Ten-Finger Exercises

Endings aren't my thing.

I had never before completed a short story, I said a few days ago. There are 3 in my port, but they are all quite short and one is for children. Fine As Frog's Hair was something I made myself keep on with, just to have finished it and get it reviewed.

One very astute reviewer commented that it didn't really matter to anyone else whether I trashcanned it or kept working on it, that only I know how important it is to me. He wrote about plotting, and about the whiplash in the middle of my story as I go from one situation to a completely different one. Absolutely true. Couldn't have said it better.

As I've read his words about a generating condition and instability and confrontation and inevitability, I realize how difficult writing is. It's easier to live it than to write it, and that's not easy either.

I need to read more about plotting. My one short writing class had one short lesson on plotting. I'm especially not good at endings. As I replied to my reviewer, they seem either to trail off or tidy up. I had chosen the tidy up method, which was a ho-hummer.

Is there some irony about a hospice chaplain not being good at endings?