include the random stories I have stashed in dusty corners of the two computers I use, and this does not include every story I consider to be "in progress", at best, 90% of them - the ones I could remember off the top of my head when I migrated a bunch of stuff to the flash drive in the first place. This does not include art, or stories that have a vague ending, but that need major revision, a process I find as difficult as ending something.
I always leave the last piece of cake, too. I might want it later, or someone else might want it more than I do now, or I might not be in the mood for it by the time I get around to eating it, or maybe it will be Exactly the Thing I Need tomorrow, and if I eat it today, it will, obviously, not be there tomorrow when I need it.
And then tomorrow comes, and I see the cake in the fridge, and I say "Well... it looks really good, but... I shouldn't eat it now, I'll have this other snack instead." And then two months later, I see the same piece of cake, and I remember "Oh yeah, I had a piece of cake. Damn. That would have been really good." And I remember a dozen times and more that I would have really enjoyed that piece of cake, and now it's stale and I have to throw it away.
I think these concepts are related. The cake is best in potentia; the ending is perfect before I've screwed it up trying to write it out; the story is still in progress, and therefore any flaws are still able to be edited out, rather than the both of us trying to brave it out when the story is sent into the world with an ending packed into its lunchbox, a pat on the back and a few words of encouragement whispered into its ear.
If it's not finished, I can still worry about it and fuss over it and "make it better", which has obviously turned into some travesty of "well, I'm working on my novel" brian/stewie argument in my head.
For many reasons, This Needs to Stop. I don't know how. "Oh, just write the ending!" obviously does not work, because the few endings I have written suck. I finished writing Dog, and the few people who have read it said "Hm. Well, it's kind of anticlimactic." And I wholeheartedly agree, and thus, Dog has gone back to the "unfinished" section of my head. I know the ending it needs. I know the ending they all need, I know that cake will taste damn good when I get to it. But I'm always afraid it will be stale, or that I will later, after I have eaten the cake, written the ending, have a moment where I find myself thinking "Good god, that wasn't the right time at all! This would be much better now!"
No, that's not entirely accurate. I am not afraid of this, I know this fact, as surely as I know that my ass is planted on this chair, as firmly as I know that my fingers are banging against this keyboard. Whether this is accurate knowledge remains to be seen, but does not change the fact that I know.
Maybe I need to just glut myself on endings for a while, and write those instead of writing all these beginnings.
Please share thoughts, comments, and complaints. Even if you want to yell at me for not finished Dog properly so you can read the ending it's meant to have. ;) Anything helps, I think.