The end is never ending

Austin Kleon, in his book “Keep Going,” says: “The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from Point A to Point B. It’s more like a loop or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project.” And no matter how successful you get, you will never really arrive.

Do you feel this is true? In your creative life, in your characters, in your business endeavors?

I do. It’s a small arc in the circle of life. (Cue Disney soundtrack.)

Life is a circle. Point A and Point B are arbitrary positions within that life.

Point A: Birth
Point B: Death

This may be visualized as a line fragment. But if you believe you have a never-ending soul, that line goes on forever, before and after those two points. (Interesting how some believe in an after, but not a before. Hmm.)

Pick a story, a memoir, or a slice of life, and the points can signify something more or less grandiose.

Point A: An ordinary day
Point B: A day like none before it

If you’re writing a how-to or similar self-help book, you understand (or should) the desire of your main character (your reader). Novelists, listen up, too.

Point A: I gots problems.
Point B: Sigh. Problems solved.

They will be challenged along the way by internal and external forces. If you’re writing nonfiction, you will guide your character from their current state along the journey to get them to the end state. From sad to happy. If you’re writing fiction, you will put them through the ringer; but you love your characters and want to see them through.

But you know the end is not the end. You know it’s the beginning of a new day, a new life. A father dies, but the child will soon grow and reign freely on their own. There will be struggles ahead, wondrous new problems caused by your solution (or by each decision they make). 

They’ve come back to a new starting point in their lives. Thus begins the next loop of the spiral. More opportunities for you to guide them.