To make a literary work have quality, usually requires time and effort. There are works that did not become what the author wanted, not for lack of effort or interest, but because they ran out of time, and in literature, time is synonymous with life.

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The writing process is not always interesting to the reading media or to the authors themselves, nor may it interest them to understand what makes a work successful, as Gabriel García Márquez said in an interview: "No, I don’t want to know" (1), that aspect is relegated to the most curious readers, to the scholars of the subject or biographers of some author; in the act there’s an implicit halo of mystery that surpasses the limits of understanding (at least for now) how an organic being can generate and feel aesthetic pleasure for a written narrative or a poem, and also in the creative process, in which the author gathers the forces to undertake the work: experience, literary maturity, written or mental planning, it can take many years before the writer places the first sentences, or the first letter.

As Gabriel García Márquez tells us, to write Chronicle of a Death Foretold took him 30 years of planning, and 15 or 17 years for A Hundred Years of Solitud (1), with only 18 months for the writing itself.

On the other hand, we have Fiódor Dostoyevski, who wrote The Gambler in less than a month impelled by the pressure of his editor, also some works because of their format (serial novels) have practically no planning, but to go on the fly, directing that boat that is the story towards an island of which they (the authors) only have a vague idea, a sketch, one maybe that takes shape or that never gets to have it. This was the case of Charles Dickens, who died in 1870 after suffering a stroke after a day's work, leaving what would be his unfinished work: The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a reiteration in itself: Edwin Drood's uncle, John Jasper, is secretly in love with his music student and fiancee of his nephew, Rosa Bud, as well as the young Neville Landless. Later in the novel, young Edwin disappears, and his uncle suspects that Neville Landless had something to do with it. In his desperation the uncle finds out, thanks to Mr. Grewgious that his nephew and Rosa Bud "[...] agreed to break the bond that existed between them, definitely and forever." Adding: "[...] ] they separated, but not before shedding a lot of tears, the same night that you surprised them together for the last time", upon hearing this the uncle shouts and falls unconscious.

During the novel there are enough indications (or false clues), which suggest that the murderer is the uncle, because he learned of this separation just after committing the crime, with what? With a black scarf, suffocating Edwing in the same way John almost did with a boy he thought was spying on him. The reader is also suggested that it could have been Neville Landless, because the day before he had bought a strong cane to walk. Anyway, the day of the disappearance a mysterious woman warns John that a certain Ned is in danger because it is "A threatened name... a dangerous name...", but the fact is that this woman an opium addict, just like the uncle , who frequents those bars, and the only one who calls Edwin: Ned.

Nevertheless, the novel is not finished, leaving many interpretations, and knowing that the police genre was booming at that time and some techniques now may be obvious or clichés you might think that this has been the case, however, the inventive and the writer's genius was sure to surprise his readers... as they were shocked by his sudden death. As the body of Edwin Drood never appears, an escenario is opened where he is alive, hiding somewhere, waiting to return to unmask the intentions of his uncle who after some time is declares to the young Rosa.

Portuguese writer José Saramago also left another great mystery. On August 15, 2009, in his notebook, he wrote about what would be the axis on which his new novel would revolve: "[...] I never had a great armament factory / why there has never been a strike in the weapons factories" (3). The question was then asked and developed (not answered, that would remain for the novel) in a statement he gave in Portugal, commenting on the irony of the system that fights against drugs, against influenza A, "and what is done to prohibit weapons ?: Nothing"(4). The commentary, almost a decade ago, seems to be more valid than ever, when in recent days there have been shootings and massacres in schools, shopping centers or cinemas.

The novel of just three chapters, is not enough for the protagonist Artur Paz Semendo employed by Belona SA, to investigate a sabotage that a factory worker perpetrated during the Spanish Civil War, when he sended a note in Portuguese inside a mortar that never exploded: "This bomb will not explode". The argument leaves many questions, especially knowing the narrative capacity, the irony, and the philosophy of José Saramago, leaving the reader in mistery, how would the story continue? What would be the comments that the author would make? What phrases did we miss? What was the response that was not given? What question did not come to us? We are left with the hypothetical ending that he wrote in his notes, perhaps as an answer given by Artur Paz Semendo's wife to the (more hypothetical, as i’m making it) question of where life, humanity or the world will go: "[It] will go to shit / vai á merda".

In any case these great authors leave us with the bittersweet taste of life and Literature, sour to take them away so soon, and sweet for having given them to us.