Jerry wrote his epic story, SlingStar Myth, all alone. In fact, more than one author has claimed that writing is a lonely journey. I have found that much of the thinking I do to solve the problems in my writing can be done anywhere, including in a crowd. But the time at the keyboard requires concentration and freedom from distraction. Alone.
So how do writers collaborate? Jerry and I started with a very clear objective and well-defined roles. Our objective was to finish the work we needed to do together while Jerry was sufficiently lucid to do it. My role was to learn and understand and read. His was to finish the third manuscript, the end of the trilogy. My role included editing his writing, cleaning up the grammar, and identifying problems with clarity or consistency or logic. His included validating my changes and approving my voice.
Of course, we had a huge issue right away: How to manage our workloads. Jerry could only work for short periods at a time; I had a job that permitted me to work on the project for about two hours a day. And we didn’t know in the beginning how much time he had – or rather, we didn’t want to accept how little time he had.
Since we both came from software development careers, we shared an appreciation for (and an aversion to) process. We quickly agreed to use an Agile method to organize ourselves. I spent a few days creating spreadsheets and other process-related instruments to track issues, tasks, definitions, name changes, etc. And, we organized our communications to coincide with our short window of common time. Jerry woke up very early, sometimes as early as 4:00 am, San Diego time, which works out to be one o’clock in the afternoon for me in Madrid. I usually had free time in the afternoons, so we scheduled our Hangouts in between my classes.
Aside from the mechanics, speculative fiction collaboration requires you to postulate impossible and marvelous things. For me to write about them, first I had to understand them. And while everything might have been crystal-clear to Jerry, I often saw fog and mist. We found ourselves spending hours chatting about philosophy, religion, the origin of the universe, the origin of humanity, what it means to be human… And most importantly, what is the book about?
I needed to pin Jerry down on the central concept, on the theme of the book. He had included several candidates and many fascinating possibilities. But, I was quite sure that one of my most important tasks as editor was to decide on which one, to choose and focus. I think Jerry got frustrated with my insistence on this point, all he wanted to do was to finish while he still could.
But I needed to define and articulate the message, the relevance, the answer to the question: What’s the book about, Jerry?
In the end, we never reached an answer. Maybe that’s why writing is so lonely. Every author has an individual opinion about the relevancy of the work, about why it matters. My message is not identical to Jerry’s message. I still don’t know how much collaboration is needed to formulate a joint overall message. I only know that we never articulated ours. We didn’t have enough time together to decide the most important question of all: Why should anyone bother to read this book?
So, I ask Jerry’s forgiveness, and our readers’ indulgence. My feeling about the relevance of this work lies in the hope that collaboration provides: that we are better as humans when we cooperate, that tolerance and kindness lead to a better outcome than competition and conflict. However, I also believe that bullies must be opposed with strength and that the important things are worth fighting for.
I hope that Jerry would find this message acceptable.
