Did ya miss me?

In case you didn’t realize, my blogging pen spilled no ink yesterday (don’t feel bad–I didn’t even realize that I had not written until long after midnight…). I thought that I would be completely devastated by forgetting to write.

Instead, I chuckled to myself and fell fast asleep.

Writing every day is a way of life for me, I guess. Whether I do that on my blog, in my daybook, or on a specific story or essay I am working on, it really makes no difference at all to me. What’s most important is that I write every day.

Nearly all of my thoughts this week have been on the alternate ending for my novel, Cold Rock. Since I first wrote the original ending 5 years ago (and then revised it once nearly 2 years later), I have never been at peace with how the ending played out. I always felt (even with the revision 3 years ago) that the ending settled the story of the protragonist, but really did nothing at all for the reader.

That has always bothered me on several levels. There’s a relationship between story and reader that I cannot ignore, and I want to leave my readers with something to take from my words that transcends a superficial commentary about the characters or the plot line. I want them to take something more relevant, more personal, that they carry with them long after they finish reading.

I think that this alternate ending does this.

It may be rough around the edges (it’s all new writing that I’ve spliced into a story that hasn’t changed dramatically since I wrote it), and I may have to go through several revisions to smooth it out so that its addition to the manuscript is seamless to the reader. But to me, as a writer, I like it much, much better.

So–back to this blog and my daily writing. Now that the streak has been broken, I’m not going to make as big a deal about writing every day here, but I also can’t ignore that it might very well happen anyway.

I’m way behind on my Write Anything posts, too. I need to get back to them pronto.

Thanks to all of you who have read so far, and thanks for continuing to stick around. I can’t wait to see what discoveries writing will bring me in the days to come!