Jennifer Crusie's Blog, page 79

The Collaboration Process in E-Mail: You Really Shouldn’t Have Asked To See It

Somebody here asked to see the collaboration e-mails and I said something like, “They’re not that interesting.” So here’s proof.

On Wednesday, Bob e-mailed me at 9:06 AM about publishing. I got back to him at 10:15, which is the crack of dawn for me, and agreed with him. Forty-six e-mails from me and fourteen from Bob later, it was 4:48 in the afternoon. Bob was finishing up Acts One and Two, getting ready to send them to me, and we had some back and forth trying to figure out how some things worked (no conflict, just discussion). Omitting spoiler e-mails, here’s how the rest of the day went (warning: it’s chaotic and boring, but you asked):

Bob pointed out a glitch in a scene (very common at this stage, clean-up in rewrite)

Jenny: (4:48) I’ll get rid of all that in the Act Three scene

Bob: (4:49) Leave it for now. Remember– cut later. Also, cut material is great for marketing.

[From 4:49 to 4:51 Two more Jenny e-mails, one from Bob]

Bob: (4:51) Okay. I’ll have two to you shortly. You’ll see more plot stuff.

Jenny: (4:51) Oooooh, I love new plot stuff.

Jenny: (4:52) I’m also drinking a chocolate milkshake which will put me to sleep since I’m diabetic, so if I disappear from here for a couple of hours, I’m just unconscious.

[From 4:52 to 4:55 One Bob e-mail, four Jenny e-mails, one Bob e-mail]

Jenny: (4:55) In Book Two, Anemone has rented the Blue House for the summer, so she’ll be around for another four months.
I think in Book Three, Anemone buys the house, and Liz has to decide whether to leave Burney, Vince, and Anemone or stay (three guesses what she decides).

Bob: (4:56) The big Blue house? Faye’s house? Or Margot’s?

Jenny: (4:56) The big Blue House.

[From 4:57 to 5:16: Two Jenny e-mails, one Bob e-mail, four Jenny e-mails, Bob is trying to finish Act Two but e-mails back, 3 Jenny e-mails, two Bob e-mails as he’s rewriting a scene, 3 Jenny e-mails, Bob e-mail, two Jenny e-mails]

Bob: (5:17) Let’s think on it– the dogs are whining since it’s time for their drive down to the river. Back in 30 if you’re not asleep.

Jenny: (5:17) Tell the dogs I said hi.

[From 5:21 to 5:26: One Bob e-mail, six Jenny e-mails)

Jenny: (5:27) I am excited about the next two books. I know, finish this one first. Going to sleep now.

SILENCE (From 5:28 to 7:12).

Bob: (7:12) We need to make a story bible.

SILENCE. (From 7:13 to 7:46)

Jenny: (7:46) What’s a story bible.  Like a wiki?

Jenny: (8:38) This is a great page on Valentine diners (URL)

Jenny: (8:40) This part is kind of neat:
“What to Look For
There are two distinguishing characteristics to look for on the interior of a diner that can help identify it as a Valentine.
The first is a small wall safe located just inside the door (top right). Operators would put a percentage of each day’s profits in the wall safe, and a Valentine representative would make regular rounds, removing the payment from each diner on the route. Wall safes were phased out on new models by around 1960. Many of these safes remain intact inside Valentine diners.” (Picture of wall safe.)

Jenny: (8:42) No idea what we’d do with that but still a great detail. If Vince has two keys and he gives one to Liz, that’s a way to . . . I have no idea.

Jenny: (8:54) I have a ton of stuff, but it’s all old. Here’s the wedding party. (jpg attachment)

Jenny: (8:55) And a chart for family dynamics. (curio zip file attachment).

Jenny: (8:56) Rats. I thought that was an image. (jpg attachment)

Jenny: (8:58) What do you need in a bible? A list of characters I can do. List of settings?

Jenny (9:00): This is the town I based Burney on. Originally it was Birney, after the abolitionist. No idea why I changed it. (URL)

Jenny (9:01) You have walked the terrain. I used to live there.

Jenny: (9:02) Here’s the police department web page. (URL)

Jenny: (9:05) Here’s their Facebook page (URL)

Jenny: (9:09) The department evidently has 10 officers for about 3000 people.   (URL)
So George, Mike Crider, Dumbfuck Nephew, Vince, and . . .?
That’s your playground.  Want to put Mac on the team?
There’s a fire department, too.

Jenny: (9:10) So now I’m awake and you’re probably asleep. Or super annoyed by all these e-mails. I’ll stop now. You have a good night.

Jenny: (9:13) Wait, I was wrong.
(URL)
4 Fulltime officers: George, Vince, Mike Crider, ?
4 Parttime officers: Dumbfuck, Banky, ? ?
Get some women in there, probably in part time since George is in charge, although Lavender made him hire Vince so maybe she made him hire some woman.

Jenny: (9:14): I’m wired from the sugar in the shake. Sorry about this.

Jenny: (9:19) Well, crap, that’s not right, either.
(URL)
“The [Burney] Police Department is staffed by 18 sworn Police Officers, including the Chief of Police, Deputy Chief and 2 Patrol Sergeants.  We also have three Detectives, one School Resource Officer, and a K-9.  The Department is supported by two civilian staff members.”
I like the idea of a K-9.
So George is Chief.
Is Vince Deputy Chief or is that somebody who’s going to get fired and George gives Vince the job?  Patrol Sgts are Mike Crider and Dumbfuck?  Or is Vince a detective?  Why would Burney need 3 detectives?  The School Resource Officer could be fun, especially in Book Three.  You know the School Resource Officer would know Walt.  Maybe that’s Mac Blake? Civilian Staff Members: Dispatcher and Secretary?

Jenny: (9:20) You know, this is a lot more interesting when you’re here to fight back.

Jenny: (10:18) I’m putting some of this on the blog. That’ll teach them to ask for a look inside our process.

Jenny: (10:35) Does this take place in 2021? 22? Are we dealing with the pandemic? We can put it any year we want, just not the Trump years. I’m not dealing with the trauma that asshat inflicted on the country, not to mention how he’d divide the town in the story.

Jenny: (10:36) Aliens kidnapped you, didn’t they? Or zombies. If it’s just aliens, all you’ve got to worry about is anal probes, but if it’s zombies, you’re dead to me now.

SILENCE. (From 10:37 PM Wednesday to 5:35 AM Thursday) [No, I wasn’t sleeping, I was working on other things.]

Jenny: (5:36 AM Thursday): Must be zombies.

Note: Bob wrote back at 8:55 AM Thursday to say that the book takes place “in the un-named present. So we ignore the pandemic and politics.” That works for me. And also that he was stuck on a scene, and I can sympathize because it took me forever to finish that damn wedding scene and then it was lousy.

The point is, the e-mails are mostly us saying “I think this happens” and “Why does this happen?” and “Who the hell is (some character that plays a very small role)?” and “I just put this in” and “I just took this out” and . . . well, you get the idea. So not of interest. I’ll let you know if we have any conversations that would actually help writers or readers. Or be interesting.

This is a Good Book Thursday, April 28, 2022

I am mostly reading Lavender’s Blue, Acts One and Two, getting revved up for Three and Four. And then come the rewrites, but we’ve been rewriting all along so with any luck, we’ll be able to just shoot it off to beta readers and start brainstorming Book Two. Or, as Bob says, “Let’s finish this one first.”

What did you finish reading this week?

Working Wednesday, April 27, 2022

I’m writing this on Tuesday to set to post on Wednesday, and after several months of watching 2022 speed by (How did it get to be April already? What do you mean, it’s May in a week?), I have now degenerated to “How the hell can it be Tuesday? It was Saturday a minute ago. No, wait that was Sunday and I missed the Happiness post. Crap.” But the book is going well, mostly because when I start to wander all over the place, Bob grabs me by the metaphorical neck in e-mail and says, “The story is HERE.” It’s still got a cast of thousands with a lot of gossip and conflict and a nice slow romance, but it’s a lot more focused now. So that’s what I’m working on.

What are you focussed on this week?

Unhappiness is Forgetting the Happiness Post AGAIN

Sorry. My head is so firmly in this book that I actually thought yesterday was Saturday. God knows what day I thought today was. Apologies all around.

How were you happy this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, April 21, 2022

I keep going outside and thinking, “Wow, it’s really warm now, spring came early.” Then I realize it’s April and spring is right on time. Yes, we’re a third of the way through 2022. Remember when we thought nothing could be as bad as 2021? Good thing there are good books to read. I’ve just started David Chang’s Cooking at Home Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Recipes (And Love My Microwave) and I love it. It’s a non-recipe cookbook and very laidback and free and non-judgmental and I need all of that right now.

What are you reading that you need right now?

Working Wednesday, April 20, 2022

This week I’ve been working on a book with a guy known for fiction with a high body count. We do a lot of trouble-shooting in e-mail, and when we were trying to figure out a particularly vexing problem, this happened:

Bob: Let’s just kill everyone. Simple plot.

Jenny: You’ve used that one too many times.

Bob: But then they come back as zombies. Liz and Vince are the only two left.

Jenny: That’s Book Three.

Bob: And then the aliens land.

Yes, folks, that’s how we work. On a book that will have zombies and aliens over my dead body. Which Bob is okay with.

What did you work on this week?

Random Collaboration

NOTE: I put Deb Blake’s author post up two weeks early by mistake, so it’s going up again in May. My apologies to Deb and everybody who tried to get the book now. Here, have a different post as an apology.

So Lavender’s Blue is moving along at a much faster pace now that Bob’s on board. Of course he’s also writing his sequel to Shane and the Hitwoman and now he’s taking three days off to go mountain climbing, so on Thursday when he gets back, I’ll be waiting for the “book done yet” e-mail that will lead me to say cruel things to him. In other words, it’s just like old times.

When we first started writing together, a million years ago, I told him that I had to do a discovery draft first so I never outline before that, and he explained that he outlined his books first (IN A SPREADSHEET, FOR CRIPE’S SAKE) and then wrote them in one draft. He also mentioned that writing without an outline was “daft,” and I bitched about being called “daft” on here, and he said he’d never said that, and I sent him a copy of the e-mail in which he said it, and he changed the subject. So now that we’re collaborating again, I showed him the act outline I was using for the revisions on the first two acts, and he said, “I don’t use acts, I just write whatever I want so I can see what happens.” And I said, “Well, I need acts or my stories go all over the place.” And then we looked at each other in e-mail and realized we’d switched brains in the past twenty years. I don’t care, we’re writing in acts. He’ll thank me later. Well, no he won’t, but he’ll be silently grateful. I’m sure.

The thing I’m remembering now is that while we fought a lot, it was never about the book. We both wanted the best book we could possibly do, so we really didn’t argue much about the content, we just discussed it a lot. Well, I discussed it. Bob said, “Just write it, I’ll fix it later.” He’s still saying that, and I’m still writing in acts, so we may end up killing each other anyway, but I don’t think so. For one thing, the book is good. For another, he’s fixing my plot and writing Vince, so I’m grateful. But the biggest reason is that we’re not standing next to each other. As Bob said once, we should never be in the same zip code.

I just wrote him a long e-mail about arcing the romance and the sex scenes in the first two acts. Bob does not like long e-mails, and he’s not crazy about writing sex and romance, either (that’s what I’m for). Since I have no idea if he’ll read it, I’ve reduced it to one sentence and sent that to him. He usually reads the one sentence e-mails. In this case, it’s “I know you didn’t read that last 904 word e-mail, so here’s what I need to know: Where Vince’s head is at Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, and Sunday night.” And I just realized I should have written “What Vince is thinking and feeling” instead of asking where his head was, but I am confident that Bob will be mature and not go there.

We’re working with a new e-mail program that neither of us is sure about, but it has one wonderful feature: it puts your e-mail exchanges into a format that looks like chat, so you don’t have to follow e-mail threads, you just read the conversation. Like this:

So that’s hugely helpful.

Right now I’m researching weddings. I hate writing weddings. I’m not crazy about weddings in general which is why I eloped. I didn’t mind the wedding in Agnes because I didn’t really deal with it, but the wedding in this book is key, so I’m researching wedding customs, making sure I’ve got the processions down the aisle right, the way the reception works, the whole borrowed/blue bit. It’s good because I can use it all to build the story tension but it’s writing about a ceremony that is not something I get invested in. I already told Bob that Liz and Vince aren’t getting married. He, of course, doesn’t care. He’s ignoring the wedding to plot the murder and some other crimes.

There’s a raccoon in my kitchen. He comes in nightly and forages even though there’s nothing there for him unless he learns to open a can or the fridge door. I went into the kitchen Monday night at 2:30 AM (okay, Tuesday morning) to get a Diet Coke and the little bastard was sitting in the window between the kitchen and the workroom. If he’d had any respect, he’d have run for it, but he just sat there calmly, waiting for me to leave, looking vaguely annoyed that I was encroaching on his time. So I threw a potholder at him. Gotta fix that hole in the back door. He’s a cute little bugger (I’m trying not to name him but I think he’s a Bernie) but his last act was to tear open a bag of flour I had somehow left out. This does not strike me as a raccoon snack, so I assume he did it to annoy me. Definitely fixing the back door. Later.

I’ll fix it later because I have a book to write and a collaborator who is going to come back from the mountains expecting 65,000 words of a novel with no scenes missing. The last thing I need is both Bernie and Bob annoyed with me.

Later:
Bob wrote back before he left for the mountains and opened a new can of worms when he answered my question. He’s gonna have a lot of e-mails from me when he comes back down on Thursday. One of the many nice things about this new e-mail app is that I can see when the emails have been read, so I know he’s already read them and is now going to be up in the mountains, stewing over the problem, which is not what I want, but I need the answers, Bob. Trip to the mountains done yet?

Collaborating: It’s a lot like marriage, you have to keep working on the relationship or somebody leaves and goes to a higher plain.

Happiness is No More Snow

My pal Krissie lives up in Vermont, and it’s still snowing up there. I’d be nuts by now if I were her, I almost didn’t make it to April down here. It’s balmy every day now, often with rain, and the bulbs are up and the trees are in bloom–there are trees on the way to our shopping center that are absolutely loaded with white blossoms and they’re gorgeous–and the breeze is soft, and of course I’m inside trying to write a book, but I know the world is warming up out there, and that makes me happy.

What warmed you with happiness this week?

This is a Good Book Thursday, April 14, 2022

This week I devoured Ben Aaronovitch’s newest Rivers of London mystery, Amongst Our Weapons, a novel about policing magic that was magical to read. I love that series.

What did you read that was magical?

(Sorry about the typo that went out in the first sentence. Damn autocorrect.)

Working Wednesday, April 13, 2022

This week I worked on Lavender’s Blue. Amazing how much faster something goes when two people are working on it. Not to mention how much fun it is to read stuff you didn’t write that’s part of the story.

What did you do this week?