And so closes another chapter in my book. My quaint novella is becoming a giant epic. Some of the chapters have stories that span years, decades even. Others are but a few pages. There’s a lot of interweaving narratives too which can make for a complex read, but the important bits happen sequentially so as to not confuse the reader too much. The decision to finish a chapter is not an easy one. The story doesn’t always get a satisfying end. This most recent chapter was a slow disintegration into dust. I’m not entirely sure whether closing a chapter in this way is a good or bad thing, but it happened and the story cannot be read in reverse so there’s nothing to do but move onto the next one.
Occasionally I’ll be happy to end a chapter as it will have been bugging me for a while; I never cut out chapters too, they remain in the book no matter the quality as they make up the narrative in whatever condition they’re in when I finish. There are however times when ending a chapter is sad because you don’t want to stop living in that moment of time. What’s worse is knowing you have to work out a way to close the chapter because even though it’s fun to write, it is out of place within the grand scheme of the story. I could go anywhere in the future chapters because they are currently unwritten.
I have an idea of the direction I’d like the story to go in so I’ll do my best to guide the narrative and provide some order but there’s a large amount of chaos involved in this process and ultimately nothing can really overpower it. You do what you can as the author but to make it easy for yourself there has to be an element of acceptance in going with the flow of your journey. Sometimes the journey sucks but I know I can bring the story back around to a better place eventually.