I wrote this a while back, but never got to post it until now:
I'm beginning work on chapter 33. When I first started out writing this book, I didn't take into consideration the emotional stamina it would take to write it. These last few chapters have a lot of sadness and I've had to muster a lot of strength in order to get through them. My story does have a happy ending, but my characters have to wade through their challenges, sadness and sorrow before they can come through to resolution and eventual happiness. And then there's one of my characters that I had hoped would grow and change in the course of the story, but I have found that she is one of those types of people that refuses to change, which is one of the saddest things of all.
Looking back after publishing my book, that last emotional push it took to finish writing the hard stuff at the end is very memorable. It was some of the hardest writing I've ever had to do and I procrastinated a lot. It might have been because after writing my characters on their journeys, I'd become really close to them. It might have been because I was writing about some really emotional things, and I had to dig deep to do it. (That's really hard to do when you've got wife, mom, homeschooling, church, and house duties pulling at you too!) Or maybe it was because I just couldn't bring myself to write another fight scene, to put my characters through even more hard things, to bring troubled relationships to a head. I have to admit that writing those last difficult scenes made me cry.
I read once that if the writer doesn't laugh, the reader doesn't laugh. If the writer doesn't cry, the reader doesn't cry. How you feel as you write seeps into your writing.
I remember writing this one Harry Potter fan fiction years ago, called Ronald the Great. I had so much fun writing it. Every night after work, I couldn't wait to get back to my computer to work on it. It was such a fun adventure, and I think it comes through in the story. It's a good lesson to remember.
