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It’s a snowstorm!

So as you may (or may not, I don’t know who you are) have noticed, the progression over at Zombies and Loathing has been rolling on. It’s done. I have written all of it. It measures in at around 50 pages which I’m actually pretty happy with, I think much longer and it would overstay its welcome. I mean, it’s a zombie story that will be finishing about 4 years after the zombie crazy, so it has probably already overstayed its welcome.

But it was still nice to finish a thing.

I had the ending mapped out in my mind nearly 2 years ago, and I can tell you here and now (you’ll see in a few weeks) that it is not the best ending ever.

What happened?

I am not really sure.

I planted all the little seeds for the climax to come together in a way that felt out of nowhere but was actually tying in a bunch of little, seemingly insignificant little details that the narrator had dropped over the course of the story, but I’ve re-read what I wrote a bunch of times and it just doesn’t click the way I want it to.

Should I flesh it out more? Should I add more suspense? More observations from the St-Brigid?

I don’t even know.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve read a book or watched a film and been like “it was great, except for the ending” and I have new appreciation for that problem. A part of you is just so happy that you’ve closed off your story circle that you lose massive amounts of motivation to really go back and re-invest time into polishing off your finale.

I’ve started going over the whole thing and revising it, for the eventual conversion into an e-book that I’ll offer for free. I’m secretly hoping that somehow that process will revitilize me when it comes to polishing the ending off for the final version.

I’m not sure how to avoid this problem for the next project (the “I’m going to try to write a whole book” thing). I’ve read that J.K. Rowling had the ending to Harry Potter written well in advance, and apparently George R.R. Martin has the major points of the Song of Ice and Fire climax already in the can too.

That might be the route I go, when I’ve got the ending in mind and I’m excited about it, I’ll drop whatever I’m writing and jump on that. I’ll always be able to edit it.

Anyone have any ideas on how to not lose steam putting your endings into reality?

Keith does all sorts of things here on 9to5.cc, he works with the other founders on 9to5 (illustrated), co-hosts our two podcasts: The 9to5 Entertainment System and Go Plug Yourself and blogs here as The Perspicacious Geek.