I've been thinking for the last twenty minutes that I should probably just suit up and head over to the gym. Waking up early after all doesn't have to be a curse when it could just be a gift horse in disguise.
Still I can't put my finger on what exactly it was that pulled me from my bed this morning. I could blame my dog, but then again, we get up at least once most every night so she can do her business, and normally getting back to sleep is a non-brainer.But not this morning...
It may have something to do with the dream I just had, or the small amount of stress I'm feeling this morning, or the laundry list of concerns, things to do, and things I should have already done being so much on my mind that my mind can no longer focus on the importance of sleeping.
Either way it seems as if I'm up for the long haul and there's no point now in trying to deny it, regardless that it's the first day of my vacation and here I am, up with the birds as if I'm going to work.
And work be damned...
I need a week off from that place to regain what little bearing I have left as of late.
I am convinced that I can attribute much of my energy drain on a windowless office, and a desk decked out with an invisible chain. Many negative vibes and the job I used to love is more like the job I loathe, and the only time I marginally like it is on payday when they grease my palm.
Still it would be nice to do something I love... Then again, I'm not really at a place in my life where struggling writer sounds like a wise career move. And though I do what I can when I can, I've got to admit that I'm on a snail trail for completing the things I really want done.
Last night I went to bed thinking about what I refer to as the dead end drop. The point in a story where the author has weaved their tale from the initial plot, to the but it has to end here somewhere part. Or much like my accidental dip in the water, the point where the ride was going smoothly until you hard stick your paddle into the water and end up all wet.
The dead drop is sudden. Unexpected. An ending so quick you had no idea that you were even being led up to it, convinced that the pages still left to go hold some sort of words of explanation rather than more author acknowledgements for why they suddenly cast their characters so harshly from the boat.
I too am guilty of the dead drop. The point in the story where my brain just says, "Okay, Stacey. Time to bring this to a close. We don't have all night, you know."
And I hate to do it. Hate the lazy way it just seems to say, I couldn't think of any other way to end it all. It leaves the reader unsatisfied. Stuck if you will inside a story that forces them to imagine an ending other than the one they were forced to abruptly accept.
As writers we have a responsibility to work an ending until the ending turns out right. Though don't confuse my statement as an argument for a happy ending. More often than not, the happy ending is a worn out cliche. Not that I want to end every book I read with a box of Kleenex by my side and a raging migraine just to prove my point that some endings require darkness rather than light.
Every story has to answer to its own end. And when it doesn't, the reader knows. Sensing the deception that has been passed off as completion, they close the book with less satisfaction than any writer would want them to.
An unfinished story is like a Picasso half painted. A great masterpiece lost to an even greater ambition to please the masses when all that matters at the time of its conception is pleasing yourself.
It makes sense if given some thought.
And this is why we write. Why a painter paints. Why a musician composes. It's not, as some would believe because it's what we want to do. When we're called, it's a summons that refuses be ignored. Not even at four in the morning when it calls us from our beds, and wakes our mind with endless possibilities.
It's for the love of the creation. The sound of a thousand words on our lips. The thirst we have to impart whatever knowledge it is we believe we've gained. An attempt to reach, to touch, to be a part of this great big world. To make you laugh, to make you cry, to make you remember from where it was you came, and push you to go to the places you've just begun to dream to go.
We are a destination. And an invitation.
A journey that begs you come explore.
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