#co-author

[crowwolf]

Omg I'm officially a co-author 😭 Granted, my part was doing all the scanning and compiling, but he noted me as co-author ♥️😭

And no, I don't care if peeps know my name, it's in my username anyway and publicly available.

[librariansrose]

Sixth Day; Moon and Star

A Devilvid piece for Riza

[dollypegs-blog]

A NEW eBOOK!

https://books2read.com/u/bQG7Z6 Check it out!

[jonathananubian]

Mhi Tal'galar Bal Parjir Tome (SW/ST Crossover!)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/45316636/chapters/114012475

Shouting out my vod’s Star Wars/Star Trek fanfic! This is the first time thye’ve posted to AO3 so Please give them a nice comment!

[uniqueartisanconnoisseur]

Big Boy, steam history!

Tuesday, September 10th was a day for history. Keith and I headed to Nokomis, Illinois. We went to see the historic Big Boy #4014 locomotive. It is on a ten-state tour. It is touted as the largest steam locomotive in the world. Big Boy Locomotive is the only one of the 25 built that is operational. Writing an article for Senior News & Times for Illinois I had the chance to speak with train…

[authorlmmontes]

K. McMahill

I’ve introduced this gentleman once before, but it bears repeating. Pictured below is my new co-author, K. McMahill. You may have viewed a couple of his writings on this blog over the last two days. Welcome Mr. McMahill. We are very happy and excited to have you here.

[bookpublisher1]

Crafting a Collaborative Book Outline with Your Co-Author

Have you ever dreamt of writing a book, but the sheer scale of the project feels daunting? Perhaps you have a brilliant concept, but lack the specific expertise or a fresh perspective to bring it fully to life. This is where co-authoring can be a game-changer. Partnering with another writer can not only double your creative firepower, but also inject new ideas and keep you motivated throughout the writing journey.

However, turning that initial spark into a compelling book requires a solid foundation. Enter the collaborative book outline – a roadmap that guides your co-authoring adventure and ensures you're both on the same page from the very beginning.

The Symphony of Co-Authoring: Why Two Minds Are Better Than One

Co-authoring can be a truly enriching experience that takes your book to unforeseen heights. Here's why teaming up with a fellow writer can be a major advantage:

Double the Expertise: Perhaps you're a fiction writer with a captivating story idea, but the subject matter demands a specific knowledge base. Your co-author, with their expertise in that field, can bring invaluable insights and ensure factual accuracy, enriching your narrative.

Fresh Perspectives: Sometimes, staring at a blank page for too long can lead to creative ruts. A co-author can offer a new lens through which to view your ideas, sparking innovative plot twists, character developments, and a more engaging narrative overall.

Accountability and Motivation: The writing journey can be a solitary one, filled with procrastination and self-doubt. Having a co-author creates a sense of accountability, pushing each other forward through writer's block and propelling you toward the finish line.

The Power of Collaboration: How a Shared Outline Paves the Way to Success

A book outline is more than just a bulleted list of chapters. It's a blueprint for your story, ensuring a cohesive structure, a logical flow of information, and a clear path towards a satisfying conclusion. When co-authoring, creating this outline collaboratively becomes even more crucial. Here's how:

Sets Clear Expectations: An outline lays out the book's overall scope, defining chapter topics, themes, and the main points to be covered. This ensures both co-authors are on the same page about the direction of the book, avoiding potential disagreements further down the line.

Cohesive Narrative Flow: Imagine building a house without a blueprint; rooms might be beautifully designed, but the overall structure could be a mess. A collaborative outline acts as your architectural plan, guaranteeing a smooth narrative flow throughout the book.

Streamlined Writing Process: With a clear roadmap in place, writing becomes more efficient. You and your co-author can divvy up chapters based on your strengths and interests, working in parallel and reducing overall writing time.

From Brainstorm to Blueprint: Building Your Collaborative Outline Step-by-Step

Now that you understand the power of a collaborative outline, let's get down to the nitty-gritty. Here's a step-by-step guide to crafting your roadmap to success:

Brainstorming Bonanza: Start by scheduling a brainstorming session with your co-author. Mind map ideas, discuss the book's core message, target audience, and desired overall tone. This will lay the foundation for your outline.

Define the Big Picture: Delineate the book's main sections – introduction, body chapters, conclusion. Discuss the purpose of each section and how they will contribute to the overall story arc.

Chapter by Chapter Breakdown: Now, delve deeper. For each chapter, determine its key theme, the main point to be conveyed, and any specific elements like plot points, character development, or research to be included.

Flow Like a River: Arrange the chapters in a logical sequence. Consider transitions between chapters and how they will connect the narrative thread seamlessly.

Refine and Revise: Remember, an outline is a living document. Don't hesitate to revisit it periodically. As your writing progresses, adapt the outline to reflect the story's natural evolution.

Communication is Key: Navigating Differences and Maintaining Harmony

Co-authoring can be a wonderful journey, but creative differences are inevitable. Here are some tips to ensure open communication and a smooth collaboration:

Establish Ground Rules: Before diving into the outline, have a conversation about communication preferences – email, video calls, or online document sharing tools. Decide on a system for addressing disagreements and a schedule for regular check-ins.

Embrace Brainstorming: View disagreements as opportunities to strengthen the narrative. Consider each other's viewpoints openly and be willing to compromise where necessary.

Celebrate Successes: Acknowledge each other's contributions throughout the process. Expressing gratitude and celebrating milestones will keep motivation high and foster a positive collaboration.

Tools of the Trade: Resources for Effortless Co-Authoring

Technology offers a plethora of tools to make your collaborative outlining experience even smoother:

Cloud-Based Document Sharing: Platforms like Google Docs or Microsoft Office 365 allow you and your co-author to access and edit the outline simultaneously, ensuring everyone stays on the same page.

Project Management Software: Tools like Trello or Asana can become your collaborative hub. Create boards for brainstorming, individual chapter outlines, and track progress throughout the writing journey.

Communication Tools: Regular video calls or instant messaging platforms like Slack facilitate open communication and real-time brainstorming sessions.

From Outline to Opus: Turning Your Collaboration into a Book You'll Be Proud Of

Crafting a collaborative book outline lays the groundwork for a successful writing journey. Remember, co-authoring is about synergy, leveraging each other's strengths, and fostering a creative partnership.

Here are some final tips to ensure your book becomes a reality:

Be Flexible: Co-writing requires a willingness to adapt. Be open to changes in the outline as your story takes shape and don't be afraid to embrace unexpected turns in the narrative.

Respect Each Other's Time: Set realistic writing goals and deadlines, acknowledging each other's personal commitments. Effective communication about availability and workload distribution is key.

Enjoy the Ride!: Co-authoring can be a stimulating and enriching experience. Celebrate your progress, relish the creative spark you ignite together, and enjoy the process of turning your shared vision into a published work.

By following these steps and fostering open communication, you and your co-author can transform your collaborative book outline into a compelling and successful book. So get brainstorming, craft your blueprint, and embark on this exciting journey of co-creation!

[turiyatitta]

The Cosmic Symphony

Embracing the ProcessIn the grand tapestry of the universe, every thread is intricately woven to craft a masterpiece. The ebb and flow of life, its joys and sorrows, its peaks and troughs, are all deliberate strokes of an artist’s brush. We, as participants in this cosmic dance, often wonder if things are truly happening as they should. And if we were to delve deeper into the nature of existence,…

[gaiaseyes451]

I am BEYOND excited to promote this absolutely *massive* collaboration of writers over at Good Omens After Dark. We have been working on this for weeks and it is a plethora of hot, sexy, sweet, funny, kinky, frustrating amazingness! If you had Choose Your Own Adventure books as a kid this’ll be a pleasantly adult trip down memory lane!

There is truly a path for *everyone* in this one! 😉

Keep an eye out on Valentine’s Day when we publish to AO3!

Coming Home - A Choose Your Own Adventure Good Omens Fic

Coming this Valentine's Day, the writers over at r/GoodOmensAfterDark have been hard at work bringing this masterpiece of smut together for you! Modelled on the Choose Your Own Adventure books from the 80's and 90's, this story has something for everyone! This huge collaboration is all due to the phenomenal hard work and organisational skills of @doonarose, whose efforts in bringing together the writing talents of over 30 Good Omens Fanfic authors creating endless story lines that will have you gasping.

@goodomensafterdark @paperclipninja @nosferatini

[menlove]

identity crisis? help is here. if you ever wanted to know which x coded y girl you are but for the beatles this uquiz will tell u everything u need to know. 100% satisfaction guaranteed

[angela-yuriko-smith]

“The Gates of Katharion” by Maxwell I. Gold

Please welcome Maxwell I. Gold into the Poetry Spotlight reading “The Gates of Katharion” originally published in Weird Tales Magazine #366, Sword and Sorcery Issue.

Iron mouths smiled with teeth of rust and blood,while Katharion waited,with hinges so black and doomful.On amethystine nights, there collecteda mass of death and pride as the armies of tomorrowrotted and decayed on fields of someday.Old bones, so gray and dusty,withered under shadows aghast,expelled from garish, crooked towers,while Katharion waited;where cities fell, banners wilted in the…

[emilywrites185]

Announcement! :D

I am excited to share that my co-writer and I will be speaking at the Ocean to Bay Conference in Maryland this March. We were given this awesome opportunity when we attended the 2022 Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference last May. My co-writer and I will give a presentation on writing with another person and what it entails. After we attend the convention, I will likely post a summary of our presentation to share with you. We plan on attending a publishing conference after this one, so I have a big post in the works on attending writing conferences and conventions.Things may be slow here for a little while since I will be traveling, but I have content planned and in progress.

[mlarty]

april 6th is our friendship day 🖤 can't believe it's been 9 years!!

[reallyunluckyrunaway]

Please SOMEBODY make it happen!!!!

[rottmnt-residuum]

Hi, I've read the Residuum comic, and I think the characterization of the boys is really good. I was wondering if you have any tips on how to write them? Especially Mikey, please.

I'd actually recommend re-watching the show with one character in mind. All my notes on the turtles come from doing separate re-watches for each of them. The key is to ONLY watch the character you are focusing on.

In the end, you'll probably be happier with your own personal interpretation. As we are with ours lol

TL;DR

Massive post under the cut

To preface: we'll be contrasting (this Mikey) against the fandoms version of Mikey, as our interpretation is very different. Don't worry if you prefer the fandom version, there's nothing… wrong per se with writing him this way. We just find him flat and uninteresting. (Main author: not me, I just hate him, lol).

Every reader or fan comes into a story with their own biases and experiences. A ton of our view of Mikey is based on how our siblings acted. We see Mikey as the young sibling that got preferential treatment from the whole family, simply due to being the youngest, but is now aging out of the privilege. Which all youngest siblings do at some point or another.

The fandoms version of Mikey is empathetic, naive, vulnerable, co-dependent and quite often a door mat who cries at the drop of a hat. And as much as the fandom like to say that people love him… when this particular character archetype is in other media, they seem to attract the most criticism. Mable pines, Bolin from Korra, people rag on Aang all the fucking time, and Steven Universe is a whole other bag. These characters don't deserve it, and yet it happens anyway.

To flatten Mikey to simply 'the baby' is a disservice. We don't see or write Mikey as the fandom “baby” version (cinnamon roll uwu). Part of this comes from having multiple siblings, so we interpret the times when Mikey does the puppy dog eyes as typical younger sibling bullshit, mostly by the way that the other turtles rarely react to it, if at all.

The other turtles traits can also get projected onto Mikey. Mikey being the fandom therapist is in the same category as this. He isn't a therapist, he's a psychology nerd who likes to psychoanalyze people and meddle in their relationships. (Donnie and Shelldons relationship, Splinter and Draxums...) he's not trying to resolve your emotional issues. Of the turtles, the character that cares the most about people's feelings is Raph. And Leo is more of a consoler than Mikey ever is. It flattens all the turtle's characterizations when you start doing this because you are ripping out parts that are integral to another characters' complexity.

Co-author has told me that they've seen people become confused when going into the show after only reading fan fiction or coming from the movie. They see his characterization as inconsistent and become upset when their view of him is contradicted. This also happens when a fandomized version of him becomes the primary characterization that they use. Sometimes when this disconnect happens (or if they just don't like the character), Mikey characterization is swung in the complete opposite direction.

They make him manipulative and abusive, or someone who is hyper violent and avoids being held accountable for anything. This is an uncharitable interpretation of him and can come off as pretty racist depending on the circumstances. (like if someone considers the turtles black or not)

Every version of Mikey is a shithead (affectionate), even this one. Especially this one, really. When Mikey not doing the "baby schtick" hes mean. If you pay attention to what he's saying, and just not his tone of voice, he's consistently saying pretty mean or condescending stuff. (You could take this as simply naïveté, but he still says mean shit pretty often regardless)

The times he does say genuinely nice stuff the turtles don't exactly expect it from him, at least, in the early season. And while he is mean, and seems to find saying mean things to be funny, Mikey isn't cruel. Nor will he ever be.

This shit-headery behavior is found in both 2003 and 18 Mikey. They have a degree of social intelligence that lets them use it to annoy people into doing what they want. 18 just has the advantage of being baby faced and having better tonal control. He's good at using people's perception of him to get what he wants.

Let Mikey have his problematic traits, but don't overexaggerate them. He doesn't revel in fooling people. He loves doing character bits, and the baby faced one just happens to be one of them. However, to infantilize or to deem him incompetent is to piss him off, he wants to be viewed as a competent part of the team and competent as an individual. He's not insecure about being young, he just doesn't want to be treated like he can't do anything.

Mikey above all is an optimistic character, he sees the brighter side quite often and is conscious of the harm his actions have on people. Mostly after the fact, but he consistently attempts to rectify the harm he has personally done to peoples lives. (Todd, Bullhop, Draxum). Food and shelter seems to be a thing that he considers to be a right. He doesn't cross a boundary twice once he learns of it, and he never pushes people too far (if he likes you, that is. if he doesn't know you or doesn't like you, he doesn't give a singular shit. But that is standard to most people.). He doesn't care about people's stuff, though. He breaks things all the time.

Mikey understands boundaries, but he doesn't automatically recognize them. He needs them to verbalized or for there to be a very obvious reaction to the boundary being crossed (unfortunately, for Todd and Donnie). Sometimes people mess up (esp. younger people), and it can take a while for teens to learn where boundary is, but he fully respects the boundaries he does know about. He doesn't act petulant when he's told about boundary, he apologizes, accepts it, and moves on. He doesn't dwell.

Mikey doesn't hold on to distressing emotions. He bounces between emotions quickly, but isn't effected in the long run. One thing Iv'e seen people often conflate is the difference between sensitive and vulnerable. Mikey is sensitive, but I have never seen him vulnerable to others. To be sensitive is to be easily influenced by the current situation. To be vulnerable is to hold that influence for a long time. Characters can have one, both, or neither of these traits. But Mikey is not vulnerable. It is the difference between compressing memory foam and a piece of metal until they deform. One will pop back, the other does not.

Those who are vulnerable but not sensitive will take longer to effect, but once you do, they will hold on to that emotion for a very long time. The vulnerable, are grudge holders. (leo). But like I've said, Mikey bounces back. What a character does has an effect on his emotions, but it doesn't make a lasting impression.

Forgiveness is another thing people like to push on him. It is not that Mikey forgives people easily, it's just that he doesn't hold grudges. He neither forgives nor forgets, but he does not ruminate. He's generally affable, first impressions seem to be a big part of how he views people. He is idealistic, and doesn't assume people are unchanging and/or evil, but he's not a mark.

Mikey isn't so much as naive or overly trusting… it's just that he's inexperienced. He doesn't get fooled by anyone in the series except meat sweats, and that's because Meatsweats is on Todd drugs. Mikey just didn't notice when he started faking. He's not… actually all that aware of people's emotional states, passively. He has to tune in to notice things like that.

Mikey isn't someone who really tries to regulate others emotions, either. The fandom like to make Mikey afraid of his brothers fighting and others being upset, but Mikey doesn't actually care. The most distressed we ever see him in a fight is in the movie, and he's not SCARED, he's just concerned (and then alarmed once it turned physical). If anything, outside extenuating circumstances (like the movie), Mikey actually seems to find their fights annoying.

(Mikey actually seems to have a pretty short fuse, but his bounciness doesn't really let it linger very long, lmao)

(One pet peeve of fandom Mikey is the constant crying, crying at fights, crying at insults, crying for no reason all the time. Sure, he tears up when he gets emotional, but when Mikey is genuinely crying It's when he's desperate, like when he's hungry, or when he's trying to save Leo from certain doom. Same thing, really.)

Mikey respects no one (we love him for this). He admires people, he admires his family: April, the turtles, his dad, Lou Jitsu. He admires Rupert Swaggert, but he respects none of them. No one is sacrosanct to the Mikey.

Above all, the way we write characters is to give them a past that informs how they act now. We view Mikey and the other turtles as teenagers that were kids, and that will be adults. Yes they all have “problematic” traits, but 1) good characters need flaws, and controversial traits are one of the best to use, and 2) they're teenagers, don't expect adult behaviors from them, also don't expect them to be kids. They're minors, not toddlers.

This is getting as long enough as it is, so we'll stop here, but this is a very broad overview of how we characterize him. There's a lot we didn't cover here, but if we even started on hobbies, or the real minutia of his quirks and ticks, or even how he feels about other specific characters... we'd be here all day. So I hope this is good enough lol

If there was something you wanted to know in particular, you'll need to get specific. Feel free to ask again ahahh