Well, hell.

After spending an extra two weeks on it, I can't seem to finish Ghostlander.

The ending just doesn't do it for me.  So...I'm going to hold off on the last chapter and hope that something really strong comes to me.  If I were to actually write the ending, that would be it.  It's very hard to throw out a storyline once I've written it.  I can change it no end, but not completely throw it out.  Not because I'm not willing, but because in my subconscious that becomes the story.

So better not to put something lame down and regret it.

Makes me nervous to be so close to finishing and then not doing it.

I'm starting to get back some of the edited chapters of The Dead Spend No Gold from Bren, so I can work on those.  Plus I have Dave's critique of Faerylander.

So I'll work on those for the next few weeks.

I just need that one fabulous idea for an ending.

This has never happened before.  Usually, I have it all figured out by the time I get to this point.  I thought I did here, too, but once I got here...well, I just didn't feel like it was very strong.

It will happen, I'm sure.  I'll be walking along one day and boom, the idea will come.  So...I'm waiting.


POSTSCRIPT:

OK.  That's hilarious.  After weeks of struggling for an answer, not five minutes after I "give up" it comes to me.

The problem was that the Big Bad at the end, which must be vanquished, was just this amorphous ghostly realm.  There were individual hauntings that had individual bad guys, so those chapters worked, but the final resolution just didn't have any pizzaz.

So I figured out that I need a Big Bad guy; and personalization of the Evil, who can then be defeated.

I have the character in mind, but I have to go back to the very beginning and build him up and have him entered into scenes throughout the book, but I think that is the solution I've been needing.

Weird.  Thanks for nothing, subconscious. (Knock wood.  I don't mean it.  I love you subconscious.)