BY MINDI SCOTT

When Michelle and I started this blog, it was to chronicle our adventures in writing a book together. Then . . . we kind of realized we weren’t having adventures together so much, so mostly we’ve just written about other stuff that’s reading and writing related.

BUT SOMETHING ADVENTURE-Y HAS HAPPENED.

Okay, maybe not. But something unprecedented did.

So, the way we do things is that we alternate writing chapters. Michelle wrote the first chapter, so she writes all of the odd-numbered chapters from Cloudy’s point of view. I write the even-numbered chapters from Kyle’s point of view.

Until recently, this has gone smoothly. We’ve been able to line up events in chapters with the narrator for whom each chapter makes the most sense. (How many more times can I put the word “chapters” in this post?)

However, right now, we are in a place where a particular thing that is about to happen (and has to happen now because of where we are in the story) is going to be told from Kyle’s point of view. We both always anticipated that Michelle would be the one writing this part because it has more to do with Cloudy’s arc. But the only way to make it work timing-wise, would be if I wedged in some other thing for Kyle to do, so that this certain chapter can be left waiting for Michelle’s next turn at writing. I’m not going to do that, though, because THESE CHARACTERS NEED TO GET ON WITH IT.

Suddenly, I’m in the position of having to know what Cloudy’s out-of-town friends are like, how they’ll speak, and what they’ll all be doing–simply because I’m now the one introducing them. I spent several hours on Gchat, grilling Michelle about them, and I feel like I have some ideas for how this chapter will play out that will be interesting (a very important thing, you’ll all agree!). But it’s also inevitable that this isn’t going to go exactly the way Michelle would have written it. In fact, it might be very, very different from her vision.

I . . . hope that’s going to be okay. Eeeeeep.