The Not So Exciting Climax

Being productive has not been an issue in the writing game the last two months. I've blasted thru 70 pages along with the holidays, house guests, walks and workouts, and all the minutiae of life. Just couldn't wait to get to the final exciting pages, but guess what? They aren't that exciting. They sag and droop like an old bra with the elastic shot. Alas. Of course, anything can be fixed, but I don't recall having this issue before. I'm thinking it is because the main character doesn't confront the bad guy directly. Now I could change that, but right now I don't have any ideas how. A plot follows its own logic and there's no logic taking me there.

Anything can be fixed, and I'm sure something will come. After all this is still first draft, and after the long fallow lie, surely something will occur to me. Because all the possibilities are there. Maybe I have two many characters in the ending, but it seemed like they would be needed. World of Mirrors had a lot of characters in the grand climax, too, but the heroine prevailed.

Of course I got into a terrible funk, thinking well, this is so typical, the books are going downhill from book one and I've lost all the passion and the enthusiasm and am now just grinding them out rather formulaicly and it shows and this not finding a publisher or an agent really sucks by now, and probably the writing sucks, too, and I haven't learned jack shit and well. . . you get the idea. Really get down on myself because I don't like the ending. The dialogue seemed flatter than a 28 bra now that we are in bra metaphor mode. I like that. Bra metaphor mode.

Finally some winter weather due tomorrow. I have been sleeping 9, 10, 11 hours a night, as if the great sleeping sickness was upon me. Dreams, too, but not bad ones. Two nights ago I had a steak eating dream, eating leftovers, nice medium rare steak with lots of fat and I was chowing down on piece after piece. It tasted fantastic, and in my dream I could really taste the nice steaky flavor. A true dream. Last night I dreamt I found tons of cash in my handbag, the result of some good fortune, and I thought, ooooh, I'll go to a nice store and buy some new clothes. Not all dreams are nightmares.

Today I made Scshi, a Russian cabbage soup. Made with short ribs, saurkraut and a whole head of cabbage, tomatoes, garlic, broth, onions, all the good stuff. Served it with chopped dill and parsley and a dab of sour cream on top. Yum! Peasant food can be so delicious. Later in the week we're having Abondigas, a Mexican meatball soup, and after that a vegetarian rice and beans soup. This is soup week, in case you hadn't figured that out. I spent $40 on vegetables at the supermarket. How is such a thing possible? I wasn't buying artichokes or avocados or out of season blueberries, either.

Enough blather. Back to fixing the ending. Such a bummer. Another reason to suck it up and push onward.

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