Give and take

Phil: Our session at Stratford Literary Festival is going to include something about “the challenges of writing together”. While we might not be married, despite what the early publicity might suggest, I have a feeling that it probably has some similarities.

On Tuesday, Candice mentioned that “Phil will be asking me what we are doing about marketing the first book or writing the second” and she’s right. However, Phil knows that his writing other half is a busy lady. A high pressure job and child, not to mention the temptation to stay in the newly completed fancy-pants shower all day, steal time from her literary pursuits.

He understands this completely while recognising that at this stage, Book 1 is all about the publicity. He might joke that marketing is all colouring in and playing with glitter, it does actually require quite a bit of skill and only one of us is a black-belt in the subject.

So it’s time to be understanding and go away to do something useful instead. After all, there is a second book to write and so I’d better go away and re-read what we’ve done, then add to it.

Of course, I’m not sitting around idly all day no matter what it looks like. January saw me slogging my way through a number of projects, all of which had to be delivered at the same time. February felt a lot more like the turn of the year than January 1st, but I still have one big event this weekend, maybe I should take up the Chinese calendar rather than the western one! Hopefully, from Monday, things will look a bit clearer. Mind you, I’ve said that before.

Like all relationships, there is give and take. We both bring different skills to the partnership. We also encourage each other and that’s going to be a big part of our talk.

Writing on your own must be a slog sometimes. It would be all too easy to stick the book in a drawer and forget about it for a few days. Those days turn into a month and the month a year.

If I want to enjoy cake with the Nolan, this can’t happen or I’ll get “the look” from the other side of the table. She knows that if we don’t meet up for a while, or there is no blog post on a Tuesday, I’ll be nagging. We cajole each other and thus the project makes progress. Maybe not as quickly as it might but there is progress and that’s the difference between writing a book and wanting to write one.

Partners… in name only!

Candice: I’ve just come back from a weekend away and was surprised to see a text from Phil yesterday while doing the big car unpack with my little assistant.

Apparently, Phil and I are married.  Though I am not sure my husband is aware of this….

A few weeks ago we had the luck of being signed up to talk at Stratford upon Avon Literary Festival in April.  Yes, we are famous… well actually we were just cheeky and asked.

However, the person who has written our bio has assumed that we are a ‘husband and wife writing partnership’.  Um… not sure about that one.  This is not the first time this has happened, as Adele Parks made the same assumption when we met her at the Lit Festival last year. I suppose; we hang out together, have written a book, blog and do other things together so they have put two and two together and made five!

So, just to set the record straight.  I am married but not to Phil, and have a lovely two year old that is also not Phil’s! Phil, I assume, is married to his work…

However, we are great buddies who enjoy bouncing ideas off each other. And we look forward to talking to everyone at the Lit Fest about our writing partnership. (Tickets available now)

Does this make me a bigamist?

Two heads – Better than one?

Phil: In the latest Writers Forum magazine, there is an interesting interview with Annie Ashworth and Meg Sanders. They write under the name “Annie Sanders”.

There is discussion around the advantages of writing as a partnership, many of which I understand fully wot with Nolan and I doing the same sort of thing. It seems that our modus operandi, writing a chapter and then handing it to the other to comment, on is the same as this pair. The only difference is they have a book deal. The deal itself relied on the combined name – signing two writers for one novel is apparently very unusual and the editor was very nervous about doing it. Combining the names into a single author sealed it.

This isn’t the only case – Nicci French is the pseudonym of husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. Apparently they also write alternate chapters and then edit each other work. Ashworth and Sanders wonder how they manage to stay sane living and writing together. I can see their point, collaborating on a book you need to know a little about each others thinking but also bring different elements to the keyboard. It’s a good idea to take a break occasionally. How do you do this when you’re both under the same roof?

Grant Naylor is the collective name used by writers Rob Grant and Doug Naylor for their work on the television series Red Dwarf. Grant and Naylor themselves called this pseudonym a “gestalt entity” (i.e. something which is greater than the sum of its parts) and cleverly used the concept as a plot in one episode of the series. I don’t know how they work but I assume it involves a bit of keyboard bashing in the morning followed by an afternoon in the pub inventing more plotlines.

Well, that’s what I see as our future writing style anyway.