A collaboration retrospective.
My workshop from the Kenyon Review Writers' Workshop wrote and published a wacky short story together.
Dear friends,
Writing about collaboration feels like the perfect way to end the year. If you think about it, how much of life happens side-by-side with people? Why wouldn’t the same be true of writing?
This newsletter was born out of a piece that was published in October 2022 in Moot Point Magazine. In June of this year I attended the Kenyon Review Writers’ Workshop with a group of excellent writers. We studied under Alexandra Kleeman, braved tornado warnings and power outages, and left as friends with a lively group chat. Over the summer, we decided to write a collaborative piece called “The Meat is Not Meat (2048): A 21st Century Archive of Failed Performance Art.” Because this newsletter is focused on the process of writing, I want to think through what collaboration can do for us as artists.
But before we start, just a quick note: Since this is a newsletter about collaboration, I thought I’d reach out to my co-conspirators and workshopmates to see what they wanted to say about the process of writing collaboratively. You’ll see their comments and thoughts throughout.
When I was a child, I refused to collaborate with people on writing projects. My mother, for example, would give me an idea for a story I was scribbling away at, and I would tell her that I didn’t want to “copy” her. Once, in eighth grade, one of my best friends and I were tasked with an English project where we had to write and decorate a fake diary. Though my friend did all the visuals—and therefore probably more of the work—I was still adamant that we should innocuously add our initials to each page of writing, so our teacher would know which entries I had done and which she had done. My writing was mine, I argued. It should be seen as such.
In recent years I started to attribute that almost isolationist view of writing as part of my OCD, through which I both have developed both an intense fear of plagiarism, as well as perfectionist tendencies. I recommend I want(ed) to have earned the title of the best, without anyone else’s labor in the process. (By the way, if you want to read a really great essay about OCD and writing, Elissa Bassist in Lit Hub. OCD like many mental illness doesn’t manifest the same for each person, and even though I have OCD around my writing, I think Bassist and I have very different compulsions. Still, it was an affecting read for me, and I hope it will be for you too.)
My fears around writing sound not only like an OCD mindset, but also one of capitalism, a factor that I can’t ignore. OCD preys on our fears, but I’d argue our fears have to be constructed by the society we live in, in some way. Take that with a grain of salt, I’m not a psychologist. Still, I often wonder: is it because I grew up in a capitalist framework that I’ve developed a fear of losing my sense of belonging and self-worth if I’m not successful? If the work isn’t good enough? We can’t say for sure. Regardless, I don’t think my push back against collaboration in writing was solely a bad personality trait, but rather the amalgamation of societal, environmental, and genetic factors out of my control.
I’m not the only one, of course, regardless of OCD diagnoses and capitalism neuroses. As one of my co-writers Kennedy Coyne said when I talked to her, “I’ve never been a fan of group work." Our friend and colleague and co-creator Nicole Zhu added, “[before The Meat is Not Meat] I’d never written anything collaboratively that wasn’t for school.” Most of us tend to think of our work as writers as individual.
But over time, I’ve started to learn more about how impossible it is to write entirely by yourself. To start, the publishing process itself is entirely collaborative. Maybe there are some writers out there who can do it all on their own, but I have always been immensely grateful to my editors for calling out the bullshit in my writing and shaping it up into its best version of itself.
Outside of the publishing process, there are a million other ways we collaborate with others. One of the best questions I was ever asked in my MFA was: “Who are you in conversation with?” The second best question was: “What is your literary lineage?” I carry these questions with me whenever I am writing and whenever I am talking about my writing. A constant reminder that I am writing alongside others who have been asking similar questions as me. That because so much of this thinking has already been done, I have the opportunity to go further. As Daniel Pope, another co-writer and friend, said to me,
“…all original, brilliant writing is produced via a complex network of creative influences and entanglements. We’re all channeling our own ideas through others’ words and others’ words through the prisms of our own ideas; we’re always taking inspiration and courage from each other’s writing and building upon each other’s work.”
There are still other ways for us to work collaboratively. Eating a meal that transports us to a memory you later write about. Building family traditions that lead us to understand yourself better. Book clubs. Craft nights with the best of friends. Discussion groups, Twitter threads. Some of it is traditionally literary. Some of it is just about existing in and experiencing the hugeness of the world. How else can we write if we don’t have something special to write about?
And then there are the traditional workshop settings. Most of us don’t think about those as collaborative settings, and often they do turn into competitive spaces where each person is trying to prove to the group that they are The Best One there. But good workshops allow us to create in them. A submitted piece becomes a space to talk about the possibility of craft. In them, we are all together, enjoying the satisfying moment of trying to figure out how to make the best work together.
This, of course, was the kind of workshop that I experienced at Kenyon—the kind that led me to this collaborative group that eventually wrote “The Meat is Not Meat.”
When we drafted “The Meat is Not Meat,” we were extending the workshop into a new space—but the essence of our workshop was still there. As Nicole said, “I really enjoyed shaping a story collaboratively and seeing how our various strengths emerged in it.” I totally agree. In a workshop, each person brings their own wheelhouse of skills that inform the discussion; here, that wheelhouse actually informed the craft. As Kennedy brought up, “There was something nice about having other eyes and hands on a doc. It also has let me think about my own work: hmm what would X person do in this situation? Where would other voices go in Y story?” Our thinking expanded as each person brought their own style and skill to the page.
When planning this newsletter, I asked Daniel, Nicole, and Kennedy to discuss the process of working collaboratively more concretely. I loved Daniel’s description of the work as “like a[n] Ouija board.” He told me that it wasn’t always clear who was moving the planchette around, “because it was all of us.” I feel like that was echoed in Kennedy’s answer too when she said, “we are all silly and risk-takers and felt confident in running with each other’s ideas as well as pointing to plot points or phrases that weren’t totally working.” Their point, if I’m allowed to do a little synthesizing, is that this leaderless, democratic endeavor made strange and exciting things happen. Creativity is quite often the lack of clear direction. We must often give up our creative control and sense of authorship to make beautiful things—in Daniel’s words, “The best writing is writing that surprises not only the reader, but the writer as well. When you’re working with others, you’re much more likely to be surprised, because it’s a lot harder to predict what someone else will do with what you’ve written and vice versa.”
That isn’t the only good reason to collaborate. As Nicole said, “[the process] was genuinely just so fun! Writing isn’t always toiling away in isolation at your laptop! It is an honor to be among such talented writers.” So, and I’m going to speak for all four of us right now, we’d all encourage others to try this process too.
But if you do, make sure it’s with people you trust. Because, really, all three of my co-writers talked about trust at various points. “I trusted everyone,” Daniel said, “so [having others make editorial decisions] wasn’t a problem for me.” Kennedy added, “ I trust that this group will be honest with each other. I trust that this group can have fun together.” And in response to the question, How did you create meaning in a piece when there were so many different writers and ideas? Nicole said, “Embrace the weird and trust each other.”
Why? Because the act of creation is such a delicate one. It has so many false starts and embarrassing mistakes. It requires vulnerability and an immense strength. We often want to protect ourselves and that work. And we should. So think about the people who have been there for your work before (can you think of a really good workshop, for example?). Think of those the people who respect you and who you respect as well. Those are the ones to open yourself and your process up to. Because there is magic to be made there, we promise.
xx and happy new year, Eshani
PS: If you’re wondering how to start collaborating with a group, we definitely recommend using Google Docs as a way to work on a document together and track changes/make comments. Here’s a great quote from Nicole on our strategies: “it helped to have some folks shape the piece in the early stages in terms of characters, structure, and tone, and then others (including myself) came in later to help add, edit, format, etc. …it was cool that we also worked asynchronously in the Google Doc, plus coordinated via group chat and even did Zoom calls!”
The year is winding down, so I just wanted to share a few things.
In 2023 I’ll be teaching a Revising in the Bright Spots session on 2/2 at 4 PM EST for FREE with Blue Stoop. You can register here.
And here are a few other writing highlights of my year, in case you missed them!
I’m also deeply grateful for the workshops and opportunities that accepted me this year, my agents who signed me, all the chances to teach and edit others’ work, and all the other writers out there who are making great work and great community. <3 to you all.