Tag Team

My most recent creation, Fatum, was co-authored.  I went into it with an open mind, fully anticipating a few creative differences along the way, never daring to imagine the ease with which the partnership has flowed. Aside from having an amazingly talented writer in my corner,  I now have a constant cheerleader, a motivator, and someone to auto check your grammar (which for me is huge).  There is somebody constantly pushing me to finish up a scene, someone to bounce my crazy ideas off of, and someone to reign that often dark imagination of mine in.

But today, I hit the jackpot in benefits. "REVISION MASTER"

See Lindsay and I hit revision mode, a set of minor tweaks to an already thorough pre-submission edit we accomplished last week.  Editing 260 pages can seem like a daunting process, and after a few reads, everything blurs into one jumbled mess of words.  That's when I hand it off with a little tracked comment about how I can't get this sentence to flow or how I am sick of looking at the same character flaw, but am at a loss at how to fix it.  She picks it up, her brain in sync with mine, and polishes it, takes what I was struggling to get out and pours it onto the page with relative ease. I find myself eternally grateful, often relieved, and sometimes a tad bit jealous of her skill :)

The give and take we have is invaluable and has made the revision process not only quick, but actually enjoyable. What would have taken me weeks on my own, we have accomplished in mere days without so much as even a minor freak out.

So what about you, what do you find most valuable about your critique partners when faced with revisions?