Is writing with a partner rewarding or challenging?

I share my writing, during the initial stages with very few people. Nick, my husband and partner in crime, being one of those people. He’s helped me choreograph fight scenes, move past plot hiccups and redefine villains and heroes. So, it comes as no small surprise that the last two ideas I’ve had floating around my head, he’s mentioned he’d love to write it WITH me.

You know what?

We’re working on it! I wasn’t quite ready to share creative license with my Goddess Series. And, truth be told, I need a break from it because it’s been a long time running. Instead, I shifted gears and started on an entirely new idea.

It’s one we both love.

We’ve had a few hiccups, like understanding where we each like to break a chapter and reigning in his need to include gore. He is a sci-fi/horror writer after all.

I’m learning to weave all the details back in. I’ve gotten used to fast writing, forgetting that sometimes, I do love the narrative sections…it allows me to slow down and enjoy the story.

A few people have asked me how this process works. I’m not sure how it works for other writing partners. I’ve thrown a tweet out there. We’ll see who responds. I thought I’d give you the highlights to show you how we’re making it work.

For writing, I’m on a Mac and use Scrivener. Nick’s using Word on a PC. So, there’s an extra step or two for me when we’re going back and forth…I have to export/import everything back and forth, but it is allowing me to catch edits as we go. And, I honestly can’t say I want to write without Scrivener nowadays, so I’ll suck up the extra steps it takes for us to go back and forth. The folder and file structure alone is worth it.

We started out with an idea…talked out the opening scene, deciding who, what, why, when and where. (This usually occurs between the hours of 9pm and 1am in our household, most often the kitchen,….something about late night gets the creative thought process going.)

I’d been having a hard time getting started with this book because I just couldn’t figure out what Shia looked like. I had her background, her story forming in my head, but I needed an actual picture of her to get started. Like all other times, I hit Google to find images I could use. Once I found them, then we had a place to start. You can read all about the ways in which I procrastinate during this incubation process in a previous post.

I sat down a few nights ago and banged out the opening scene, about 1600 words in an hour, and then dropped it in Word and emailed it over to Nick. While he tweaked and fiddled, I went back to research and adding to my notes file on Shia. A little while later (let’s face it, I stopped clock watching which means we were both in a writing zone), gmail pinged me. A few tweaks and edits. Bam, scene 1 done. I start in a few paragraphs on scene 2, but we decide to call it a night because the next scene needed dialogue going between us and it was far too late to write that kind of interaction well.

Next night, when all is wound down, I ask him if he wants to jump in IM and work on our scene. About a half hour later, we’ve added in another 1600 words.

Chapter 1 is done.

I’m enjoying the hell out of this process. It’s great to have a partner to bounce ideas off of, dig in with the details and keep each other focused. I’m also finding it’s a lot easier for me to see changes and edits as I’m going along because we’re going back and forth. I have to really pay attention to see where he’s added in detail, which is making the edits easier to spot.

So what’s the status? Drafted Chapter 3 last night over IM. At this rate, we’ll have the book done before pup’s out of school for the summer…and it’ll be mostly edited at that!