But how will it end???

When I get an idea for a new book, the ending is really a no-brainer.  They live happily ever after.  But I don't really consider that the ending.  For me, the ending is really those last 10,000-15,000 words where our hero and heroine have their black moment before they can reconcile and have that happily ever after.  Sometimes it's easy.  Others?  Not so much.

The road to happily ever after is never easy in a romance and if it is - and this is just my opinion - the story is boring.  I don't want to invest hours of quality reading time into a story where everyone is happy and in love from the first page to the last.  I need emotion.  I need drams.  I want to feel SOMETHING!!  But writing that road is sometimes a huge struggle.

So the thing that's changed for me

the most since I stopped indie publishing is that I now have a team of people who read my work and pretty much review it and say "yah" or "nay" to what's there.  I have the option to over-ride their suggestions but for the most part, I take their advice.  The problem I'm having with the story I'm working on is that I had a very dark black moment planned for this couple.  And yet as I was writing, I could hear my editorial team in my head already telling me it's too dark or too much or not right.

I hate when that happens.

So which way do I go?  Do I give this story the dark moment and then have to rewrite it or do I try to find a way to tone it down and hope that it doesn't get changed?  I just don't know!  I literally am about 8,000 words away from my goal word count as of right now.  Which means that I'll go over in order for the story to play out without feeling rushed. 

And that's another pet-peeve of mine - I hate a rushed ending.  When an authors puts so much time and effort into creating a beautiful relationship within the pages of a book and makes the reader fall in love with the characters and you build up to the agonizingly emotional dark moment, don't wrap it all up in three pages and a happily ever after.  That makes me crazy!!!  If you spent 80,000 words crafting this story and giving us all of the emotion and turmoil, how can you possibly wrap it all up in a thousand words or less??  It's not right and it's not fair to the reader!  Wouldn't life be great if everything just got resolved that quickly???

So I want to do justice for this couple.  I want to give them their moment, their emotion, their redemption. 

Now it's back to sitting and staring at the wall in hopes for inspiration...