This post is a little late as I spent the last three days helping out at a fundraiser – it was hard work but it was good fun to spend some time working on a team. Camaraderie is very good for me!
This has got me thinking about how writing could become a less isolated activity. I’ve spoken before about how I like to do various creative activities, and some of these do give me a chance to spend time with others, but I’ve never really done it with writing. When I studied it was as part of a group, but we didn’t have any joint pieces of work, nothing that we could present as an outcome except very short class activities on the rare occasions we met (my creative writing has all been distance learning). I haven’t even found a writer’s group – on-line or face to face – yet; I am definitely going to have to set up my own!
I cannot imagine collaborating on poetry – to me this is, and will probably always remain, totally personal and about my experiences of the world – but I think to collaborate on a fiction story would be quite liberating. Scriptwriters do it, so it’s clearly possible, but what is it like to collaborate?
Well, I can only pass on the words of others here. I found this interview with Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, and from about 5 minutes in until about 11 minutes in there’s a fair discussion of how they have collaborated and how ideas get subsumed and allocated. I think from this it’s clear that you cannot be too precious about what idea came from where…
It also seems there are some vital elements – trust, friendship, belief in the other’s ability. Interestingly, this interview suggests that writing remains a solitary activity, and it is the planning and the revising of the work that requires interaction. That would be ok; I can happily lose myself in writing but I strongly feel the revision/editing process would benefit from some diversions!
In other news – the second full review of the novel continues, and although I haven’t got as far as I’d like it is quite steady. I want to get the first few chapters edited first, as they remain largely unchanged; the first new chapter will be after chapter three or four (it covers the same time period as the current chapter four so I will place it where I think it flows better from one viewpoint to the next) – at the moment I favour it being after chapter 4 but I remain flexible until it’s completely drafted. In reading through and making changes I am generally approaching the story in chronological order, but I have cut a large chunk from a later chapter already. I kept thinking it seemed to add little to the story, so it’s gone: if I doubt its relevance so will a reader!
Also – the Olympics are still a distraction a week in: what amazing feats some people are capable of achieving. For us here in the UK, it’s been very successful but for all the athletes I hope it’s been a brilliant experience. I really do feel inspired by the mood that seems to surround all the athletes, and the pride people have in their achievements. It reminds me that nothing comes without effort and that’s a useful point to remember whenever writing is harder than I’d like.
And finally for this week – I have been nominated for another award, which was a lovely surprise. Thanks to The Living Notebook for that: I’ll cover it in more detail next week, when I can give it the attention it deserves.
Happy writing
EJ
🙂
Becoming a writer 
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