The Joy of True Collaboration

Discovering a video of one of my favorite editors, now a fiction writer, reminds me of what I crave whenever I’m writing.

Writing can be lonely. Some writers like it that way. Not me. I tend to reach out for the stimulation of other minds — or just for support.

I know I must avoid distractions when I have a deadline. I turn down lunch dates and work on weekends when writing a book, as I just did. Still, it helps to know someone is there — a partner, a good friend who’ll tell you the truth, an editor paid to make your “product” better.

Every brain needs back-up.

It soothes me to have a handful of others who know what I’m writing and are willing to give me honest, smart feedback—because they want my writing to be good. In a broad sense, they are my collaborators.

And so I have to admit, I was a bit jealous when I watched this video of Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, which highlights their intense, full-time collaborative relationship.

Greer Hendricks worked at Simon & Schuster when she acquired and worked on Family Whispering. I respected her insight and advice and would have sought her out for future books. But after twenty years on the editorial side of the desk, Greer became a writer, churning out thrillers with Sarah, a fiction writer who proposed their arrangement.

Sarah, according to Publishers Weekly, “believed collaborating with Hendricks on a novel could help her grow creatively.”

I’ve always been curious about how other writers collaborate. It one thing to tell another’s story, as I did with Myrlie Evers, or to put a method into easily digestible prose, as I did for Tracy Hogg, aka the Baby Whisperer. But to make up a story together— a plot, characters, everything — requires two equally able and equally committed personalities. Greer and Sarah have achieved a special magic together.

Greer says in the video, and I know to be true from working with her, “I’ve always been a collaborator.”

And Sarah sums up what I believe happens in the best of relationships. “We were better together than we were individually.”

I’d say pretty much the same thing about my sometime collaborators. We don’t talk or email daily, but they sit on my shoulder throughout the day and I sometimes consult them. Is this over the top. Have I gone one too long?

Bottom line: A good relationship, whether we collaborate on a project, look back on a common history, or merely desire to share time, helps us feel less alone.

I am Melinda Blau, author of The Wisdom Whisperers: Golden Guides to a Long Life of Grit, Grace, and Laughter and 15 other books. You can read my Medium articles here