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Today I want to talk about something which mostly everyone thinks doesn't affect me, and much of the time, I am lucky, and I pass by writer's block like a freight train running on a different track while I sit in comfort and tap away on something which more resembles the shinkansen. But to say I have never felt that dread of not starting right, or not finishing, would be a terrible lie. I'm good at lying, but I don't want to lie to you. Let's talk about The Last Page, Final Chapters, The End, and how hard it is to say goodbye. I'm sitting in front of a story right now, 24,000 words of something which sledge-hammered me around the skull two weeks ago (yes, sorry, I did write all that in 12 days with breaks for Christmas), but which I do not want to finish. Not just because it was supposed be for the spring anthology and is going to be too long to qualify, but because I still don't feel like I know these characters well enough to let them go. But I know I'll have to. Finishing is the worst feeling, or one of the worst feelings, I have ever known. Letting go of people you have shared your brain with, your life with, is tough. My characters talk to me in the shower, while I’m trying to eat dinner and converse with my family, hang around while I sleep and insinuate themselves into my life. They latch on, bug me when I'm supposed to be teaching, or marking, or walking the dog, and letting them go means waving goodbye to people who have become great friends. Even if they've only been with me for a little while, it's still hard. The First Page, In The Beginning, Once Upon A Time, and how to get to know someone. Starting can be as hard as finishing, and I doubt I need to explain to any other writer out there, the number of files I have, a thousand words here, four thousand words there, of things which just never got off the ground. Worse still are the ideas which roll around in the mind, sometimes for years, but every time you go to apply them to paper, they drift away, as insubstantial as smoke, the details smearing like warm paint in the bright sun. I have a few things I want to start at the moment, but I can't, because I don't know where to start, and something else is holding my back from that first blank page. Guilt. Guilt because I have left characters and readers hanging, suspended in mid air, waiting for resolution or continuation, some I have left waiting to fall in love. And that must be painful. I feel bad for them, but sometimes trying to dive back in where you left off is worse. You can't grab the thread, the style has changed, and what seemed easy and natural before is now stilted and difficult. The best intentions are all well and good, but coming back is hard. So to those readers and those characters, I am sorry. But I'll try. You are not abandoned, and I am on my way. I will do my best to bring you home.