I suspect I’m an outlier but I’m hoping for lots of snow this winter. I’ve always been a fan of the stuff. Born in a snowbank in Vermont in the last days of December, I learned to ski at the same time I learned to walk. To this day my favorite sport is cross-country skiing. I even enjoy shoveling. Go ahead. Say it. Weirdo.

It should come as no surprise, then, that I was delighted at the early snow we had of a couple weeks ago.

See what a little dusting of white does to the world? I adore the way the house is brighter inside because of the reflection off the snow. My beloved garden was graced with a snowy meringue. The plants growing under the row cover don’t mind the snow, either. In fact, it’s insulation!

This winter I have even more reason to wish for snow; the book I’m working on is called The Snow Cave. Set in Squaw Valley, California, and Germany, the story is loosely based on my father’s life. Loosely. My father was a mountain climber, tennis pro and ski instructor, so it’s clear from where my love of mountains and snow derives. Here he is in his wintery element.

In addition to the snow cave in the title, themes connected to snow (cold and purity and fresh starts) are central to the story. That’s why I’d appreciate some snow around for atmosphere. I’m a visual person and there’s nothing like being immersed (not literally in this case—my poor laptop!) in what I’m writing about. When I was drafting Middle of Somewhere, a thunderstorm happened to come along as I was writing a pivotal storm scene. Talk about summoning the muse. If I can’t get Mother Nature to bend to my will, I resort to Google, of course. Google Images: the next best thing to being there.

If you’re a writer, do your surroundings help you write certain scenes? Do you use music as a muse? (I confess I need silence myself.)

Oh, about the title of this post. It’s the first line of Wallace Stevens’ poem, The Snow Man. You can read it here and see why I thought of it today. Our imaginations need springboards, or surfaces to grow on. Inspiration can be found anywhere but my favorite place to look is outside.

Wishing all you a happy, healthy, productive New Year!

Endings are my nemesis. The first indication came during The Call. After my agent-to-be went on at length about how much she loved my debut—hey, I wasn’t going to stop her—she asked if I might reconsider the ending.

“Of course.” At that moment I would’ve changed my gender, if she’d asked.

“It needs to be a little less tidy.”

“Rookie mistake. I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.”

I rewrote the ending and she was happy. A year later, we spoke on the phone after she’d read my second novel.

“It’s wonderful,” she said, “but I’m wondering if you’ll reconsider the ending.”

“Too neat?”

“I’m afraid so.”

Sigh. Why did I make the same mistake again? In both instances, I’d created an ending reminiscent of the closing scene in a Hollywood film where the ensemble cast gathers around a table. Everyone is smiling, but there is a hint of sadness, because unfortunate things did happen. Perhaps someone died. The person known for joking tells a joke, the couple you wanted to be together is together. It’s a Heartwarming Moment. That’s the ending I wrote. Twice. With an actual table.

Here’s another thing: overly tidy endings are a pet peeve of mine.

I know why I fell into the trap. I’d spent 300 pages putting my characters through all the trouble I could dream up, one cartload of unmitigated misery and misfortune after another. My poor characters. I love them so. By the end of the book I had to make it up to them. I’d been cruel for so long and now it was time to say goodbye. I got soft.

When it’s time to wrap things up, you strive to let the air out of the balloon slowly and it comes out all at once. Pfffttt. The characters go flat. You want to get the reader out of the story, push them out of the airplane, and the ending is the parachute. It’s easy to make a mistake. Let them drift down too slowly and they’ll hang slack in their straps, napping. Or if the parachute fails, or you neglected to supply one, and the reader is in freefall to stony ground. I recently read a book that ended like this:

Endings, by their nature, are let-downs. A few chapters left, 85% on an e-reader, and if the writer has done a good job so far, the reader is wishing it weren’t so. But it has to end. It’s time to leave the playground and go home, where there are chores, where life is waiting. A successful ending eases this transition, but if it eases too successfully, the end of the book is as ordinary as life itself, and that’s not right either. The beginning of a book should feel like leaping onto a moving train; the ending is the opposite. Off is harder than on and it’s going to hurt. Some choices are better than others, but no one is going to approve of everything you have to do to get out of your story.

When I’m stuck for how to finish the damn thing, I look to the first chapters. I’m not suggesting you loop the story back to the beginning, rather that you might find a moment, a symbol, a snippet of dialogue that picks up a central theme, and that you can use as the final note.

If you’ve built conflict through the entire narrative, with luck there’s bit left as you near the end. Leave it there. Allow a secret to remain hidden. Let the door slam on someone’s ass. If you don’t, if you round off all the corners, the reader will turn the last page and eagerly rejoin the real world instead of lingering in her chair, wondering what has transpired and what might happen next. Even squirrels like to linger a bit.

That last line isn’t perfect but, like I said, endings are my nemesis.