The rest of the Bliss story...

Step 9: As we came close to the end of Bliss, we knew editing the thing was going to be a challenge. We could each go through separately and mark up word changes we'd like, but we'd have to agree on them somehow. And what about more significant issues? The editing process was going to be time consuming and needed more than just an hour at a time at Tracy's kitchen table with kids needing attention.

So we decided to skip town. We booked a room for two nights in an inn about twenty minutes away. We went prepared: Google maps (yes, plural) with the one turn we needed to take enlarged and highlighted. A hard copy of the work-in-progress, complete with a fun cover with a fuschia car on it. A container of homemade cinnamon rolls, compliments of Jenness' mom. A laptop and notebooks and pens and sticky notes. A wishbone to use in case of any major arguments, again, compliments of Jenness' mom. (For the record, we never had to use it.)

Step 10: For a day and a half, we sat on our twin beds. Tracy read the manuscript out loud while Jenness made necessary changes on laptop version. We both flagged areas that needed more attention. Tracy almost lost her voice. We got up to eat and buy caffeine-loaded drinks from a nearby store. Then we sat back down and edited. When we finally got to the end of what we'd written and figured out how we needed to end the story, Tracy went to work on creating the skeleton, and Jenness tackled the more labor-intensive editing. A crazy couple days, but...we think it was worth it.

Step 11: The proposal and complete manuscript was sent off to our agent.

Step 12: Our agent sent it out. We received some interest from one publisher especially. They loved our voice. Alas, they had stopped publishing that genre. The genre that had been so hot at the ACFW conference the year before.

We'd missed the boom.

Step 13: We worked on other stuff, together and separately. We attended another conference together. Thought we'd made a great connection. That fell through as well. We set Bliss aside.

Step 14: A friend and critique partner began doing some reading for a brand new start-up company called Written World Communications. They were looking for a beach read. "Send Bliss," Cathy said. "It's perfect."

Step 15: "Send Bliss." "Are you ever going to send Bliss?" "Hey, have you sent Bliss yet?"

Step 16: Fine. We talked to our agent. We sent Bliss.

Step 17: The next day, Tamela called us. WWC wanted the full manuscript. We tweaked it a little and sent it in.

Step 18: They sent a contract. We signed.

Step 19: Revisions. Cover art. Planning.

Step 20: Buy Bliss here.  

To refresh your memory, we were talking about Bliss. (Is that a surprise?) We were in the midst of trying to figure out how to go about writing it. Which brings us to...

Step 6: Time to try something. Tracy wrote another section. By herself. While Jenness worked on something else. (Or at least pretended to. You never know with her.) Then Tracy handed it off to Jenness and bit her nails while she waited. Jenness rewrote it, polishing and adding in her own attempts at cleverness. Then she handed it back for approval. It was granted. Time to move to the next scene.

Step 7: That's the way we did it, although it got faster the more we wrote. Tracy would keep working on sketching out scenes. Jenness would keep working on filling in between the lines. The emails and attachments would go back and forth. If either of us got stuck--no problem. We had a built-in brainstorming partner. If we didn't like something the other had done, again, no problem. We'd talk it out...and end up agreeing with each other. No need to pull out the contract.

This type of writing worked very well for both of us. Tracy could work quickly, not worrying about stilted dialogue or correct grammar. She would learn as she went. Jenness could work on her own writing projects (she started Double Take before we'd finished Bliss), then have a sketched out scene land in her inbox, so her creative juices would get a solid kick-start. Very helpful.

But it also had a few disadvantages. Life got in the way. The writing came to a halt before Bliss was even halfway finished. Maybe Jenness would get the rights to the unfinished manuscript after all. (Considering we built this blog to promote Bliss, this is a lame excuse for a cliff-hanger. Guess that means we should keep going.)

The Genesis contest deadline crept up on us. We had enough written to submit, so we finally decided to go ahead and see what the judges thought of our partnership so far. We sent in the first three chapters and went on with our lives.

A few months later, we both received a phone call. Bliss had made it to the final round of judging! For a while, that inspired more work on the project. Life was crazy-busy, however, and we didn't get far. But that year we both attended the ACFW conference in September. In preparation for that, Jenness' agent, Tamela Hancock Murray of Hartline Literary Agency, signed Tracy on. Tracy and Jenness went to a steakhouse to celebrate and make the writing partnership official. We didn't even spill A-1 on the contract. At the conference, rooming together still didn't ruin our friendship, so we figure we're pretty safe with the whole friend thing. :-)

The Genesis winners are announced at the awards banquet, which is later on in the conference. So we had time to get nervous, as if editor appointments didn't cause enough quaking nerves. Then we learned that one of the judges had misunderstood where we were going with our contest entry. Bliss is told from the perspective of a young woman who is totally clueless when it comes to Christianity. She looks to the universe for direction until it leads her wrong one too many times. Our tag line is When the universe lets you down, its time to go over its head. But we hadn't had a place to give a tag line or a synopsis of the story or back cover copy. (The following year they began allowing contestants to submit a synopsis.) So, though there were hints that there would be changes in our heroine's life, the direction of the story wasn't obvious in the first few pages. So the judge saw the horoscopes and thought we'd entered the wrong writing contest. We were very afraid our scores were going to reflect that. (Just for the record...they did.)

So the night of the banquet, we shivered and drummed our fingers and jiggled our legs all through dinner and the presentation of the awards. All of the awards. Because our category was last. Go figure. By then our nerves were shot. (First place winners had to give acceptance speeches. Jenness prayed Bliss would not place first. Tracy prayed it would.) Our names were called. Bliss had placed third! We made our way to the front (Jenness trailing behind because she hadn't quite figured out how to walk in skinny heels), claimed our certificate...and didn't have to give a speech.

People had liked our writing. They'd liked our story. It was time to finish the book.

People frequently ask us how in the world co-authoring works. Aren't there control issues? Or at least a lot more work? How do we decide what direction to go? From talking to a few people, it seems like each writing team comes up with a different system. (Sidenote: We do plan to interview co-author teams at some point. Stay tuned for details!) Here is how it worked for us.

Step 1: On that long walk on the beach (Note from Jenness: A seriously long walk. As in, my feet hurt the next day. Word to the wise--if you go walking with Tracy, wear decent shoes.), we talked out that little "what if" question, brainstorming and expanding it to a story we could work with. We were both on board and ready to run with it. (After Jenness bought new shoes, that is.)

Step 2: We divided up characters and came up with basic character sketches. Not Jenness' typical seat-of-the-pants style of doing things, but sort of necessary for tag-team writing. We wanted them to have consistent eye color, you know?

Step 3: We did research on how other writing teams have done it. We were friends and hoped to protect that friendship even if the co-author stuff went bad. Eventually, we found a contract online that we tweaked and signed. It spelled out things like whose name would go first on the cover (Tracy, because Bowen comes before Walker, which meant books placed with the B's would, on most bookstore shelves, be stocked closer to eye level). How expenses and royalties would be divided. Who retained the rights to the manuscript if we dissolved our partnership. Who had the final say if we didn't agree on plot points or whatever else. Etc.

Step 4: So all the preliminary stuff was out of the way. Now what? We weren't exactly sure how it needed to be done. Should we take turns writing chapters and then edit to make the style consistent? Or should we sit side-by-side and spell it out together? Or...? Finally we decided to both write the first scene/chapter/however far we got. Separately. And then we'd compare.

Step 5: Though we knew the basics of what should go in that first scene, we didn't have any set criteria, so the finished products were very different. What we discovered wasn't exactly earth-shattering. (1. Tracy was very funny and had great ideas. 2. Jenness, who had finished two novels at that point and had a published short story, was more experienced.)

As we worked on meshing the two scenes, we figured out a few things of importance. 1. Though we worked in some lines and ideas we really liked from Jenness' version, Tracy's take on the scene won. No real competition. 2. Tracy's scene couldn't stand as it was. It was funny, but incomplete. It needed to be fleshed out and fixed up. 3. This way of doing things--in the same room, one of us typing, the other staring over the typist's shoulder at the screen--would not work. It was a little creepy, to tell the truth.

We were going to have to figure out something else.

The Bliss journey started with this question: What if a girl was addicted to horoscopes but following them led her straight into disaster every time?

I put that question in an idea file--figured it would be a romantic comedy or chick lit--and put it away, then continued working on my romantic suspense novels.

Enter Tracy.

A new choir member, fresh from South Carolina with the accent and the fried chicken prowess to prove it. We talked some during rehearsals when the director was distracted. He didn't seem to mind, probably for two reason: he happened to be my father, and Tracy and I could make him laugh.

I started reading Tracy's blog. Her status updates on Yahoo 360. (It's been a while, eh?) She has this gift for taking a phrase and twisting it in an unexpected and humorous way. As we got to know each other a little better, she told me she'd like to write a book someday. When an update appeared saying her floor was so clean you could eat off of it...but she'd find you quite odd if you did, I figured writing humor was something this lady needed to do. Since I had had a romantic comedy attempt returned to me for being too slapstick, I thought maybe finding someone to help me write funny could be, well, fun. :-) So if I could find a story Tracy would be interested in co-authoring, I was ready to give it a try.

So out came the idea file. And the story about the poor girl addicted to horoscopes. And Tracy was interested. And that, my friends, was the beginning of a great writing partnership.

I am from a book-loving family. We were passionate about our reading! So much so that we often brought our books with us to the table. On any given night you could find me stuffing my face with the best fried chicken and gravy that exists on this planet (thanks mom!) and exploring under the sea with Captain Nemo. Or solving a mystery with Nancy Drew.

At some point I began to secretly nurture the thought that I would love to try to write a book. And then life happened. With marriage and babies came a huge work load, and my dream got lost underneath a pile of laundry. Trust me, there is nothing like a pile of sweaty socks to kill your creativity.

Enter Jenness.

After finding out that she was an author, I could not help myself--I blurted out my long-held private dream to someday write a book. One day she casually mentioned that we should try to write a novel together. She even had a story idea in mind. I have to confess, I was thrilled...and a little scared. Could I really do this? I have responsibilities! For some strange reason my laundry pile has not shrunk over the years. It has, in fact, grown to monstrous proportions.

And that is when I found out that this was more than just a dream. It was a calling. Thankfully, when God asks us to do something, He equips us to fulfill the task. He used Jenness to push me out of my comfort zone, and I could not be more happy with the results.