The bitter end.
I'm there. Well, almost. I have just a few more scenes left to write on my current manuscript. And I've reached that point where I'm pretty sure the entire thing is a piece of crap. I've evidently used up any small amount of talent I might have ever possessed.
I know how the book ends. I know who lives and who dies and who's happy or sad about that. I'm not thrilled with my scenes. They seem rushed. They seem stiff. I wrote a three page scene that is almost all dialog.
And I don't know how to wrap everything up. Character wise, I mean. Because I can't just say what happened, I need to give some indication of their futures. The characters can't just look at each other and say "Well, there you go. We're done."
Endings have always been difficult for me. No idea why.
The manuscript that is littering some agents' desks right now didn't have a decent ending until the final-final-final edit. Then it just came to me. And it also left it open to a sequel. Which is good, but also bad because it would be a bitch of a book to write.
The good thing is that no matter how much I hate every thing I'm writing right now, I can change it all when I revise. And revise, I will. Probably more than once. But first I get to write the last few scenes, and put it away for a few weeks.
That putting it away part? That's what I'm looking forward to right now.