A Bit About Collaborating

As you might have read on thrall’s blog, or for that matter, on mine, we’re working on a story together. (Depending on who you talk to, in fact, we’re working on three stories together. 🙂 Sorry, but I’m never going to get bored with that joke.) She has graciously given me permission to tease as much as I want, so I can say that the first story will be called, “A Hazy Shade of Winter” (I’m so grateful to both of my collaborators for indulging my obsession with song titles!) And it has to do with…

Nah. Not going to go that far. After all, I’m a terrible tease too. 🙂 But I will talk a bit about our collaborative process, since I can do that without giving too much away (and because I’m still not quite ready to tell you the other thing Lady Ru’etha brainwashed me into enjoying…)

This all came about at the infamous meet-up between myself, thrall, and Lady Ru’etha that all three of us have blogged about. Lady Ru’etha mentioned She’d really like to see the two of us collaborate…and as you might have guessed, that was something that really got both our attentions by that point in the weekend. thrall discussed a story idea she’d been batting around about a ******* that ****ed *****, and it sounded interesting and unique and as someone who loves interesting, unique ideas, I wanted in. 🙂

This isn’t to say there weren’t hurdles. You’d think the whole “she writes nigh-apocalyptically dark stories about the total enslavement of whole worlds, and I get weepy when my main character gets a paper cut” thing might be a hurdle, but not so much as you might imagine. 🙂 No, the big hurdle is that I work nights, and she works days. We’ve got about a two-hour window to write in any given session, and even that involves letting the phone wake me up instead of my alarm (something I ritually assure her is just fine, and she ritually apologizes for.)

“Phone?” you ask. “Phone,” I respond. The way we collaborate is, she calls me up on the phone, with her on a speakerphone and me on a hands-free headset, and we both open up a Google Document at the same time. Then we take turns writing, a few paragraphs at a time, while we discuss what we see taking shape on the screen. (Some of these discussions get a little…odd. I don’t think anyone would expect two writers of explicit erotica to be worrying over whether someone sitting on the floor could see over the edge of a bed. 🙂 This was actually solved by the two of us getting up, going to our respective beds, and sitting down next to them, by the way.)

This is a huge, wonderful advantage in collaborating, because it means the story really does take shape with both of our inputs at once. We’re not breaking it up into “you write this, I’ll write that” sections, or trading off as the perspectives shift; we’re writing together fairly seamlessly, so that in the end, I doubt anyone will be able to tell who wrote what bits. (Which is also true, by the way, of “Joy To the World”, my second collaboration with Lady Ru’etha. Anyone who thinks that Lynn’s bits were Her and Michael’s bits were me needs to work harder on their guessing skills. 🙂 )

It’s been a fun experience for both of us (well, it’s been a fun experience for me, and if she’s complaining, she’s doing it after I hang up 🙂 ); I’m not sure how I stack up against her other, quite illustrious collaborators, but for my part I think she’s doing a great job putting up with my idiosyncracies. I really look forward to seeing what people think of the final result…

…assuming she doesn’t read this and decide never to speak to me again, of course. 🙂

Tags: coming attractions, writing