Cinnabar and Alabaster

key lessons:

• language is social
• invention is interactive
• burke's parlor-model
• "not all writing is collaborative, but collaboration is at the heart of all writing"
• work w/others because you work well with those others; don't choose others because you want to work not-alone
• different practices fall under the umbrella of "collaboration": "collabowriting" is not the same as turn-taking & takes different skills/leads to different results
• it's hard to collaborate effectively if you cling to the solitary-writer-in-the-attic
• most collaborators have rhythms of closeness & individual effort--they vary
• it'll feel different from the writing you do alone. in some good ways and some that are uncomfortable for a while
• a lot of the work of collaborative writing isn't writing but takes place in conversations before and during the writing process
• collaborative projects, to be truly generative, takes longer, because you have more editorial voices, more question-asking, more chances to carefully consider details
• student projects fail because students aren't taught the mindsets & approaches collaboration demands, so they try to do collaborative work while thinking like individual writers--you can't just say "go" & expect it to work.
• conflict can be generative too, although too much of it can keep a project from working
• agreeing all the time usually silences somebody--too much politeness is not a boon
• it is better to assume your partner(s) have good ideas than to assume your job is to critique them
• ownership is tricky--if you need it, you need to be upfront about negotiating how you can feel like you have enough of it while still being part of a collaborative project
• the academy will still look down on you for doing it, and won't always "count" your work. some of them will be nice enough. it's getting better. slowly.
• it's more work, not less work, than working alone
• yes, it's worth it.
• computers and the web make this logistically much, much easier

best part: wendy & hans' e-mail interview at the end. for no particular reason other than i love the way she/they write--it's like that tori interview where she was talking about how she loves how michael stipe smells. can i explain this? is there any point in it?

most curious accident: the whole introduction's about genre. i'm separating that bit out & making a separate entry. don't tell me that's cheating. it's an accident. i didn't know!