Collaborative Writing in Real Time

Abstract

In this article we record, recount, and reflect on a 48-hour period in which we hang out in a rented house beside a lake with the intention of writing collaboratively. The writing emerges out of conversations. Our exchanges move back and forth and sideways between talking, writing, reading, and responding to each other’s writing. These exchanges are held together and created through cooking, eating, going to the pub, walking, making cocktails, singing, and arguing. This is a narrative account, in real/chronological time of a collaborative process of generating this writing. As such these are the raw, unedited texts. Our process includes three instances of talking, writing, and reading. We offer this as a backstage snapshot of collaborative writing.