End Game

Yesterday was one of those days where I started at the end and worked my way backward. Story writing often works this way, starting with a known ending and then writing toward it. Sometimes you do so much of this type of thinking in writing (or problem-solving or building…) that it becomes second nature and you start applying this thinking to everything, and especially to life itself.

On days like this, immersed in this thinking, I flash forward, picturing myself at a ripe, old age in life. I take a look around to see what it all looks like and figure out the pathways it took to get there. It’s a way of playing with time. And--much like lying on the floor and looking up at the ceiling, which I often do when writing--it’s a way of changing perspective.

Yesterday I took a look at old-age me and I saw family and friends. I saw love. I saw books written. I saw dances danced and kisses stolen. I saw changes that I helped to establish and encouragement that I helped to deliver.

The bad news is that days like this are like climbing a mountain in flip-flops. I see all the things I’d like, but it’s up to me to figure it all out and get these things accomplished, one step at a time, and it’s uphill all the way.

End Game: Making it Worthwhile

The good news, sitting here at my computer, is that I’m still writing this story, my story. If I want all of these things at the end, I just have to go after them and write them into the story. More good news: Everyone is the writer of their own story, no formal training needed.

I’d like to say I plow through days like yesterday, daydreaming and then checking off boxes. But the truth is that I do a lot of sitting still. I look around, I consider, I absorb. It’s not always about getting something done. It’s about getting something decided.

What I decide tends to be the same every time I go through this mental game, but I play the game anyway. My conclusion: The thing that matters the most is how I made everybody feel.

No matter what I imagine, or how I imagine it, the feeling is what gets me every time.