The Work of Writers

Ms. Melissa and I have been slogging away at this collaborative writing thing for a few months and felt that now might be a good time to provide an update on our progress.

Our progress hasn’t been orderly or pretty, but we have been busy.

In the first three months of our collaboration, we generated three chapters of a first draft, pages and pages of sequenced notes, and a Google Drive with folders full of research. We’ve had lots of long phone calls, some disagreements–mostly about plot and genre–and a bunch of ideas for spin-offs and side projects. We also launched this website and social media accounts to provide a real-time record of our writing journey.

We’ve been busy, but with only three chapters of our draft completed, are we really working? What does the work of a writer look like?

The bestselling, Printz Honor-winning middle grade and young adult writer, Julie Berry, answers this question very precisely in her keynote address entitled: “Work, Relax, Believe.”

You can read a copy of her speech on her website. The speech is long, but informative and reassuring. It’s well worth a read.

Julie Berry defines the work of a writer as follows:

• Reading books that will help you write better.

• Conducting relevant research.

• Writing words on paper.

• Thoughtfully revising those words.

• Learning how to do all these things better and smarter through study, mentorship, and practice.

Having a more expansive view of what writing is, is not only accurate, but helpful. It reminds us that even if we’re not frantically typing, we can still be writing. Reading and researching and revising are also “writing”.

At this point in our process, Ms. Melissa and I are actively engaged in four of Julie Berry’s five bullet points.

We are reading lots of books to help us write better. Ms. Melissa is reading fantasy and mystery romance novels with an eye toward story beats and structure. I’m reading how-to books about mystery and suspense plotting.

We’ve been conducting lots of research on everything from animal facts and behaviors to flow maps of plot structures. We’ve organized our research in folders on our shared Google Drive.

And we’ve begun putting words on paper. We have three chapters of a first draft. Drafting is less tedious than research and a lot more fun, but it takes longer. Ms. Melissa and I have never been fast writers. She is too perfectionistic and I am too entranced by the sounds of words strung together to ever be quick.

We’re also thoughtfully revising the words we’ve written. We’ve already tossed out one chapter and replaced it with a new one. We’ve moved paragraphs around, line-edited sentences, and added new crumbs of information as we plot.

And it’s encouraging to realize that, by Julie Berry’s definition, we have been industriously engaged in writerly work, however slow and messy it may seem.

The only bullet point we haven’t embarked on is the fifth one. We haven’t joined a writer’s group or signed up for a professional organization that provides workshops and mentorships. We are waiting to have a completed first draft.

And I am impatient. I want to be drafting.

I want to spend more time putting words to paper and less time researching and revising and figuring out how to plot. Ms. Melissa has to remind me to cool my jets. When we don’t know where we’re going, we just end up rewriting. And she is right. This has already happened. Twice.

Which brings me to my final thought on Julie Berry’s list.

If you’re writing with a partner, I would argue that an additional bullet point is necessary. When you're writing collaboratively, talking about your story is also “writing”. All of those lengthy, meandering conversations that Ms. Melissa and I have until wee hours of the morning are essential to our writing process. Getting on the same page about event sequences and plot beats and timelines and character motivation is not something that happens over text or email. And it certainly doesn’t happen telepathically. It requires discourse and debate. It requires conversation.

And although some of our conversations (about puppies and vacations and folktales and ideas for future social media posts) are not essential to our story, most of our talk is on topic.

Therefore, based on Julie Berry’s list and the vast amount of conversation we've been having, Ms. Melissa and I can rest assured that we are making progress and engaged in the work of being writers.