Plays well with scissors...

...or should that be, runs well with others?

Whichever it should be, they both bring to mind the current writing activity in which I'm involved. More of that in a moment.

When I think, or certainly thought, of writing, a solitary time at a keyboard, typewriter or pad and pens are images that spring to mind. Ideas, words, worlds welling up and flowing (or trickling sometimes - blood-from-stone-like) onto the screen/paper/page.

And so it's been mostly. Me, a pen (or several), a writing pad (or several) and away I scribble, long into the night. The results have not been bad. Sometimes, even, they've been good. And once or twice, only a few times, they have astonished me.

Of late, there's been something else. Absolutely. She who signs herself, Absolutely*Kate, and who writes and showcases writing at At the Bijou tapped me on the shoulder (virtually that is - and on my virtual shoulder at that) and suggested a duet, a sharing of the writing task.

*Kate is fond of my writing style and it is to understate it to say I am enamored of hers. *Kate has a fluidity with language that inspires - and makes me laugh (when it's not making me envious.)

I had an opening scene with some strong characters, sent it to her and got by return mail (e-mail, that is) this impassioned plea to be permitted to play with these characters. I am many things, stupid isn't one of them (mostly), and so I said "Yes".

We've traded stanzas of this evolving story back and forth between us - all the while maintaining a correspondence covering/suggesting back story, time and place, and about whom the story will finally be (that's still on-going, I'm not sure the characters are ready to tell us yet).

Characters have come bounding out of the woodwork to take a twirl on the dance floor (there was an actual dance floor in the 2nd and 3rd stanzas).

What is surprising to me is the in-tuneness that *Kate and I share about the story. I had thought two of the characters would need to talk, only to find that the meeting was set up by *Kate in her stanza - without discussion on the point between us. There have been other such serendipities.

This collaborative (co-laborare - to work together if I have my Latin correct) approach is new for me. We moved the home state of some of the characters and shifted time back some thirty-odd years - all without a hitch. We're still hunting around for the thrust of the story, which promises to grow to quite a serious length, but are piling up potential - the discharge of which will provide a very satisfying plot (I think).

I do not recommend this approach to anyone - because I do not recommend any approach to anyone. I don't know enough to make recommendations (other than to write - for that is what writers do, write, and we short-change ourselves when we don't.)

But, should some collaborate in a similar or dissimilar way - I can only wish that you enjoy it as much as *Kate and I are enjoying it.