Memoirs. Endings. Jack Kerouac (The Obsession Continues).

So I've been thinking about memoirs. Or creative non-fiction. Whatever you want to call it. And what I want to know is, how do you end a book that's about a life, when it's still happening? How do you sit there, Mr. Kerouac, in front of your type writer and think, "This story is about my life and my life is still happening and how do I keep myself from writing this forever and ever and never end it?"

I know people do it all the time; end stories about their lives. Hello, memoirs. But how do you choose where to end it? I can't even figure out where to end my novel--which is FICTIONAL, which means I can do anything I want with it (or really, anything my characters want). I could have a fucking fire-breathing dragon swoop in and rain destruction down on the little Philadelphia suburb my story takes place in. Probably no one would publish it if I ended it like that, but I could, if I wanted to.

But how do you choose? How do you say, "Oh, this is a good place to stop writing about my life," and make it work like Kerouac does?

See, my problem is that in general, I'm terrible at endings. I think it's because I'm afraid to make that final decision, put that last period down. Because isn't there more? There's always more. I want the story to keep going. I always hate it when a good movie ends, or when I reach the last page of an amazing book. I get so attached to the characters, their lives, the place, that I never want to stop. There has to be more, right? My mind just goes nuts with all the other things that could happen.

So I can't stop. I can never stop writing.

Which doesn't solve my problem with endings at all.