Two Strips of Dried Meat

  • strips of dried meat
  • hissed over her bones
  • with a delicate flush of exertion
  • very well. We’ll take the sled
  • a clump of creeping lichen
  • “Fuck you, Judy!”

Two strips of dried meat and a clump of creeping lichen hung from the brim of Judy’s hat. When she beheld the vast bleak landscape in every direction, fear hissed over her bones like wind-driven sleet. She had entrusted not only her own life but her family’s also to a lunatic hermit.

Summer had only recently abandoned these wastes, and already the threat of snow growled on the wind. Judy, with a delicate flush of exertion, had just persuaded her toothless guide that they should drag their supplies on a sled, to be prepared for the arrival of the drifts.

“Very well. We’ll take the sled,” the old man conceded haughtily.

“I should think you would agree with me,” Judy said. “Aren’t you an expert on winter travel?”

“Fuck you, Judy!” he proclaimed. “Next you’ll ask me what the flippers are for!”

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You Told Me

  • by jenI spat at her
  • “Oh my head!”
  • but Charles had no son
  • dropped her ample chin
  • a madman’s mocking game
  • the butler put my cloak

“You told me that Charles and his son were conspiring to make a fool of me, Mother! You said he did not love me! That it was nothing more than a madman’s mocking game! But Charles had no son, and no daughter either.”

My mother dropped her ample chin to her even more ample bosom and moaned, “Oh my head!”

I spat at her and stormed away to find where the butler put my cloak. I never wanted to see my filthy, lying mother again.

I would marry Charles, no matter that he was 40 years older than I, and my mother’s object of obsession.

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Negotiations

As we talked about in our previous writing collaboration post, we’re trying to decide what our next novel-length project will be. Kent has an idea that he is very fond of. Unfortunately it doesn’t hold much appeal for Jen. This leads us to the land of negotiations.

It’s an unusual place for us to find ourselves. Not to be too smug, but we generally share a brain really well. There is very little dissension in either our marriage or our writing partnership. When we do disagree, we usually work through it pretty quickly. We’re damn near perfect!

Except now we have reached an impasse. We are stalled. Kent loves his Big Idea and, so, is having trouble brainstorming anything else. Jen thinks the idea sounds like something interesting to read, maybe, but doesn’t feel drawn to devote a year or more of her life to it. Without feeling a connection, it’s really impossible to be invested. Kent understands that. He really does.

Jen does not currently have a Big Idea to counter with, which is both good and bad. If she had a proposal it might entice Kent enough to put his baby aside, or it might cause friction, with both of us digging in our heels and fighting to the death for our own cause. It might even lead to working solo (gasp! horror!).

As it stands, Jen wants to be persuaded. Or at least she wants the reassurance of knowing what’s coming up. As we’ve said, Jen’s all about the backstory, so the more time she has to cogitate about that kind of thing the happier she is. And so Kent keeps approaching the story from different angles, desperately trying to trick Jen into writing it with him.

Have no fear, dear reader. We aren’t just spinning our wheels. After a well-earned and highly enjoyable trip to Bermuda to celebrate our anniversary, we have our noses back to the grindstone. We’re hip-deep in a read-through of our trilogy, which will lead to one more round of edits before we turn it over to our critique group again. And after that we have a stand-alone novel that’s been patiently waiting for its own round of edits. Plus there’s always marketing. And short stories.

Meanwhile, Jen has a character name she really likes, and part of another. She’s starting to form a picture of what this character (and a half) are like, which might lead to a Big Idea.

That’s when the negotiations will start in earnest.

“You Don’t Have To Whisper”

  • ten seconds and counting
  • a sleek little black bra
  • maple-leaf-red hydraulic oil
  • the color of urine on snow
  • you don’t have to whisper, boy
  • “Squishy.”
  • though they had no sex

“You don’t have to whisper, boy,” growled Titania.

“Squishy.” Felix averted his eyes, trying not to look at Titania in nothing but hotpants and a sleek little black bra, seeing instead the puddles of machine fluids: maple-leaf-red hydraulic oil and coolant the color of urine on snow.

“Sorry, pneumatics are out of adjustment.” Titania strutted over to the air compressor and applied the nozzle to her various pulchritude valves.

Felix longed for the time before she was fully assembled, when he could caress her components on his terms. Now, though they had no sex, his soul flooded with guilt for even seeing her, for looking upon her animation.

“Gratification sequence initiated,” Titania purred. “Ten seconds and counting.”

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I’m Getting Overeducated

  • by jenby the time I reached my adolescence
  • this filthy little segmented thing
  • he could make us all suffer
  • recommended the Eggs Benedict
  • his ears are adorable
  • I’m getting overeducated
  • kissed Sharon lightly on the cheek

I’m getting overeducated in regards to sex. By the time I reached my adolescence I’d seen it all, thanks to my older sister Sharon.

Our mother split when we were little, and our father was always out drinking, so it fell to Sharon to raise me and teach me the ways of the world.

Her boyfriend’s name was Hans, and he could make us all suffer with his attempts to speak English. Sharon didn’t care. “His ears are adorable!” she would say.

One night Hans arrived at our apartment and kissed Sharon lightly on the cheek. Mere moments later she was on her knees before him and he was pulling this filthy little segmented thing out of his trousers. I didn’t want to see any more.

I cleared my throat to remind them I was there. Hans told me to go to the diner and get something to eat. He recommended the Eggs Benedict.

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It Cuts Both Ways

Sometimes your inspiration starts with the Big Idea, or maybe the starting point is a particular character, or a name for a character, or a plot twist. No matter how your inspiration usually arrives, the project will ultimately rely on having all the pieces fit together.

All of that is basic, intro-to-creative-writing type stuff, and none of it is specific to collaborative writing. However, the experience of getting from the initial flash to the actual writing is a lot different for partners. It’s kind of a double-edged sword.

You have to find subject matter that both partners are interested in. No matter how well aligned your tastes and styles, it’s likely that you or your partner will occasionally feel inspired about something that the other simply doesn’t care for. The idea might be fantastic, but still not turn out to be something you can collaborate on.

On the other hand, there could be other reasons that you struggle to win over your partner to your idea. Maybe it’s not as shiny as you think it is, or maybe it’s just not quite ready yet. Working on your own, you would probably chase after your exciting Big Idea, wanting to pounce while you feel inspired. You’d only discover its problems after devoting a lot of time and effort to a draft.

In our case, an idea can fall down at the conceptual stage mainly due to not being quite the right kind of science fiction. There’s a certain type of world-building that we do well together. Our story worlds generally only diverge from consensus reality at a submerged level. They look superficially like the real world, but harbor deep and sinister differences. So, for example, a far-future setting represents a major stylistic and procedural shift for the writing — different kinds of research, different pacing for exposition, different priorities. Meaning there will be an uphill journey for a Big Idea that needs a far-future world in which to thrive, and if we come up with a different inspiration we’ll probably follow it instead.

Not that it’s impossible for us to imagine working together on different types of fiction, just that it’s not healthy for the partnership to try to force things.

Your Guinea Pigs Would Ask

  • “You were hunting whales?”
  • nine minutes by railway
  • linking his eyeball movements to the computer
  • You need a tiger
  • your guinea pigs would
  • taking a cocktail napkin

Your guinea pigs would ask, “You were hunting whales?” their piping voices protesting in unison and three-part harmony. And you’d reply that it was none of their business and go to your office, nine minutes by railway from your dingy garden apartment. On the way, you’d contemplate what’s missing in your life. You need a tiger, a security tiger with a special implant linking his eyeball movements to the computer. He might eat your guinea pigs, for which you would be grateful. You imagine him taking a cocktail napkin from the stack on the credenza and daintily blotting his whiskers. No more judgemental guinea pigs. They don’t know how it was, with those whales.

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“You Terwilliger?”

  • by jenthe minister started to protest
  • You Terwilliger?
  • a skull with candy lettering
  • a tapestry of golden bees
  • jerked the boy upward
  • an alien tongue

“You Terwilliger?” the burly man demanded.

The minister started to protest that he was not, in fact, Terwilliger, but then he realized that the burly man was not talking to him. The minister turned his attention and saw a teenage boy standing behind him in line, clutching a skull with candy lettering that read something unintelligible in an alien tongue. On his chin a tapestry of golden bees formed the beard that puberty had not yet provided.

The burly man jerked the boy upward, scattering the bee beard into an angry cloud.

“The boss has been waiting for that,” the burly man said, indicating the decorated skull and dragging the boy inside the nightclub.

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What’s The Big Idea?

Today we’re going to talk about the very beginnings of the journey, the Story Concept. How do you decide what to write about? Where do you get your ideas?

Obviously there is no concrete answer to those questions. Everyone takes inspiration from different things that they encounter in their lives. There is no formula. Except in our writing partnership there kind of is. Kent is the concept guy. Jen is the plotter.

Here’s how it usually goes:

Kent: Hey, I have an idea for a story.

Jen: Do tell.

Kent: Okay, there’s a world where all of the molecules are rotated 90° counterclockwise!

Jen: ?

Kent: Get it? Because then all the molecules are rotated a quarter turn!

Jen: So what happens next?

Kent: I don’t know.

There are probably some of you who would love to read Kent’s 100,000 word treatise on the partially rotated molecules, but I suspect there are many more who would find, without characters or a plot, it might be a little boring.

On the other hand, Jen can spin plot complications all day long. She will happily devote days to drawing up timelines for characters’ actions, more days to filling in their family trees, and still more days to sketching floor plans for their (and their parents’) houses. Jen is all about the backstory, but generally doesn’t have the moment of inspiration that produces the hook.

And then we act out an old Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup commercial:

Kent: Hey! You got your plot complications in my big idea!

Jen: Hey! You got your big idea in my plot complications!

And that’s what writing partners can be: Two great tastes that taste great together.

 

Dave Could Not Believe

  • a chorus of raspberries
  • gimme!
  • groped for buttons on the underside
  • hollow-eyed and pale
  • spread-eagle on the hood of the patrol cruiser
  • unmitigated imbecility

Dave could not believe his own unmitigated imbecility. He frowned through the windshield at the policemen, hollow-eyed and pale, from his perch spread-eagle on the hood of the patrol cruiser. He’d defeated the alarm system and picked four locks, only to get run down by the fuzz while jaywalking.

As the money he’d dropped fluttered down the street, Dave groped for buttons on the underside of his watchband, hoping the transition to a universe where he could be so stupid had also remade his timepiece into a versatile super-weapon. Gimme!

No use.

The officers got out and cuffed him to a chorus of raspberries from the other pedestrians.

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