This blog is a lesson in discipline–one that I’m slowly failing.
And to think writing used to come so naturally. I’m not sure what happened. Self-censorship? Fear of failure? What failure? Bad grammar?
I had an English teacher who used to say my stories sucked, because she wasn’t quite happy with the endings I wrote.
“It could’ve been a better one,” she’d used to say.
If you think about it, does that mean I was doing a good job all the way up until the very end of my story? Like she was invested enough in the entire story to frown upon the ending she thought had not done my characters justice?
Or was it really something along the lines of, “Goddamnit you motherfucker, GIVE ME BACK 30 MINUTES OF MY LIFE.”
I mean, we’ve all been there. Ending of Starcraft 2 (I felt SO cheated). Ending of Mirror of the Witch (I still can’t believe I subscribed to Netflix just to finish the last five episodes, for shame). I could go on, but that’s not exactly the point.
What if I’m just unable to deliver closure? Does that mean I’ll be sitting on piles of unfinished garbage until the day I die?
But they’re my stories. Shouldn’t I get to decide how they end? How affected should I be by choruses of dislike? Does it count as constructive criticism? Or just really a difference in opinion? I mean… I WILL KILL THEM OFF BY WAY OF DROWNING IN MARSHMALLOWS IF I SEE FIT.
2021 edit–
I’m a freaking nutbar.