The End

Endings are the hardest.

First of all, getting to the ending can prove damn difficult. Most writers have no problems writing a beginning, some even manage a middle, but only the really determined writers get to the end.

Obviously, I got to the end.

There are, of course, different kinds of endings. There's the ending to the first book in a trilogy, which has some resolution but leaves the story open. There's the ending to the second book, which more often than not suffers from being the connective story and thus lacks resolution and often has a cliffhanger.

Then there's the real ending. The last scene, the last line, the last page.

That's the ending I got to last night. 

I thought I would cry but I didn't. I no longer have the dream of writing these characters, the dream of getting to the end. I've known from the very beginning how I would end it. The details were murky, but the general idea has never changed. So I have dreamed about it for three summers and now it is over.

But I feel strangely calm. Maybe it's just shock and tomorrow I'll wake up utterly heartbroken  but I think it's more than that. I think I did justice to my characters and my story. I think because of that, my writer's heart is at peace.

Part of it too is that I know this isn't the real end, not for me as the writer. I still have revision to look forward to. First I will take a few weeks or a month off, to let the story settle and to get some distance.

I will also resume querying for the first book because I have slacked hard on that front and there is no longer an excuse. I have a whole other post in mind about my thoughts on the value of querying, but that is for another day.