A new chapter out of nowhere, unplanned, not even hinted at in my creative universe - and it just fell out of my fingers as if it was dying to be written! How did this happen? For over a year I've struggled and struggled and struggled with this novel. I've written and rewritten and rewritten. I've made notes and more notes and more notes and even notes of notes. I've sweated and cried and shouted and blustered and lain awake in silence for hours at night. I've stomped around the local squares with my sore back, my sore foot, my sore head, my sore neck, my sore shoulders - my whole damn body sore, thinking and thinking and thinking and trying to work it out and failing. Oh, God, and the feelings of failure - WHY am I a writer, WHY am I writing this bloody book that no one will ever read, what POSSESSED me to even THINK this story might be interesting. All this heartache - but also all the joys when finally something works, when something I've written, read back, is suddenly beautiful. When I can not only see the character but get inside their head and feel what they feel. When the plot actually makes sense. When there actually is a plot.
So where did this new chapter come from? I had originally ended Part III at the exact point that I ended Part II - just from a different point of view. This had been planned. It was always going to be like this (well, once I'd actually decided to structure a Part III and this particular POV into the novel). When the new chapter suggested itself to me (see my last post), I had no idea it was going to work so well. The conversations just fell out of my fingers. Ten breezy, easy pages, all wrapping up the novel to a brilliant, satisfactory but also wildly surreal point - why only NOW?! Why couldn't this ease of writing have come sooner, like, you know, about a year ago? Is it because I only now know my novel well enough to know how to end it?
In that case, all my struggles have been worth it. I have found the near-perfect ending.
Now I only have to worry that it comes too late, that the novel takes too long to reach this point and that there isn't enough of a hint that it's coming. But this is a flaw in my writing that I've always had and have never managed to resolve. At the very least, the mist has begun to clear.
So where did this new chapter come from? I had originally ended Part III at the exact point that I ended Part II - just from a different point of view. This had been planned. It was always going to be like this (well, once I'd actually decided to structure a Part III and this particular POV into the novel). When the new chapter suggested itself to me (see my last post), I had no idea it was going to work so well. The conversations just fell out of my fingers. Ten breezy, easy pages, all wrapping up the novel to a brilliant, satisfactory but also wildly surreal point - why only NOW?! Why couldn't this ease of writing have come sooner, like, you know, about a year ago? Is it because I only now know my novel well enough to know how to end it?
In that case, all my struggles have been worth it. I have found the near-perfect ending.
Now I only have to worry that it comes too late, that the novel takes too long to reach this point and that there isn't enough of a hint that it's coming. But this is a flaw in my writing that I've always had and have never managed to resolve. At the very least, the mist has begun to clear.
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