Last night before I fell to sleep, the reason I was struggling with multiple drafts came to me: I'm not accepting the truth that's in this story.
The first draft had an ending that I loved and I've been trying to write scenes that would lead me to it. However, the scenes, the story line, the character development that I've got up to this point all call for a different ending, the one that was revealed to me last night.
It's not a happy ending, and that's hard for me 'cause (true to my nature) I want the main character to be someone he isn't, to do something he can't. Although I'm writing this story, that's not for me to decide. (Also a lesson I need to take and apply in real life.
Quite liberating. I'll have a complete draft today. Yahoo!
I should keep this quote by Chekhov in mind ". . . the writer's job . . . is merely to record who, under what conditions, said or thought what. . . The artist is not meant to be a judge of his characters and what they say; his only job is to be an impartial witness. . . Drawing conclusions is up to the jury, that is, the readers. My only job is to be talented, that is, to know how to distinguish important testimony from unimportant, to place my characters in the proper light and speak their language."
An honor, privilege and foremost, a responsibility.
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