#AprilPrompts Growing Day 6

The subject for the April prompts challenge today is growing.

This started me thinking about two different aspects of growing. It reminded me of my daughter and of my own growth as a writer.

My daughter was premature and she weighed 3lb 10oz at birth or 1.652 kg. She wore premature baby clothes for babies 3-5 lb and they were still too big for her. We took her home from hospital when she was four weeks old weighing 4lb 5oz.

She looked like a new born baby for several months. I remember taking her to the library when she was three months old and she still only weighed 7lb. I got her a library card; they must have thought I was mad.

She was later than most children passing some of the normal stages of growing. She was late crawling and she didn’t learn to walk until she was two.

She is now ten and no one would ever know she had been a premature baby.

The other subject I wanted to write about is my growth as a writer.

I always knew that I wanted to be a writer but I think lack of patience and self belief stopped me from ever submitting anything. I just wrote for my own enjoyment.

In 2011 I took part in NaNoWriMo for the first time. I didn’t make the word count but I met a lot of writers through the facebook page, which led to me joining Writebulb writers’ group.

It has been an amazing few years for me. I have learned so much, and my writing has improved immensely. I have had work published in the writers’ group anthology and have some pieces ready for this year’s children’s anthology. I also am nearing the finish line on my own WIP which is a Thriller novel.

My confidence is growing every day and I am excited by what the future might hold for me as a writer.

Do you ever feel cheated by an ending?

Have you ever read a book that has let you down with the ending?

This has happened to me a few times.

One book by a great Author finished with an open ending, where it didn’t really finish. Nothing was achieved by me spending several days reading it. Nobody won and the baddies weren’t stopped. The sad thing is that it was a brilliant book that had me excited to reach the end.

Another Author who did this to me was the Horror writer Shaun Hutson. It was many years ago and I can’t remember which of his books it was (I loved his books in my 20s and devoured everything he did!) It had what I like to refer to as the “Called in for your tea” ending. It was almost like he had been called down for dinner and had called out “Give me a minute I just have to finish the book.”

Obviously not true but that is what it reminded me of. It was rushed and finished abruptly.

Sometimes TV lets you down with the ending too. I remember a series called Sea Of Souls, where identical twins who were separated at birth meet again. One is married with a son the other is single. The single one sets out to steal the other ones life. She succeeds! It ended with her murdering her sister, stealing her husband and son and getting away with it. You work out that the husband knows, but has decided the newer model is better but the confusing thing is that the child doesn’t realise that the imposter isn’t his mother.

This is unrealistic, the child would have known.

This episode left me wound up for days, I was so annoyed by it. It is years since I saw it but I still think of it sometimes. Maybe the author wanted to leave a mark on people’s brains; he/she certainly did on mine.

Open ends are becoming increasingly popular nowadays, I see it a lot in short stories.

Call me old fashioned but I love a great ending, if it is going to be left open I want some more to come.