The End

There is nothing as satisfying as typing “the end” on your manuscript, even if it is only in your mind.

I’m of the opinion that it never really is “the end,” though. As in any other profession, be it driving a bus or running a company, writers mature and improve and shape their craft throughout their lives.

I like to think I’ve become a better writer – heck, just finishing a book is a huge improvement from my early days! I’ve got any number of unfinished manuscripts kicking around on my hard drive. Some I may go back to. Others I might cannibalize … (Hmmm, such a nasty word. How about take inspiration from? Better.) Others I may use as inspiration for newer works. And still more will never, ever see the light of day, and that’s a good thing. Regardless of the final outcome, I learn something from each effort.

And I continue to learn, when years later I read over my stories, published and not. I always consider ways my work could have been better, my characters more interesting, my dialogue snappier, my plot a bit darker. I think, “Oh, I should have done this,” or “It really would have been better if my hero had done that,” or “Did I really have to use the word ‘really’ so much?” :lol

Even so, with every story there are also those bits of gold, the scenes that surprise and amuse and make me proud to know that, hey, I wrote that and I still think it’s good. It’s especially great when I fall in love with my characters all over again, and remember how caught up in their “lives” I got while I was throwing them in the river, hoping they could swim (but maybe they couldn’t, and – ooooh – what would happen next?!). I prefer to think of those passages rather than the ones that make me want to reach for my red editing pen.

Regardless, with every figurative “the end” comes a sigh of relief, a sense of satisfaction and the urge to get the story out there to, hopefully, surprise, amuse and entertain my readers.

And then it starts all over again as the next idea starts kicking to be born on the page, and I can look forward to the next …

The End.