Serial endings

I'm nipping on the blog between my 12-hour workdays to exhale slowly over the end of Digger ("A wombat. A dead god. A very peculiar epic"), a web comic whose tagline grabbed me, and which is the only narrative comic I've stayed loyal to through to the finish. (I say "narrative" because I will be reading xkcd until fire or ice comes.)

I can't imagine writing a serial for so long, and as the artist says, it was unexpected on her end too. Talk about getting an idea and running with it…for over 700 pages. Starting from early 2007. I've had stories sitting in the "in progress" stage for longer than that, but not while constantly interacting with them. They got drawered, gathered dust, were jostled while I was looking for something else, and finally re-emerged to the light of day.

Even though I'm sure Vernon (the artist) made much of it up as she went along, it was lovely to see how pieces meshed together, and trailing ends wove back into the fabric of the story. Isn't that how the writing process works for many of us? Random elements enter — "When in doubt, add an explosion," I've heard a writer friend say — and then justify their presence. But for me, so much of that justification requires going back and nudging earlier references, or even completely changing some elements.

Someday, as a lark, I may try to write and post something as I go. But seeing how I can't even stick to a simple blog on a regular schedule, this may have to wait a while.