At three pages long, it reads strongly of “Good people are alive, bad people are caught, gotta wrap this up because the paper goes to press at 3 p.m.”
It also has a touch of It’s a Wonderful Life, because Our Hero Joe has his long hospital stay paid for by the cast of colorful characters, so that’s sweet. Then he gets engaged to the Plucky Waitress Mary and continues his life in the oil fields, the end.
Literally, it has “THE END” centered and capitalized. Across the decades you can hear him think “Finally, I can say I finished my novel. Time for a drink.”
4 responses to “The Novel: Chapter 18”
Does that mean no more novel updates? Or are there other chapters that are later than might or might not fit in somewhere into the book?
I gotta admit that writing THE END is sometimes very satisfying. (“finally!” we say but perhaps not “time for a drink” except for an effort at rehydration after focused typing…)
KC – nope. That’s it, that’s all he wrote. The end.
Hm. Will you be letting it percolate a bit to decide what to do with it, or is it already a done deal (for behold, mostly lacking in plot, unpleasant characters, etc.)?
KC – still deciding.