Finishing Lines: completing work by the force of your will

by Ellen Santasiero | January 2, 2026

When I arrived at graduate school, the director of my MFA program bid us new students to file into an old-fashion classroom with tiered seating; the seats were the wooden ones with that paddle-shaped desk thing issuing from the right side. Outside the windows, the wind spun snow against a navy sky while our take-no-prisoners director chalked on the blackboard, “Always Be Closing.” The phrase comes from a scene in David Mamet’s film Glengarry Glen Ross, where boss Alec Baldwin verbally abuses his real estate agents for their dismal sales. Our director was trying to scare us straight, especially those of us unable to finish the writing we started.

“Always Be Closing,” commanded blue-eyed Baldwin, and so did our director who had either rued his own unfinished works, or who anticipated how to justify the value of the MFA program before a fusty Board of Directors and whose case would more favorably fly if he showed that his graduates could in fact “close,” i.e. publish. For there can be no publication until a piece is finished, at least to a certain degree.

I, for one, was busted. I had much to learn and improve on, but finishing my pieces probably topped the list.

In a recent Forge class, we discussed “Always Be Closing,” and some strategies that help writers finish. One was to write a “hermit crab” piece in which the writer fits their story, or content, into a pre-existing non-literary form such as a resume, sermon, or recipe. The idea is that the pre-existing form is already finished; you just follow its contours by pouring your content into it. Think ribbons of cold cake batter unfurling into a Bundt pan. Take it out of the oven, and voila! you have a finished piece!

The resulting draft may not be felicitous, it may not be edit-ready, but the exercise gives the writer a feel for an ending, a sense of how a piece might finally turn and lay down to rest.

Other ways to learn how to finish are less prescriptive. My esteemed Forge colleague Irene Cooper asks her students, “When can, or does, process include product?” which is a wonderful head fake. The question assumes that process is the main thing going on at the writer’s desk (which it is) and that product, or publication, might be an afterthought. Ha ha.

I tried a less prescriptive technique recently after I attended a webinar by a local literary luminary (yes, we Forge instructors continue to take classes ourselves) who urged us to “Write With Intention.” This means to choose a home for your writing (a publication you like), write to that place’s specifications, and commit to a deadline for submission.

(Why, you might be thinking, such an emphasis on publication? To that, I say, why not? Many writers want to wield this type of currency in the literary world. Besides, even the rejections—which will come—signals to your writer’s soul that you are serious about this business.)

After listening to the local luminary, I pulled out an essay I’d been picking at for a couple of years, one that I’d actually wanted to appear in an online journal I admired. This journal publishes personal essays that discuss works of art and works of literature in conversation with one other, a subject that has long fascinated me. My essay about a contemporary photograph and an early twentieth century novel, for which I had already inked many, many paragraphs, was about time and rocks and, ultimately, my divorce. After many drafts, I still could not figure out how to end the piece.

Newly energized, I checked the journal’s web site: the next deadline was in four months. Over the ensuing weeks, I settled on the one thing I wanted to say in the piece, made some more revisions, and wrote a good-enough conclusion. It was mid-November, the sky a dark berry, and the stars were just coming out when I hit send. One month and two days later, I received an email acceptance.

This story has everything to do with figuring out what I really wanted to say, revision, persistence, and letting go. But today, it’s also about committing to “Writing With Intention,” which included a deadline. I simply promised myself that I would submit it on that date, and that meant, to the best of my ability, I would make the piece turn and lay it down to rest.