Toronto’s Women’s Post January 2004 Vol. 6 No. 1
The first story in Geeks, Misfits and Outlaws, a new anthology edited by Zoe Whittall, was co-created by RM Vaughan and Lynn Crosbie and it bursts off the pages with enough voltage to light a small room. "A Poetic Affair Between a Cynical Queen and a Straight Woman Locked in Her Room" works, not only because Vaughan and Crosbie are among Canada’s best and brightest literary voices, but also because the piece’s overall effect is multiplied by two.
If you've ever tried working on a creative project by yourself you know it’s tough to keep motivated when there’s no one telling you to do it and no real deadline. Sure, your initial inspiration starts out like a motivational tidal wave, but it’ll only take you so far. Every creative genius/mad scientist needs feedback.
That’s where fiction and poetic writing is at its most difficult, in comparison to other arts. If you’re in a band, you have to get to rehearsals and practice so you don’t let your band mates down. The success of the band depends on your input, drive and talent. The same thing goes for actors and dancers - they’re part of a team, a production. But when you’re a writer, and you’re always working on projects by yourself, you can sometimes feel like you're locked in the safety deposit box of your own solitude. You get stuck and you stop trying new things to push your writing further.
As it turns out, Virginia Woolf’s aspirations for "A Room of One’s Own," where we take up the solitary pursuit of writing isn’t always glamorous and exciting. Writing is hard work. And when you’re working alone in that room for long stretches, it's incredibly easy to accrue a surfeit of terrible and eccentric habits. I riffle my hands through my hair so much when I’m thinking I often look like a Motley Cre groupie by the end of the day. A friend of mine used to insist on wearing an old lumpish fedora while writing because he liked the feeling of weight on his head. Of course when his roommates hid it on him once as a practical joke, he was forced to complete an assignment wearing a hockey helmet.
As every writer knows, at some point you’ve got to flee both that writing room and your schleppy, albeit comfortable, work clothes and face the world. All writers are exiles of sorts when they work on their own, but as writer and ECW Press editor Michael Holmes recently told me, creating things can be "soul crushing," and you can't just live in the writing, "you have to live in the life you’re given as well." As RM Vaughan writes, "People who never go out start to glow, it’s true, like television screens after you turn them off."
There comes a point in every project where writers know they have to step out of the vortex and seek out feedback on their work. It’s at the crux of collaboration where stories are invigorated, whether it’s via constructive workshopping criticism, comments from trusted colleagues or an editor's suggestions. The ideas you’re trying to communicate may be based on electrifying concepts, but your Frankenovel comes alive when others have input into the creative process.
While editing is a clandestine part of the writing process, hidden from readers, it’s just as important as a writer’s inspired first draft. It helps take good writing to the next level and ensures the work will be relevant to readers. And oftentimes, the editing process is where writing gets exciting. Whether you’re arguing about word choices, quibbling over a story’s length or fussing with form and structure, editing is a collaborative dialogue.
That’s why when writers work together in teams and duos, like Vaughan and Crosbie, the results are often poignant. Experimenting with the typical writing process is like looking under rocks - you never know what you might find and what strange, beautiful creatures might crawl out from underneath. Writing in collaboration can help tug words and ideas out of you that you didn’t know you had or were even capable of.
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