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What Do You Wanna Write About? -- Writer's Poke #80

Kevin, you might remember this...

For Writers:

Every once in a while, Kevin would come over to the house, and we'd sit around trying to think of things to write. Who are the characters? What's the story?

More importantly, how do we begin? At this point, neither one of us were really writers, outside of essays we might write for college classes, and neither of us knew the secret that all writers apparently know: How to begin outlining a story. Can't we just start writing, we thought? (As turns out, that was probably the answer, but neither of us had real faith, real belief.)

I know some writers sit in a room and work collarboratively on writing projects, but Kevin and I never found the key to making our writing partnership work. And maybe it was my fault. I didn't believe in our partnership. In the back of my mind, I knew that we only had a couple hours to work on the project, and then Kevin would return to his college and I to mine, with no clear plan of when we'd find time to continue the work.

What kinds of topics and subjects do you like to write about? Do you like doing research, or do you only write material that comes from your own experience and imagination? Have you ever tried writing with a partner?

"I've always believed in writing without a collarborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worries and only half the royalities." -- Agatha Christie

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