This week I have had to determine if I’m a glass half full or a glass half empty kind of a person. After a really great session with my writing group (some of the best humans on the planet) and a long conversation with a writer friend I trust, I made the hard decision to shelve my novel. Despite so much time thinking about the plot and the characters, I just couldn’t nail the ending. It was a story that had no resolution, and although some people like that, I am not one of them. I saved it in a separate file, put it into a new place on my computer, and there it is going to have to stay until I’ve worked out that (not so small) problem. Initially I was sad about it, I’ve spent a lot of time with Hannah and Adele and Jamie. I’ve tried to figure out all of their motivations and what makes them tick, but without an ending, I’m pretty stuck. I’ve since come to terms with it. I’ll miss them, but I’m also hopeful that in some flash of inspiration the perfect ending will come to me and I’ll be able to pull it back off of the shelf and carry on at some future date. Fingers crossed.
The good thing is, after listening to multiple published authors do talks this week, I keep hearing “write what you want to read” reverberating in my head. Right now, that’s nothing other than a good old beach read. Simple, light, sassy, and fun. So, since I can’t stop writing for long (I think it might have been 24 hours!) I decided to start trying my hand writing a beach read. For now I’m trying to meet my new characters as they start to reveal themselves on the page. I’ve been spending time with Amelia and JT and Shivali and hoping that I can figure out how to write tension as well as some of my author heroes do! Always learning right? Wish me luck, and if anyone has any words of wisdom, always happy to hear them!