Tonight, we got together in Campfire to do a chat for you guys, discussing the collaborating process.

WARNING: There be spoilers. We got a little blue with the content. And it’s really, really funny so maybe put the Diet Coke down for a minute. We’ll be back with more Campfires this week as we discuss the book tour and other exciting stuff going on in Ohio. Enjoy!

Krissie O.:  Hi, Lani
Jenny C.: Hi, guys.
Krissie O.: Hi, Miz Jenny
Lani D.: Hello, girls.
Jenny C.: So we’re talking about collaboration tonight.
Jenny C.: I’m for it.
Lani D.: So. Collaboration.
Jenny C.: So, Mesopotamia.

Krissie O.: So here we are with our three Macbooks.
Krissie O.: We’re lovely.
Jenny C.: Yes.
Jenny C.: Sitting in the same room.
Lani D.: We are. Such happy goddesses.
Krissie O.: Absolutely.
Jenny C.: Getting ready to start a book tour.
Jenny C.: Lucky goddesses.
Jenny C.: Well, I love collaborating.
Krissie O.: I think we only collaborate because we have such a good time together.
Jenny C.: Well, and we all like each other’s writing.
Krissie O.: I do too, but then, I love doing anything with you guys.
Jenny C.: And the premise was so much fun we all wanted to do it.
Jenny C.: I KNOW. Especially shopping.
Lani D.: LOL, seriously.
Krissie O.: Especially
Jenny C.: But we also worked really well together.
Jenny C.: Even when we disagreed, we disagreed beautifully.
Lani D.: We did.
Jenny C.: And I think that’s important in collaborating.
Lani D.: THREE DAYS.
Krissie O.: Yup. When I’d get all butt-hurt I’d call a campfire and everyone would soothe me.
Jenny C.: Because sometimes you need to go to your separate corners.
Jenny C.: And sometimes you need soothing.
Krissie O.: Turns out I can’t have too much feedback too early.
Lani D.: You do, and we were good about respecting that.
Jenny C.: Yep.
Lani D.: Also, I think it helps that we just like each other so much.
Krissie O.: Absolutely.
Jenny C.: And it turns out Lani and I need to be told we’re ignorant sluts right away.
Krissie O.: But then, what’s not to like.
Jenny C.: Yeah. The respect is there.
Jenny C.: So the process works, is what we’re trying to say.
Jenny C.: And then there’s synergy. I don’t think any of us could have written this book as a solo. I couldn’t have.
Lani D.: Oh, I definitely couldn’t have written this without you two.
Krissie O.: Me neither. It took me in whole new directions.
Krissie O.: I got to explore my nicer side.
Krissie O.: At least, with characters. I’m always nice.
Krissie O.: Hey, Jenny, how is it different collaborating with a man than with women?
Lani D.: LOL.
Jenny C.: Collaborating with a guy. He does the guy parts and I do the girl parts. He kills things and I establish relationships. It’s a lot more compartmentalized, so it’s a completely different kind of process.
Jenny C.: The three of us do the same thing in different ways.
Jenny C.: So it’s less of culture clash, although I think the culture clash provides good energy, so that’s okay, too.
Lani D.: It was interesting for me, because I’d never collaborated before, and I was terrified I’d make you both hate me.
Jenny C.: We did. THREE DAYS.
Lani D.: I wasn’t expecting it to be as much unholy fun as it was.
Lani D.: I expected the work, but I didn’t expect it to be such a joy ride.
Jenny C.: It really was. Never laughed so hard in my life.
Krissie O.: This was more intensive than my last collaboration, and the dynamics were different. But it a helluva good time.
Jenny C.: It really was a fun book. Even at the end when we were pedal to the metal and making ourselves insane, we still laughed like crazy.
Krissie O.: Yup.
Lani D.: Okay, girls, what was your favorite part of the collaboration experience?
Jenny C.: Campfires. Arguing over structure. All the hassling we did over our sex scenes.
Jenny C.: Because that was funny.
Jenny C.: The way we discovered things together.
Jenny C.: The boozle scene is a good example; that came from all of us.
Krissie O.: spending time together, of course. I missed some of the best part of the experience — creating the world. Jenny and Lani started out with another collaborator, Alesia Holliday/Alyssa Day, and together they came up with the concept and some of the best ideas.
Jenny C.: Yeah, but you had huge impact on that.
Krissie O.: I love seeing other ways of looking at stuff.
Jenny C.: It changed a lot when you got in. And you gave us Gen.
Jenny C.: I do, too.
Lani D.: I loved the brainstorming. It was like the step-temple in the book. I’d put down a layer, then you guys would put down a layer, and in the end I’d have something I would never have gotten to on my own.
Krissie O.: The way our characters interacted.
Jenny C.: Yes.
Lani D.: Oh, I loved when you guys would post a new scene, and it would be the joy of creation along with it being new.
Jenny C.: The way it belongs to all of us.
Krissie O.: Yup.
Jenny C.: That’s really the best part of collaborating because you get something you’d never have gotten on your own, but it’s still yours.
Jenny C.: I mean, Shar is my girl, but I’d have written her differently if I’d been writing the book alone.
Jenny C.: And you guys kept messing with Sam.
Jenny C.: Critiquing his performances.
Lani D.: And there was always good energy. With a solo book, sometimes you get in the dumps. With this, if I was lagging, you guys would be going full-steam and pick me up in it. I loved that.
Jenny C.: Yep. We egged each other on.
Lani D.: LOL - yeah, what did we say about Sam in the beginning?
Jenny C.: That we needed more dick and awe in Sam’s sex scene.
Lani D.: Oh, right. He didn’t show enough awe after sex with Shar.
Lani D.: LOL
Jenny C.: He wasn’t awed enough by Shar.
Jenny C.: Although there was plenty of dick. As I recall.
Jenny C.: Note: This transcript is NSFW.
Lani D.: Yes. Not enough in my scene, but I fixed it.
Lani D.: LOL
Jenny C.: Honest to god, what HAPPENED to you in that courtyard?
Lani D.: God, you guys gave me such a hard time about that. No pun intended.
Jenny C.: Well, it was the only hard time anybody was getting in that courtyard.
Lani D.: LOL, she was a goddess, he worshipped her, it worked, but I conceded to appease you because I’m a good goddess.
Lani D.: We never can have too many courtyard jokes.
Lani D.: It was definitely interesting having sex scenes critiqued.
Lani D.: That was new.
Jenny C.: And as I remember, I just cut the sex scene in the temple.
Lani D.: Oh, right.
Jenny C.: I’m used to it.
Jenny C.: The last time I critiqued one of Bob’s sex scenes, he wrote back, “What’s foreplay?” Never had to do that with you guys.
Lani D.: No. No, you did not. LOL.
Lani D.: Men.
Jenny C.: God love them. When they know what foreplay is.
Jenny C.: Really, my fave scenes were the goddesses together.
Jenny C.: The boozle scene. That was so them. And us.
Lani D.: Oh, I loved those. The boozle scene is my favorite, I think.
Krissie O.: Absolutely.
Lani D.: The glittery hoo-ha, which came - almost word for word - from an actual e-mail I sent to Jenny once.
Lani D.: I can’t believe we got that in there.
Krissie O.: I know. I’m so proud.
Krissie O.: And I even got the glittery hoo-ha there in the flesh.
Lani D.: I keep waiting for someone to mention the GHH in reviews, but alas, they do not.
Krissie O.: Not yet.
Krissie O.: But they will.
Lani D.: Right, Abby’s sugar crystals. LOL.
Jenny C.: Lotta classics in this one.
Jenny C.: So the best things about collaborating:
Jenny C.: The laughing.
Lani D.: The brainstorming.
Jenny C.: The new places we went with our writing.
Krissie O.: And the shopping.
Jenny C.: Dick and Awe.
Jenny C.: Yes, absolutely the shopping.
Jenny C.: And the food.
Lani D.: Courtyard Sex.
Lani D.: And Glittery Hoo-Has.
Krissie O.: Steak n Shake.
Krissie O.: (which isn’t the courtyard sex)
Jenny C.: And the absolute, unconditional support we got from each other.
Lani D.: I loved when we’d get together in the same room and cover the wall with colored post-its and the ideas would fly.
Krissie O.: Yup. My favorite times
Lani D.: The energy we’d have together in person was such a joy.
Lani D.: We’d make so much progress in a single day, it was like fire catching.
Jenny C.: Going to the Met in NYC to the Mesopotamian exhibit.
Krissie O.: Staying in an apartment in Greenwich Village rates high on the fun meter too.
Jenny C.: Oh, yeah, the three of us in the garden apt. in Greenwich.
Lani D.: Oh, yes, where I got carried away and touched the 4000 year old bas reliefs until the security guard yelled at me.
Lani D.: Oh, that apartment was great.
Jenny C.: Well, there was a SIGN RIGHT THERE.
Jenny C.: But it did look like Sam. Shar did the same thing.
Lani D.: I know, I just couldn’t help myself.
Jenny C.: Neither could Shar.
Jenny C.: Feeling up history.
Lani D.: Oh, I loved the hard/stone jokes for Sam.
Lani D.: We had a million of those.
Jenny C.: Most of which did not go into the book, thank god.
Lani D.: They were good, but they were bad.
Lani D.: It was fun in the background, though.
Jenny C.: I had the most fun with the courtyard. Every time Shar walked through that courtyard, she wondered why nobody ever had sex there.
Lani D.: LOL, I know you guys were merciless with that.
Jenny C.: And Abby’s mattress scene. The only heroine I ever read who had to carry her own mattress up the stairs to get laid.
Jenny C.: Krissie puts her women through a lot.
Jenny C.: And it was a queen size.
Krissie O.: Yup, a single woman lugging a king-size mattress.
Lani D.: LOL, and then she didn’t even get any.
Jenny C.: There was no freaking way, Krissie.
Krissie O.: I cut it down.
Jenny C.: Well, eventually.
Jenny C.: Just not in the courtyard.
Krissie O.: I know. I finally conceded
Lani D.: Right, up three flights of stairs.
Lani D.: Not to mention, Abby was 85 pounds.
Lani D.: We were like, “Huh?” And Krissie said, “What?”
Lani D.: Took her THREE DAYS to realize we were right.
Jenny C.: THREE DAYS.
Jenny C.: We tried to tell her.
Lani D.: So, the moral of collaborating - wait three days, they’ll figure it out.
Jenny C.: Plus–and this is what got me–she carried the damn thing home from the store on top of her van.
Jenny C.: For those of us who have moved mattresses . . .
Lani D.: You with Kar-en in that endless scene with Sam. I argue and argue for you to cut it, you ignore me, then later, “Maybe I should cut Kar-en. What do you think?” Like it was your idea.
Jenny C.: You always hated Karen.
Krissie O.: You can do it with a double. I did it
Jenny C.: You did not.
Krissie O.: Did too
Lani D.: And Krissie’s still arguing for the mattress.
Jenny C.: You tied a double bed mattress to the top of a van and drove it down the road?
Lani D.: Look, maybe I could do it, but I’m not 85 pounds.
Krissie O.: Drove right by Harrison Ford’s house too.
Krissie O.: I was gonna have it fall off right there.
Jenny C.: Oh, SURE.
Krissie O.: Curb service
Jenny C.: And Harrison came out and said, “Let me lift that for you, little lady.”
Lani D.: And now for the fantasy portion of our program…
Jenny C.: Krissie has a rich fantasy life.
Krissie O.: I do.
Krissie O.: This was in Princeton in a very elegant part of it.
Lani D.: It’s why her books are so damn good.
Jenny C.: Although I have to tell you, I find Harrison Ford more believable than the double mattress on top of the van.
Krissie O.: smoooch
Lani D.: We’re just never gonna stop fighting about it.
Jenny C.: So Krissie has mattress issues, and Lani has the GHH . . .
Jenny C.: I was just writing serious romance.
Jenny C.: Sigh.
Lani D.: Yes, Jenny was above reproach.
Krissie O.: I’m so ashamed
Lani D.: If that makes her feel better.
Jenny C.: It’s all right. I’m very open-minded.
Jenny C.: Except when you guys made me de-ball Sam.
Jenny C.: That was terrible.
Lani D.: LOL. A little awe. I said a LITTLE. You went overboard all on your own.
Lani D.: You violated the sanctity of the GHH. He must have a little awe.
Jenny C.: He was the strong silent type.
Lani D.: And the second resurrected argument.
Lani D.: lol
Jenny C.: He was silently awed.
Lani D.: See? Book’s done and written and we STILL argue about this stuff.
Jenny C.: Which is actually what happens when you’re awed, damn it.
Krissie O.: In the courtyard
Jenny C.: You SHUT UP.
Lani D.: No, because no one has SEX in the courtyard. Unless they bring the mattress in themselves.
Jenny C.: Yeah. At least he delivered in the temple.
Jenny C.: Noah ordered out for later.
Jenny C.: And then there’s Christopher.
Jenny C.: Worst first time EVER.
Lani D.: Right. Recently de-virginated, he just LEAVES.
Jenny C.: Honest to god, these goddesses could not catch a break.
Lani D.: We made Krissie re-do that.
Jenny C.: Well he was shocked. And awed.
Jenny C.: And gone.
Krissie O.: I changed it. He told her to stay.
Lani D.: Right. It’s either silence or they LEAVE.
Jenny C.: I know you changed it. After we bitched about it.
Krissie O.: See I can be taught
Jenny C.: Or they don’t do anything at all because THEY’RE IN THE COURTYARD.
Lani D.: Still arguing.
Jenny C.: Which Krissie still has in the wrong place.
Jenny C.: It’s behind and not to the right.
Jenny C.: But that’s okay. The book is done.
Lani D.: That’s what Noah said.
Jenny C.: It’s a miracle.
Lani D.: The book is done and we’re still arguing. And laughing.
Krissie O.: Yup. We came, we saw, we kicked its ass.
Jenny C.: So it was a good time and this is why we love collaborating.
Jenny C.: Because we laugh.
Lani D.: Absolutely.
Krissie O.: Yup. And I’d do it again the drop of an email.
Lani D.: Me, too.
Jenny C.: Yep. In fact we have a killer idea for a new one.
Jenny C.: But that’s a later Campfire. Stay tuned.