Mutual Trust and Best Intentions
So Tabi and I had a first the other day. It was the first time we talked on the phone, in real time. Not texts, not comments on a document, not emails, not voicenotes, but real life talked-on-the-phone. But Andrea, you say, haven’t you co-written and published 3 books, with the 4th on the way (and a novella in the works)? Why, yes, yes we have.
But we did it all without having met or spoken IN. REAL.TIME. If that sounds odd to you, don’t worry, it seems odd to us as well. I’ve written about this in a previous blog post (The writer who couldn’t write) but Tabi and I met through a chance encounter on a facebook post. I asked a question to the group and Tabi replied. Normally this would just be a one-off interaction and nothing would come of it. But my question led us to a few messages back and forth and soon I was sharing rough notes for my book idea and Tabi was sharing examples of her previous writing. I think we both saw value in what the other person shared and we jumped into this partnership that has resulted in us being self-published authors.
Now neither of us are outgoing people in person. I can safely say I am an introvert (Tabi is as well). So had our chance meeting happened in person, it might not have had the same result. I’m more leary of putting myself out there in public and I don’t know that I would be able to share my story ideas, as they were at that time, in person. But somehow, through the relative anonymity of the internet, I felt comfortable sending my precious ideas out to someone I had never met.
Now this could have gone wrong in a number of ways. I could have been ghosted, with Tabi never responding to me again. I could have had my work stolen, if Tabi took my ideas and never looked back. Or I could have been ridiculed/judged by Tabi. But guess what - I am generally a trusting person and I didn’t worry about all that. I trusted Tabi from the beginning and assumed we were both working with the best of intentions. And we were.
But even if we were working with the best of intentions, this partnership could have fallen apart at many times in the process. If one of us got bored, or busy, or bogged down with life, we could have just stopped. It might have resulted in a few awkward text messages as we ‘broke up’, but we would never run into one another in ‘the real world’. So relatively low stakes. But what happened instead is that we discovered we were a great fit for writing partners and we were pretty similar as people too. We are both avid readers of middle-ish age who had career hiccups around the same time. We were both looking for a creative outlet and sought that out through story telling. We liked some of the same movies, and books, and music and were drawn to small-town romance stories with happy endings.
When we were writing our first book, Rossi’s Cottage, I can remember tearing up when Tabi finished with a chapter because she was able to take my rough notes and half-baked ideas and construct a chapter that felt both brand new to me and familiar. Brand new to me in that there were added little bits I had never thought of, and familiar because it integrated with the little movie of my books that run in my head. The dialogue for the characters felt so real because it fit right in with my idea of that character, often without me specifying things. In the first chapter of Rossi’s Cottage, you meet Charlie, who I think I described as bubbling and outgoing. What I didn’t specify is that Charlie was bubbly and outgoing on the outside, but really hurting on the inside (if you’re caught up in our books you know why). She magically wrote this ballsy character who was brashy and unapologetic, but hinted at the mask she was wearing for everyone around her. Tabi seemed to have the same vision as me. Pretty miraculous if you ask me. And she’s not clairvoyant… I don’t think. Rather a few shared experiences and a lot of messages between us helped us unpack the stories.
Trust between Tabi and I has only grown, to the point where Tabi oversees the book publishing part with Amazon and I am hands off. Tabi had someone build us a website to start, and she has passed that on to me to keep up to date and revise as needed. We don’t have contracts, we don’t have formal agreements, we just work with the best of intentions. Now we are not rolling in the dough from this enterprise. We are still spending more writing and publishing the books than we are making (for now) so there is not thousands of dollars at stake. But mutual trust has been key. Could it be scary to be that trusting? Yes and both Tabi and I have professional experience with contracts and organizational partnerships that are formal and well documented, so we could easily put something in place (another shared life experience that seems to help us fit together). But, and maybe this is us being naive, but for now, mutual trust and best intentions seems to be working
Back to the phone call at the beginning of the story. We’ve just finished drafting book 4 of the Moore Love Series, the last book that was planned from the beginning. Tabi hopes there is a 4.5 novella coming - working on it. What are we going to do next? Well I always had a second idea that was set in Osage Beach but it wasn’t as developed as Moore Love. So I shared that with Tabi and it just might be something you start seeing next year. We also chatted about our next steps both in writing and publishing. It was nice to talk in person, especially when agreeing to continue on with our partnership. So stay tuned. Book 4 of the Moore Love Series is set to come out this fall, finishing our time with the Moore Family, but they just might appear a few times in upcoming stories. We just can’t leave them alone - they’re family.
Life is risky. That can’t be overstated, and we’re not suggesting you trust the next random person you encounter on the internet. But be open to the possibilities. Even if some things don’t work out, keep trying. Keep searching for that right fit. As I outlined, even if we both started with good intentions, there are a million and one things that could have gone wrong and ended this beautiful collaboration. Fortunately, they haven’t. We put our best intentions forward, we gave mutual trust with stories and resources, and with a little luck have found a partnership that really works. We’re both grateful for that, and grateful that you the readers have enjoyed the results.