Coyote

I think being a writer is a bit akin to being the coyote in the road runner cartoons. There’s a cliff and you have a catapult, and writing is you getting into that catapult and trying to launch yourself to the top of that cliff. But, since, as a coyote, you don’t know physics, you just have to fling yourself at the cliff face and make adjustments based on where you hit. Splat. Splat. Splat. Splat. Oops, I made it.

Then you walk a little farther forward and there’s another catapult and another cliff. No one can take away from you that you made it this far, but the only way forward is to just do some more time hitting the wall.

I’m almost to the point where the only major revision I have to do to Ashland before sending it to my beta readers is to fix the ending. It was okay that the ending didn’t quite blow me away when it was written. And it was allowed to suck while I was adding stuff that needed to be added, because the additional stuff might suggest something about the shape of the ending. But we’re rapidly coming to the point where the ending can’t just lay there like a tired dog anymore. It’s got to get up, run around, and be terrible and delightful.

I don’t know how to do that. So, I’m preparing, mentally, to throw myself against the rocks again and again.