text: Writing Collaboration: Not for the Faint of Heart

Having a writing partner has been an amazing experience.  There’s a synergy there, a cohesiveness that spackles the deficits of a particular skill.  If I have a weakness in one area, generally my sister does not.  The benefit to our partnership is incalculable.  That is not to say it’s always been a path strewn with roses.  We’ve had to figure out what works for us as a team.  When we first began our collaboration, I had visions of us sitting side by side, computers perched prettily on our laps typing away, stopping only to beam at one another across the bluish tint of our screens.  I quickly discovered that being in close proximity to my writing partner was a complete and unmitigated disaster.  I seemed to develop some type of rigor mortis in my hands.  I willed them to at least “assume the “position” on the keyboard, but no luck.  My hands were frozen in a rictus of terror while I listened to the blaze of my partner’s fingers flying across the keyboard.  Click-click-click-click.  And with each machine-gun fire click, my mind fired back with possibilities:  she had secretly scribed the entire novel.  Worse, she had whipped out a second one and had secured a movie deal while I was downstairs asking our elderly mother to rub Ben-Gay into the unbendable claws that used to be my fingers. 

This was so not working for me.   And if I didn’t get my act together soon, she would work out the final touches on a future Pulitzer-prize winning investigative piece certain to reveal the cure for cancer.  Yes, I needed a different approach and quickly.   When I finally decided to migrate back to my own home (yeah, it had only been about thirty minutes), settle into a comfortable chair with a seriously caffeinated drink right at my elbow, ideas flowed and the novel was born.  Or at least my share of it. 

Oh, and all that writing she was doing:  facebook.  Lol.

text: Writing: Journey or Destination

I was asked once whether I would write if I knew my work would never get published.  I didn’t hesitate when I answered yes.  But it was interesting to ponder the question of a craft that does not come with any guarantees.  Is writing without a book deal as futile as Sisyphus and his eternal boulder pushing, or is writing something that some of us are compelled to do no matter the outcome?

For me, I felt compelled.  When I first started writing and received more rejections than I cared to admit, I lifted my battered dreams from the dirt and dragged them kicking and screaming into the next project.  The next big idea.  I needed to tell a story, even if my mother was the only person in the world who would appreciate it. 

Along the way, I learned many things about others and even more about myself.  Writing became my teacher.  It gave me a humanity that I might never have discovered if it hadn’t been for the writing experience.  Through my characters, I learned how to step into the hearts and minds of others and neutralize my judgment.  I ascribed motivation to their actions and understood why they did what they did.  I no longer thought in terms of black and white, but instead resided comfortably in the grays. 

The reward of writing is the experience itself.

So even if you have been writing without any “success,” and you feel like Sisyphus, with a bad back, pushing that boulder endlessly up the mountain, don’t give up. 

The journey is the dream.  

text: A Fresh Start

Welcome to the official Claire Avery blog! We’ll be posting our thoughts and updates here as we anticipate the release of our first novel Hidden Wives. The book is available for pre-order on amazon.com and will be released on June 8th, 2010!

For more information, check out our official site at claire avery author [dot] com.