Twice, Susan. One hint, I'm likely to forget or not notice. Three hints or four hints--I guess, but then it better be earth shattering, and sort of echoing Hil, there'd better be detail I never could have imagined, but that's awfully important to the story. Two hints are okay.

This ending? Hardest.Thing.Ever. I think because, even though I know intellectually that it's not supposed to be good right now, I want it to be so much that it's hard to commit myself to errors, possible sucking, and mess.The great ones make it look so easy.I get shy and remember I don't know what I'm doing and then I can't do it.

This ending? Hardest.Thing.Ever.

The great ones make it look so easy.

erika, did you ever read The Hotel New Hampshire? One of the characters was an author who was obsessed with the perfect ending.

Sounds vaguely familiar, Tep. I tell myself that all I have to do this early is FTF Finish The Fucker but I don't believe myself.(But I'm already thinking about my writing book, obviously.) Maybe I'll beat my head against the wall till I die and the creepy irony will do my job for me.

Endings can be hard. I couldn't finish Eyes in the Fire - everytime I sat down and tried to write the last eighty pages, my hands started shaking. I finally said screw it, grabbed my sister and went to Hawaii for a week, and just baked in the sun.

I don't think that actually helped the writing process, but the fact that I'd taken a holiday specifically to enable me to come back and finish it removed any excuse I had for not doing just that.

Hard. Hard hard hard. Not always - the current series have really easy endings to write, because there's a three-part scenario in each one: the exorcism, the wind-down, and then the one fact that the characters don't ever get to find out but the reader does - but sometimes.

Hard.

I think mysteries have a special obligation in that area, too, but maybe it's just I've never written anything so big before.

GO Erika, with getting close to the end! I used to tell my classes that they had to be willing to finish a shitty draft so they could then have something to make wonderful in rewrites. Actually finsihing, for the very reasons you mentioned, iis why many good writers quit, and it's so sad because once you finish one book (or play or whatever) and see how the rewriting process works, it gets easier both to do the work and to think of yourself as a writer

The great ones make it look so easy.

That's because they're not showing you their rough drafts. IJS.

This is true. I would like to see someone Very Important publish one, one time. Something famous...writers would feel so much better. It would be like a DVD commentary for books. "Rough Draft of Kavalier and Klay"

"Rough Draft of Kavalier and Klay"

I wonder if Michael would dish, for enough ginger cake...

Nah. Probably not. I might, but I doubt he would.