Wicked Good: Co-Writing

Today’s my little brother’s birthday…he’s around 35 although he always seems about 20 to me. Ever since he was a kid he’s been drawing. In school it was mostly cars doodled on his school books but now he’s taken up painting. Landscapes. Since he has two kids and I have three he thinks we would be a perfect pair to write a children’s book–him with illustrations, me with words. I’ll let you know how that turns out!

But recently I met a sibling pair who actually did write a book together. Amy and Joanne Lewis–who by the way are both lawyers by day, writers by night–wrote Wicked Good. It’s the story of a mother, her adopted son with Asperger’s Syndrome, and the search for his biological parents. And even more amazing than the fact that two sisters managed to write an entire novel without driving each other crazy is the fact that they did while Joanne was living in Florida and Amy in Maine!

You can read part of their novel on their blog Wicked Good. You can contact them at wickedgoodthebook@gmail.com. They’re new(as in joined TODAY) to Twitter and Facebook and would love a few followers and friends @wickedgoodbook and wickedgoodthebook.

Now it’s time to meet the ladies responsible for this cross country(well, not exactly cross…shall we call it up-and-down country?)writing fest. First, Amy(after all, she is the oldest):

It was March. The snow was dirty brown and the sun was absent here in Maine. I was spending a lot of time on my sofa, channel surfing and landing nowhere. Joanne called.

“Wanna write a book together?”

I wrapped the afghan around me tighter and yawned from lack of blood flow to my brain.

“Sure,” was the best response I could muster.

I am a lawyer by day and single mom to two teenage boys by day and night. My oldest is diagnosed with asperger syndrome, a form of autism which has been of mixed blessings to my life. Joanne suggested a story about a relatively mad scientist who had discovered the cure for cancer in a rare strand of DNA. The cure required the death of one specific boy, a teenage boy in Bangor Maine with asperger syndrome. My contribution was to write the parts with the boy in it.

We ran into two significant problems with this story line. First, my actual scientist friend was quite offended. “Why do people always write about mad scientists!” She exploded at me as we rode our bicycles one day. “Besides, curing cancer with DNA is a stupid idea.” She said more but her words were lost to the wind as I slowed to let her pedal ahead – way ahead.

Second, although Joanne was surprisingly good at creating criminal characters and gruesome situations, we wrote really bad chase scenes. Weeks went by as we attempted to write the scene of the mother and son being chased in a forest.

Joanne is the brains behind this outfit. I can only write based upon my life experiences. Without Joanne moving the plot along, we would be nowhere. She would give me the plot line and I would write. We discussed plot and character development. If we disagreed on anything, I let her win. That, of course, applies only when we write! I am four years older.

I love dogs. I tried several times to add dogs to the story and plot line. She refused to let me. Our next novel will definitely include dogs!

The novel is complete. We have been waiting to get Joanne’s murder mystery novel published before pushing for publication of this novel. While waiting, I had missed working with her. So we decided to post it chapter by chapter on a blog. Joanne has friends in the writing field and I use facebook so we got the word out that way. I love working with her again! We talk at least once a day; text constantly and I am always emailing her photos of dogs. I would love to write another novel. I could not do it alone. I will do any project she wants except that I am not that interested in Renaissance Italy. If I could write a dog into Renaissance Italy then maybe I would.

While Amy’s working out how to work a dog into Joanne’s new book about Renaissance Italy here’s Joanne’s side of the story…

First, tell us a little bit about yourselves and how you ended up on opposite corners of the country.

JOANNE: We are from New York. I went to undergraduate and law school in NYC but I never wanted to practice law there. I can honestly say I moved to Florida for the weather. I’m not sure what Amy’s excuse is. She went from cold to coldest!

When did you begin writing?

JOANNE: I wrote my first book when I was eleven years old. It was called The Book on Weather and I covered it with orange and yellow wallpaper and it was put in my elementary school library. I’ve been writing ever since. I’ve written 10 novels.

I write murder mysteries and historical fiction novels. I have a novel called Make Your Own Luck that my agent, Donald Maass, is shopping right now. I met with him in NYC last weekend and he seems positive about being able to sell it although he says this is the worst market he’s ever seen. I’ve also completed a historical fiction novel called The Lantern and I’m working on another one called Sleeping Cupid.

Co-writing a novel is a wild project. How did you ever decide to tackle something like that?

JOANNE: It was March, 2008 and I had finished Make Your Own Luck and was looking for my next project. I was talking to Amy on the phone and I said “hey, let’s write a book together”. I’m sure Amy said okay, thinking the book would be about dogs. When we agreed to do it, I don’t think either one of us knew what to expect. I took the lead when it came to plotting, conflict, structure and things like that. Amy kept the characters realistic. If I had Archer or Rory do something that Amy said they would never do, I changed it immediately.

I co-authored a non-fiction book but my co-author and I were each assigned different chapters. How do you write your book…do you each write alternating chapters, did you work out a plotline before you started, do you write each chapter together?

JOANNE: We talked almost daily and e-mailed back and forth too. I pretty much told Amy what I thought needed to happen next from a dramatic perspective and to make sure there was conflict and a character arc and all those other requirements. Amy made sure the characters were realistic. We got along really well. We would discuss what would happen next and then one of us would volunteer to write it. We did not alternate writing chapters. We did not write the chapters together although we revised together. We did not work on a plotline ahead of time which is because of me since I do not outline my books.

We would share what we had written and the other would recommend changes. I’m pretty sure Amy mostly agreed to all my changes and if I objected to any of hers it would have been due to some rule I had read in one of my books on writing. I seem to recall her insisting on something staying in the book which I thought should be edited out. She won. She is the older sister, after all.

I definitely know that whenever she wanted to add a dog to the book I nixed it! By the way, I am a dog lover. There just wasn’t a place for a dog in Wicked Good without it being too sappy. I think at one time we did have Archer volunteer at the Humane Society but it didn’t work. I’m sure there will be dogs in the next book we write together.

During one of my trips to Maine, we took a road trip to Gloucester and Salem, where some of Wicked Good takes place.

At this point, I really do not know who wrote what. It was truly an equal effort.

How long did it take you to write Wicked Good?

JOANNE: We started writing it in March 2008. We finished around January, 2009. We had our mother’s book group read it and they gave us great comments. That was in March, 2009. We made further revisions from there.

Wicked Good is available to read online at your blog. How did that happen?

JOANNE: Yes, Wicked Good is available to read online at our blog:. Amy and I were talking about what to do with it recently and we decided we wanted to do something with it together. So I mentioned starting a blog. When we were writing Wicked Good, we never thought about posting it on a blog or even about getting it published. We were just having fun.

We are uploading Wicked Good chapter-by-chapter. We just posted chapter 19. There are 78 chapters so there is still a long way to go. We are also posting “breaks” along the way such as photos, mock interviews, and other things that inspire us or just make us laugh. Not too much though, we don’t want to take away from Archer and Rory. As you can probably guess, The Daily Puppy on the side of our blog is because of Amy! Actually, the puppies make us both smile.

Our followers have commented on the direction Wicked Good is going but not very often on the blog. We’d love to know how people feel about Wicked Good.

The only complaint we’ve received is frustration for what Archer is going through. But for readers to be that immersed in the character doesn’t make me take it as a complaint but as a compliment.

We would love for Wicked Good to be published. I’m hoping my agent will be interested in shopping it one day. Or, if there are any editors or publishers out there interested in Wicked Good, let us know. Of course, we think Wicked Good should be published. And so do our parents!!!!

Would you write another book together?

JOANNE: Yes. Dogs or no dogs!!

Any advice for people considering co-authoring a book?

JOANNE: It worked out really well for us. We grew closer. So I would say – do it. But check your ego at the door. Amy and I played on each other’s strengths. She is not a novelist but she is an avid reader plus she has direct experience with what it means to be a parent of a child with Asperger Syndrome. I was too hung up on following all the writing rules. She taught me a lot. And her grammar is much better than mine!

What projects are coming up next?

JOANNE: I’m working on a historical fiction novel called Sleeping Cupid which tells the story of a statue made by Michelangelo which ends up in an attic in a small town in Florida. Sleeping Cupid’s journey from 15th Century Italy to Florida today is told from the statue’s point of view.

Amy is saving the world – one dog at a time!