The Blood Gospel: The Order of the Sanguines

Jim – The story came about after I viewed a museum exhibit featuring the work of Rembrandt. I was struck by his painting of “The Raising of Lazarus.” I thought it strange how everyone in the painting looked frightened, and this started me down a road of reflection about early Catholicism, vampirism, and a story began to unfold. I knew this could be a huge, groundbreaking new mythology, a story so epic in scope that I knew I couldn’t tackle this alone. It was during that time that I was reading Rebecca’s novel, A Night of Long Knives. I always loved her atmospheric storytelling and knew it could be the perfect match for this story.

Rebecca – Jim called to ask me if I was interested in collaborating on a project. When I asked for details, he said he couldn’t give me any. I asked if he could answer yes or no questions, which brought a ten-second pause before he totally caved and told me everything about The Blood Gospel. Obviously he was not meant to withstand that kind of brutal interrogation. The premise and the world were so intriguing and controversial, I said yes immediately.

Rebecca – Jim had a lot of stuff already in place—a long outline, the first 150 pages or so, and a full proposal. We had various meetings on the phone and Skype to sort out the tone of the book, more character details, etc. We wrote up a World Bible that clearly defined the world, the characters, and the plot. And then I started going through his outline and hacking and slashing and rewriting, and we sent pages back and forth. He was very patient about that, and I tried to be patient when he hacked and slashed on my stuff. For the record, he’s more patient than I am. Or he’s better at lying about it.

We were both ready to throw things out, add things in, do whatever was necessary to write the best book we could. In the end, I would read bits aloud to my husband, and he’d sometimes ask “who wrote that?” and I often couldn’t tell him.

Jim – I don’t think either of us could have written this story alone. It was a great synergy of ideas, talents, with each bringing our best skill set to the forefront, while challenging each other at every step of the way. And I agree with Becky. At this point, I can’t say which one of us wrote what.

Rebecca – This is going to sound weird, but we haven’t really disagreed on much about the book. Or maybe Jim is so clever and diplomatic that I haven’t noticed, which is basically the same thing. Once we knew what story we were writing, we’ve both just worked on writing the best story we could. If it serves the story, it stays. If it doesn’t, it goes. And, so far, we’ve both pretty much agreed on what serves the story best. Check back after book 2.

Jim – I agree. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that neither of has huge egos. Rebecca gave me latitude to experiment and stray from the path, and I offered the same to her. Sometimes it works; other times not. We talk it out, lay out the pros and cons, and settle on what works best for the story or characters. My usual response when Rebecca has suggested a change in story, plot, or writing was “Cool!” Those rare moments when I scratched my head about something that Becky recommended, I usually said “Run with it and let’s see.” And 99% of the time, Becky was right in the end (darn it all!).

Rebecca – Because he blushes too much, which is damn funny to watch if not particularly productive, I usually wrote the first draft of those scenes. Then we talked through them, just like any other scene. He’s usually pretty nice about critiquing stuff, and he never once said what every writer dreads hearing about a sex scene: You’re doing it all wrong!

Jim – I’m blushing now. Though I have to say, there are some very sexy moments in this book.

Rebecca – Writing a book is a very intimate process. It’s not all “which word goes here” or “what’s the coolest way to kill a massive enraged black bear?” I mean, there’s a lot of that too. But it’s also a lot of talking about sex and death and what would a character do if you dragged them through the worst experiences in their life, what would it mean, how would they be changed? And you can’t talk and write about that without revealing a lot about yourself. So, for me, it was a giant scary trust exercise. Because, when I write alone, I’m just talking about those things inside my own head, and I know the people in there really well. At this point, Jim is practically a voice in my head too, so I think the trust exercise worked.

Jim – Being my first collaboration, too, it was a learning curve about how “open” to be about the depth necessary to tell this story. Prior to this project, writing has been a solitary experience, where the best and worst could be kept under wraps and dabbled with in private. It took a while to reach that stage with each other where we could drop our guards with one another: to be brutally honest, emotionally sincere, and willing to trust. But I think any true collaboration has to cross that Rubicon.
Since your book was written by a man and a woman, do you ever get into arguments about whether a woman (or a man) would or wouldn’t say something?

Rebecca – Not really. I used to make a note of it and go ask my husband, but he always agreed with Jim, so I eventually gave up on that and decided that maybe, as a man, Jim actually does know more about how they think than I do.
Jim: And to be honest, this didn’t come up too often. Once we workshopped the characters together, hashing who they are, their individual distinct voices came through, and there was no going back.

Jim – Distance is a challenge, especially now that Rebecca is in Germany and almost on an opposite daytime schedule than me in the West Coast. But once the logistics were worked out, it flows well. And we both prefer Skype when we talk, so we can see each other. Mostly because my method of communication is half words, half gesturing. And I get to see when Rebecca rolls her eyes when I say something stupid (which is surprisingly quite often).

Rebecca – We do get a lot more done when we’re in the same room together, but with Skype and the Internet and the fact that we send each other a million emails a day, it seems to work out.

Jim – It’s one of the best things about collaboration: we each bring a unique skill set to the table. Scenes where I know I perhaps am more deft (ie., action), I handle first. Likewise, Becky’s skill at characterization and atmospheric historical descriptions, I let her run with it. But after that, we each take each other’s work and tweak it in new and surprising ways that neither of us could have done alone.

Rebecca – Since we’re two people, more ideas come out and the books end up going in a direction I don’t think either of us would have found on our own. Luckily, he’s very open and easy to work with and has never once said “that’s the stupidest idea ever,” because I think you need to feel safe to throw out any idea at the beginning and see what sticks.

Rebecca – For The Blood Gospel, I got stuck less than usual, because Jim can often fix the points where I get stuck and I can fix the points where he does. It’s basically sold me on collaboration.

Jim – I agree. One of the strong points of collaboration is that there are TWO brains to solve dilemmas.

Rebecca – Jim is much meaner to them physically. So, once we’ve beaten the crap out of some character and they’re lying there bleeding, Jim’s always dragging them up to do one last heroic thing. I’m all, “can’t they have a tiny break right here?” and he’s always “Nope. The world needs saving. Up you go!” Makes me grateful he’s not a Boy Scout leader.

But emotionally, I’m much meaner to the characters than Jim is. He’s fine decapitating them, but when it comes to being mean to them psychologically, he’s a little less gung ho.

Jim – Again that’s why we work so well together: I grind my characters through the gristmill physically; she does the same emotionally. Then like two dysfunctional parents, we try to pick up the respective pieces of our character’s lives, dust them off, and point the way forward.