How do you finish a book - especially if it’s a memoir? I mean, I’m still alive, so this is not the end, but a chapter is closing. Or do I mean, the final chapter must be written (so we can all move on)?
Perhaps I could tell you what I’ve learned in the last four years: open up, so to speak. Salman Rushdie was quoted recently in an interview that the writer must never leave anything out, because “the reader can always tell”. I’ve left a lot out, for diplomacy’s sake, but I can write about what I’ve learned in what has been an extremely productive few years on a farm. Some writers despair at not been able to start a book, but I despair at not offering the right ending, so much so that it has preventing me from closing. Here we are at the tail end of a month of writer’s block.
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