by Karen Kane

It’s Day 20, and we’re in the thick of Storystorm! Honestly, I could stay in this creative phase forever. Me and my notebook filled with ideas.

Add a cup of coffee and I’m in my happy place, with every story idea inside my notebook a world of perfect possibility.

But Day 31 will soon be here and then we make a choice. We keep those wonderful, perfect ideas safely tucked away in our notebooks.

Or we are brave and take one of those ideas and begin writing.

Now, once you take that perfect idea and put it on paper it becomes imperfect.

It becomes real.

Real can be scary.

Again, you must be brave. And you know who can help you be brave?

A friend. A writing friend.

That’s how I wrote ALPHABUDDIES: G IS FIRST!, with my writing partner Beth Bacon:

How do you start writing with a friend?

First, pick an idea.

Don’t pick your heart and soul idea, the heart and soul idea that you love so much you get teary-eyed whenever you give a five-minute pitch to someone who unwittingly asks what you’re writing.

Instead, pick an idea you can be open with. That you can play with. That you can hold onto lightly. At least in the beginning.

ALPHABUDDIES: G IS FIRST! began as a story I had written about a friendship between the letter e and the letter x. Beth read my manuscript and gave me feedback. My story definitely needed more work. However, I was new to writing picture books and not ready to revise.

A few years later, Beth was cleaning up files on her computer and found my old story. She asked if I wanted to collaborate on it.

I said yes!

I intuitively knew the picture book would stay unfinished unless I did something different.

My original idea became our bouncing off point.

Writing together, Beth and I transformed the story of the letters e and x into a story about the letters a and g, with g wondering why a is always first. When can g be first?

Not anytime soon!

Or start with a mentor text.

Pick a book you both love.

Map it out. Look at the structure of the book. Look at the beats. Look at what you love about it. Start to brainstorm. Start to play.

With a middle-grade project, Beth and I used Karen Cushman’s THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE as our mentor text.

We summarized each chapter to find the story beats. Starting with that mentor text, we wrote THE DOG OF SECOND CHANCES, about a boy and a dog both finding a second chance at an animal shelter.

On the surface, our book is nothing like THE MIDWIFE’S APPRENTICE, yet underneath it has a similar structure and emotional resonance.

Beth and I met on Zoom, and we used Google Drive to collaborate. We took time to create the foundation of our stories. We took time to be creative and to play. We both worked on our own writing as well. And collaborating with Beth made me brave enough to reach out to my friend Jonaz and partner on a book with him.

Finally, don’t forget the joy is in the journey.

How do I know that? I wrote it in my journal, so it has to be true.

There’s something magical about saying to a friend, “Let’s write a book!” and you make it up as you go, together. You learn about the craft of writing, together. You learn what works and what doesn’t work, together.

Now there are two of you who both love this one book.  Two people with different strengths, writing something they could have never written alone. And while you are waiting for that book to sell (see THE DOG OF SECOND CHANCES above), you have a friend you can wait with, together.

I would rather write a book and not sell it than to not write it at all.

Of course, I would really rather write and sell books.

Sometimes a project doesn’t work that way. That’s where the brave part kicks in.

But once you say yes and take the plunge with a partner, you don’t need to keep reaching for brave.

You just need to enjoy the journey and see what unfolds.

Then you get the best of both worlds. Your perfect notebook world and your imperfect real world, with real stories you have written.

As long as there’s coffee, both worlds are wonderful to be in.

Karen Kane is giving away two signed copies of ALPHABUDDIES: G IS FIRST! to two separate winners.

You’re eligible to win if you’re a registered Storystorm 2024 participant and you have commented only once on today’s blog post.

Prizes will be distributed at the conclusion of Storystorm.

Karen Kane grew up in Rochester, NY and became a sign language interpreter before becoming a writer. A graduate of Vermont College of Fine Arts, Karen is the author of the Edgar-award nominated book CHARLIE & FROG and its sequel THE BONEY HAND, ALPHABUDDIES: G IS FIRST!  with Beth Bacon, and MONSTER HANDS with Jonaz McMillan (May 2024).

Visit her website at KarenKaneBooks.com  or follow her on Instagram @karenkanebooks.

Karen and Beth will be discussing how they collaborate on Tuesday January 23rd at this free virtual event with the Baltimore Public Library.