Why Every Cait Needs a Kristen and Every Kristen Needs a Cait

It’s Wednesday, and therefore, it’s time for another dose of ME! ME ME ME! Cait Reynolds and Squatter’s Rights Wednesday. You know you love it. I hope you all had a good eclipse on Monday. In Boston, we had a .70 maximum. Naturally, the only possible option for viewing the eclipse was to do so from our roof deck with several bottles of wine.

Denny Basenji was prepared. He would like everyone to know that while his tiny brain was protected from the eclipse and all alien transmissions, he did manage to get excellent reception on an episode of “The Honeymooners.”

[image error]Denny Basenji is prepared.Wait, don’t click away! The eclipse is relevant! Kristen video-called me this morning from New Zealand to tell me she had a major revelation: the reason the U.S. got a full solar eclipse for the first time in 99 years is because Kristen and I are on opposite sides of the Earth. The sun just can’t handle it, and the moon’s gravitational pull is all out of whack (or something like that).

Between the time difference, Kristen was up late, and I was just getting up (and pre-caffeinated, at that), and this made perfect sense, at least at the time. Yet, we ended up brainstorming together for half-an-hour, coming up with some pretty awesome ideas.

And that’s really the point of today’s blog, and W.A.N.A. in general. Writers don’t have to be alone. Writers shouldn’t be alone. Writers are better when we are connected.

Gryffindor vs. Slytherin

So, Kristen and I are probably as opposite as two people could be.

Kristen is blonde Texan who is good with math and wields chainsaws. She is open with her emotions, quick to love, doesn’t hold back when she’s angry, and will do the right thing no matter the cost to herself. She can spot a trend and is a marketing genius. She is the one who leads the charge into battle.

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This is now known as “Invoking the Goat” for us. We will beat each other’s ideas down until they lay bleeding and whimpering on the floor. We will challenge the logic behind a character’s actions or question the need for a plot twist. We are competitive in trying to out-write each other in terms of the quality of the prose we put down. We are fierce and stubborn about almost every single thing. (Which is probably why it took us the better part of eight months of talking just to nail the concept for our zombie western…”BUT IS HE EVEN GERMAN?”)

However, there is one thing we share that makes all of this possible: our ability to listen to each other and compromise.

Even after she invokes the goat at my idea, I will stop and listen. I will ask her to dive deeper into why she wants me to go in that direction. I will poke and pick at her reasoning until I understand it. That’s the key. Understanding. I may not agree with it, but understanding her perspective allows me to look objectively at my side of the argument and judge its merits and faults more fairly.

Usually, what ends up happening is that I find I agree with some of what she is saying, and she ends up agreeing with some of my idea. Post-goat, we begin to move toward each other’s ideas instead of staying in our corners. What we come up with is almost always better, more solid, more nuanced, and more in tune with what we are trying to accomplish.

And, we get a great core workout from laughing until we cry as we do all this.

What does this mean to you if you’re not co-authoring?

Everyone needs a Kristen or a Cait, regardless of what or how you are writing.

We all need someone who loves us enough to be honest and tell us when something smells bad in the story. We all need someone who knows our writing style, knows what we are capable of, and pushes us when we are slacking. We need someone to remind us that no single idea in a story should be the hill we die on (and we have to love and trust that person enough to believe them and accept what they say).

The point is, we shouldn’t be alone in paving a path of words. That’s where W.A.N.A.Tribe comes in. W.A.N.A.Tribe is a community of writers that is a refuge from Facebook, Twitter, and pictures of your co-worker’s niece’s daughter’s dinner from last night. We are all about writing, helping each other over the finish line, and occasionally (okay, maybe a bit more than occasionally) cat pics.

Every day in the chat room, a bunch of us show up, do writing sprints, hold each other accountable…and sometimes talk about the technical specifics of implanting gills into humans and sub-dimensional travel for cats. *shrugs* What do you expect? We’re writers. We’re weird.

And, we’re not alone.

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For the month of AUGUST, for everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.
I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

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NEW CLASSES FOR SEPTEMBER AND MORE!
All classes come with a FREE recording!

We’ve added in classes on erotica/high heat romance, fantasy, how to write strong female characters and MORE! Classes with me, with USA Today Best-Selling Author Cait Reynolds, award-winning author and journalist Lisa-Hall Wilson, and Kim Alexander, former host of Sirius XM’s Book Radio. So click on a tile and sign up!

More than Gore - How to Write Horror. $35.00 USD. Tuesday, September 5, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Bullies and Baddies - Understanding the Antagonist. $50.00 USD. Thursday, September 7, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. Click the image to register!Backstory: The Yarn Behind the Book. $45.00 USD. Friday, September 8, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Historical not Hysterical: Creating Authentic Female Characters. $45.00 USD. Saturday, September 9, 2017. 11:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m. EST. Click the link to register!Beyond Lipstick and Swords: Writing Strong Female Characters. $40.00 USD. Saturday, September 9, 2017. 2:00-4:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Villains & Anti-Heroes: The Characters We Love and Hate. $45.00 USD. Tuesday, September 12, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!From the Ground Up: Putting the "World" in World-Building for Fantasy. $60.00 USD. Wednesday, September 13, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Hooked: Catching Readers in the First Five Pages. $40.00 USD. Thursday, September 14, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!How to Dominate Your Sex Scenes (No Safe Words Here). $45.00 USD. Friday, September 15, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Painting With Words: Using Description and Sensory Details. $40.00 USD. Saturday, September 16, 2017. 2:00-4:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Elements of Literary Fiction. $40.00 USD. Tuesday, September 19, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Getting to Work: Professions, Politics, and Production in Fantasy World-Building. $60.00 USD. Wednesday, September 20, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Social Media for Writers. $35.00 USD. Thursday, September 21, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Blurb Writing Blows - But, It Doesn’t Have To. $45.00 USD. Friday, September 22, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Turn Your Passion Into A Business: Making Money As A Writer. $40.00 USD. Monday, September 25, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Guilty Pleasures: Writing Suspense, Thrillers, and Crime. Tuesday, September 26, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Romps and Revels: Entertainment, Leisure, and Culture in Fantasy World Building. Wednesday, September 27, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!When Your Name Alone Can Sell: Branding for Authors. $35.00 USD. Thursday, September 28, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!Outside the Box: How to Read More, Write Less, and Up Your Fiction Game. Friday, September 29, 2017. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST. Click the image to register!