I’m still searching for those elusive words “the end” with my deadline zooming toward me. Well, actually my original deadline is seven days gone, but where one deadline is missed, another takes its place soon after. So since most of my words need to be on the trail of those two sneaky little words that keep hiding from me, I went back in time here on One Writer’s Journal and pulled out a post from long ago about looking up some “end” quotes to inspire me in a previous hunt for the end of a story. Here it is with a few updating tweaks.
When I went out hunting quotes about “the end,” what I found wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. This first one from Oscar Wilde must be talking about romance, but we can twist it around a little to make it fit writers. “When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love, and the wise already have one in reserve.”
When that story that has a writer totally in its grip ends, the weak writer might cry as she has to let her story go out to perhaps face rejections. Ah, but the efficient one will find a new story to take off with, and the wise writer will already be thinking up that new idea before she writes “The End.”And I always enjoy Mark Twain’s wisdom. His quotes generally have that germ of truth that really gets his point across. “Man was made at the end of the week’s work, when God was tired.”Here’s another good one for writers. “If you want to know the end, look at the beginning.” …African Proverb
We need to have the thread of our story from the beginning to the end. I’m not one of those writers who knows the ending at the beginning, but I do hope that my endings fit my beginnings.
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s advice here can certainly apply to writers. “To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
So write the books you love. Enjoy the writing journey. Finish your moments and live your hours in your stories and in your life.
How about this last one? “To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow, the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.” …Pablo Picasso
What do you think about it? Does this just fit for an artist? One thing sure just because I write the end doesn’t mean I’m finished with this story. I need about two months to go back over it and make it better. But right now I’d settle for two weeks to at least begin to polish the story even though I know it will need more polish than I can apply in that short time.
Writing a book is a long process from the day I type “Chapter 1” to the day – it has to be tomorrow – I write “the end.” In between the two, I’ve come up with over 100,000 words. But the important thing is – have I written the story and let my characters come to life and find the perfect ending? The story is one more return to Rosey Corner for Love Comes Home.
Thanks for reading. Especially those of you who have been reading Small Town Girl. Remember, one more week to enter my Small Town Girl giveaway. Drawing next Sunday.