You Never Hear About Creative Similarities

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Anniversary - Singing Telegram
Anniversary - World War I Begins
Birthday - Beatrix Potter (author/illustrator)
Birthday - Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy (1st Lady)
Independence Day (Peru)

 

I am in the process of trying something new!

 

I have never collaborated on a writing project before.* But somewhere recently I seem to have gotten involved in a collaborative exercise—I’m not sure if the person whose idea it was invited me or if I invited myself.  Either way, I wound up working on it, and I’m discovering, once again, that I’m awful at collaborating.**

 

Oh, I’m doing okay with the suggestions, I think, but I never know where the line between “constructive criticism” and “taking over” lies, so I can’t tell if I’m being a too much or enough of a bully. We seem to be agreeing on a lot of things, which is either a good sign or a sign that I’m stuffing my ideas down my partner’s throat and she’s just going along with it so’s I’ll quit whining. The woe of not being in someone else’s head.

 

If you’re going to assume that we do just see eye-to-eye, though, it’s going pretty well.  We agree on the story arc, a lot of the details, and all the basics. And we’re both good writers. The only thing we don’t seem to agree on is exactly what genre this exercise is turning into—so I wrote the beginning as some sort of snarky action-comedy, cartoony and a little campy, and she made the ending into a gritty noir psychodrama, like what you’d see if Frank Miller could actually write.  I don’t even know how we’re going to work out the middle, but it’s going to be fun to try to transition the wildly different moods and tones.

 

It’s kind of exhilarating, but I’m still pretty nervous.  And since the main ideas and most of the good ones are hers, I’m afraid I’m stomping on her Artistic Vision—which I fear because I hate it when people may accidentally stomp on mine. So I’m finding that collaboration means a lot of uncertainty. Surprise!

 

I’m glad I’m doing it, though.  I really have to thank my writing partner for letting me try this out—and for letting me play with her ideas.  I feel like I’m having a Learning Experience! And, as I understand it, those are always good things to have.

 

 

*Unless you count that time in fourth grade when my friend and I both wrote Star Wars stories, but I don’t. See, we each wrote our own stories, and I offered to type up hers, but her writing was terrible, so I took it upon myself to fix the grammar—and “improve” her story.  The awful thing is I can’t remember if I gave her back the original copy.  To this day that remains on the top of the list of Worst Things I’ve Ever Done.

 

**My writing partner may be reading this, and is probably nodding and agreeing with that last part.  Hi, writing partner! I hope I am taking no liberties reflecting upon this exercise here!

Comments

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

In this case, Plays Nice With Others carries an actual reward of being allowed to play with someone else's great idea. If I don't play nice, I will relinquish the idea to her.

Plus, what if I ever become a TV writer? I'll have to get used to the tragic angst of having my perfect vision destroyed! Here's step 1.

Happy anniversary of Some Damn Fool Thing In The Balkans! Poor ol' Francis Ferdinand.

[gryfindormia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I was almost always put with the most unmotivated students, so their ideas, if they had any, were small breaks between discussions on wrestling (junior high boys) to birth control (college).