There are times, as a writer, when you have several projects started, and not many completed, and you start to wonder if this is really something you can do or if you are kidding yourself. When it gets really frustrating, you even search indeed.com for potential jobs. I am reassured today that I’m headed in the right direction.

There is a novel, or a screenplay… not sure which yet… that has been in my head (and in parts on my laptop) for a couple of years now. I have written many, many words, but still don’t have a complete plot figured out. I have scenes, I have character sketches, and some motivations for some actions, but no ENDING. Pro tip: I’ve been told most readers prefer an ending.

Now, I’ll admit I’m a “pantser“, so I don’t always try to come up with the ending as soon as I have the idea for a story – preferring for the ending to come to me as I write, but for this thing, it’s been hard to get all the work done when I’m not sure where I’m headed. So, it sits.

This morning, after spending time working on the stubborn novel last night, I decided not to punish myself any further. I opened my awesome vintage unicorn notebook to a new page and spent an hour rethinking a short story I started months ago. I have messed with this story and put it down, and picked it back up, and added words to it that didn’t feel right… and now I finally believe it has a solid direction.

I’ve decided to use this story as a repository for some of my memoir about my year with my mom as she was dying of brain cancer. I have felt I should write about that experience since she died in 2009 (actually, since she was diagnosed), but every attempt has been crap; over-wrought, emotionally burdensome, and at times, plain old whiney. I think fictionalizing the characters around the experiences is going to be the perfect solution. An hour later, I had a page full of scenes to write and a tentative list of actors and actresses to cast in the film, and I’m excited to get busy.

Anyone know how to get in touch with Susan Sarandon??