I feel lucky that I’ve managed to find a co-author whose writing and writing process are complementary to my own, which seems to similar to the situation with yourself and John. I did wonder at the beginning whether it was such a good idea to be doing this for a first novel, but now that we’re 40k into the book and still writing steadily and well, those concerns are gone and I must say I’m absolutely loving writing with someone else. It has given both of us more confidence in our own writing (so that we’re also working on our own solo projects at the same time!).

Thank you again for your response. And I concur: I’m looking forward to reading the eBooks of the novels you wrote with John.

We started the project because my sister had an idea and claimed she couldn’t write it without me. I set my previous project aside to work with her. Since I have never been published, that wasn’t much of a sacrifice. We have fine-tuned our approach over the years (yes years) as our skills developed, and have patiently worked out our individual roles. At times the projest has dominated our lives; at times we had to take breaks from writing to live through other events in our lives (new jobs, injuries, illnesses, moves, my nephew’s wedding, our other sister’s cancer, etc.) Fortunately, we have similar values and priorities, so we respect each other’s use of time. Dispite all of this, we are each remain dedicated to finishing the book.

I have three things to say about the experience:

1. I don’t think I could go through the whole process with anyone else (not even my husband of 25 years) and remain sane.

2. The final product is going to be better than what either of us would have written on our own, given the same starting point.

3. I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything.

Randy, I’m looking forward to reading Oxygen and The Fifth Man.

“It might seem that having two writers work on the same story would divide the work in half, but many collaborators report that it’s more like twice the work. That’s because in a true collaboration, both writers have to agree on everything. It can mean endless rewrites and painful compromises; it can mean having to put your name on a story that includes things that seem hopelessly wrong to you.

“Yet it can also result in some of the best work of your career, if you and your collaborator can produce, together, something beyond the ability of etiher one of you alone. After all, the great works of film and theatre, dance and music are usually collaborations of writer/director/choreographer/ composer and many performers who together create what no one of them could possibly produce along. Is it surprising that sometimes collaboration in fiction can have good results?

“Before you enter into collaboration, however, make sure you have agreed on certain key points. Either of you should have the right to withdraw from the collaboration at any point—but then which of you will have the right to continue alone. . . . Do both of you have to give consent for any publication of the work? In the rush of creativity, raising these questions might feel as awkward as handing our spouse-to-be a pre-nuptial agreement on the morning of the wedding, but it must be done, or there’s a possibility of real rancor later.”