The End is Nigh!

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

Sorry. I did not mean to shout in your ear. But I was having a major problem with my current writing project. But I finally figured it out.

The problem? I didn’t know how the story is suppose to end.

Weird. I always know how my little anecdotes end. Maybe not when I first start writing, but by the second or third word I have a clear, chapter-by-chapter outline with business stats and pie charts and different Swiss bank accounts when the Feds start looking for me after I robbed those forty banks as research material for my story and "HEY, GUYS! I DID PLAN TO RETURN ALL THAT MONEY! BUT IT LOOKED SO LONELY AND DEPRESSED IN MY BAGS AND I FIGURED IT COULD USE A VACATION IN INDONESIA!"

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, yes, the ending. Well, I know there are many writers who don’t have a clear path when writing their story. They sort of just muddle along, letting their fingers type away as their subconscious jots down tantalizing tidbits that can cause a gasp of shock and excitement. My fingers do it all the time . . .

As I sat on my hungry buck, holding my duck called Chuck
I said to Chuck, "Hey, Chuck! Look at that flying hockey puck!
It’s whizzing through the muck,
and I hope those players don’t get it stuck
in the windshield of my brother’s truck. Such bad luck!"
And with that I slapped my buck,
as we trotted home to the land of the Canucks.
I looked at Chuck and replied, "Sorry, duck.
Forgot to buy food; I am such a shmuck.
So of you I must pluck, my unlucky duck."
And I plucked my duck named Chuck
and into the pot I tucked my duck
before grabbing my horny man named Bruck
as we began to - sleep.

. . . and sometimes my fingers will go off-tangent without any warning and I do not even know what I’ve typed in for the past few minutes. But there are two things I always make sure to do whenever I begin a story.

1: Know the beginning.
2: Know the end.
2½: Sort of have an idea of what the middle is going to be like and what the gist of the story is.

So, I had the beginning. And I knew what the gist of the story was even before I HAD the beginning. But that ending was, like, a freakin’ blur in my mind, man. Total blurage, like, how you cut the throttle back on the tubular wave so not to cut in the surf line. But then the froth took me away and I was, like, SWEET, the ocean is talking to me. So I got up on my board and snaked the wave and totally did not see that snapping turtle until I was almost on it when . . . WHAM, man. I am on the beach with my noggin pounding deeper than the tide while suffering from TOTAL BLURAGE.

Um, yeah, I was suffering a minor mind block on the ending. My rock star was basically drumming his hands on my mind saying, "Cmon, girl. THINK!" So I read the little pieces I posted on this blog, thought about my last manuscript and the third I will be working on sometime next year, and saw something disturbing.

All of my main characters end up dying.

Well, I cannot have that. Sure, I do enjoy writing psychological suspense . . . which means that something awful usually happens to the main character. But there are other avenues of torture to inflict on them. I needed to have some variety!

Then . . . WHAM . . . the hockey puck struck me in the head and I almost drowned in the tides of my overactive imagination as THE ENDING appeared on the distant horizon.

I know how the story goes. I just need to write it now . . . write it now . . . come on, drummer boy.

Pound those snares as I pluck my guitar, sending musical waves from the ocean tides of memory and verse.

Don’t let hunger or thirst stop me. Don’t let frozen stones or bumpy oceans stop me.

Compose this story to my heart’s content, until it tastes sweet on my lips and in my mind.

Write it now.

Ba-dada-dada-boom!