You're Not Alone: Writing with Others

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: writing partners and accountabilibuddies. Those people we don't write with, as in we're not collaborating, but the people we write alongside. Simultaneously or not. In tandem. In company.

See, the thing is, writing is by nature a solitary activity. Unless you're collaborating with someone, writing comes down to the writer and the words. For many writers, however - it's certainly true for me - that silence and uninterrupted time to concentrate on story flow is key to getting the stories written. It can be isolating, even lonely.

But, it doesn't have to be! There are lots of ways to foster a sense of camaraderie without violating the fortress of solitude we need to be focused. I often co-work with Darynda Jones, for example. We "meet" on Zoom, minimize the screen and mute for one-hour sprints. Then we break, chat, compare progress and angst, then go again. It's a great way to work together, while being separately in our writing studios, 200 miles apart.

I'm also super gratified to see writers gathering in the #laying-bricks channel of my mentoring and coaching Discord, Jeffe's Closet. People asked for a place to post that they're settling in to write, to enjoy the community and positive accountability of other people doing the same. The "laying bricks" aspect refers to one of my favorite analogies for writing novels: that it's a process of laying bricks, day after day, patiently progressing. I love popping in and seeing everyone getting their words on for the day. 

We're not alone.

 

Scheduling Issues

It occurs to me that I come here to the blog and say, "I don't want to be THAT person." and then I go right on ahead and make myself THAT person.

Gonna again. My Writing Schedule:
ANY DAMNED TIME I CAN

Look. I care for aging parents, cope with chronic pain issues-though I think we finally found something that might be working, praise the gods and pass the Depakote!-but when there's both the family I was born into and the family I made when I married that need managing, writing often gets slipped into the cracks. Some days there just aren't any more energy packets to be doled out. I've still discovered ways to get the Jaws of Life into those cracks and pry them open enough for me to breathe more easily.

For example, if I say, "Hey, I have an online meeting every morning at x o'clock. I'm going into my room, shutting, and locking (because one of the damned cats figured out how to open) the door." Nobody bugs me for that hour. I can concentrate. It's not actually a lie. I DO meet people online at x hour each morning. We get into a Zoom room and we all write. It's based on the personal trainer philosophy. If you know someone is waiting on you, you're more likely to get up out of bed and go work out.

The other thing that started working for me was to fling rotting word salad at 4thewords.com before I go to bed every night. I gave myself permission to just play around in the game, learn the system and pursue some of the simpler quests. The writing was total junk. Pure mind dump stream of consciousness stuff. Until about the middle of the second week when suddenly my hero walked into the middle of my mind dump and suddenly, I was mind dumping about the WIP, the plot, the characters and what I thought needed to happen. That went on for another few days. Then suddenly, the pair of them were talking to one another and to me. The words are still ugly. I mean it's all dialogue and there aren't even any tags. I hope to all the gods I can parse it when I try to edit the MS. But in that time after everyone else in the house has settled down and the time I tip over from exhaustion, I can get 1200 words if a scene is really going. Some days it's just more rotting word salad. But it's less often. And I feel like I know more about how this book wants to flow. So I'm counting a success.

I have goals to expand writing time and to expand daily word count to at least 2k again. But for right now, I'm writing daily. Even if it's just 500 words. Something flows. And for me, it breaks the surface tension and keeps my well from stagnating. Man. I don't even want to count the mixed metaphors.

Moral of the story: Who cares what your schedule is so long as it does the job you need it to do. So long as you're happy and reasonably healthy. Some people write a book like lightening striking. It's not wrong. And then some people, like me, write a book like they're extracting the most delicate of artifacts from the depths of the earth. One itty bitty brush stroke at a time. I just start plying that brush at 8AM every morning before the cats start bouncing off the walls wanting to play.