What comes after THE END

Anyone who has written a story (flash, short, novella, novel, take your pick) knows the gaping hole left by THE END.

When you finish THE END, there are no fireworks, no cheers, no ribbons to cut or candles to blow out. There’s just the silence that follows those final words, the white space where no words will ever be written.

It is at once gratifying and terrifying.

Thoughts of what comes next appear and disappear because what follows THE END but silence; a nothingness so wide and deep as to swallow all hope of carrying on.

But then, a voice. Whispers. The call, the muse. And you begin again in earnest.

Writing your way to

THE END.