Writing with someone else

“Have you ever writ­ten a book with some­one else?” asks Toby from Colum­bus Ohio.

The answer is yes. I did so with writer Rachel Vail, with whom I wrote, Nev­er Mind. It came about this way.

My twin sis­ter (Emi­ly Lei­der (www.emilyleider.com )) is also a writer, a poet, and an author of a num­ber of biogra­phies. I once sug­gest­ed she write a biog­ra­phy of me. I even sug­gest­ed a title: A Biog­ra­phy of My Twin Broth­er with Cor­rec­tions by Him.

Like a good sis­ter she replied, “I have bet­ter uses of my time.”

I told that sto­ry to Rachel and she said, “I’ll write a book with you!”

So it began. We set up rules. I would write a chap­ter, then Rachel would rewrite it, and add anoth­er. I would rewrite hers and add anoth­er … and so forth. Anoth­er key rule. She or I could edit (or rewrite) any­thing the oth­er did and—no com­plaints, no arguments.

The process worked.

Rachel said it was like the sto­ry of Rumpel­stilt­skin, in which the girl puts straw out on the doorstep, and next day the straw was spun into gold. “So much eas­i­er than doing your own rewriting!”

As we approached the end of the book, we set aside time, and went back and forth on a dai­ly basis.

I loved doing this. Rachel and I nev­er had so much as one argu­ment. And the book, I think, is much fun.