A Winning Team
I’ve always thought that writing a book was the result of one person’s work, but nothing is further from the truth. There’s practically a village full of people, working behind the scenes, to bring an author’s work to the book shelf. These lovely people include agents, editors, designers, illustrators, friends, family, freelancers and the office tea girl/boy. They deserve a blog post of their own. Today though, I wanted to talk about the writer.
Jeff Norton
When some of my friends started writing books with other authors I wasn’t sure if it was for me. Then my agent told me about Jeff Norton. Jeff had created a story about a magical island, inhabited by talking horses. The story was packed full of ponies, magic, friendships and danger. Jeff was looking for a writer to share his adventure with him. The moment I heard Jeff’s idea I wanted that writer to be me.
And so Chloe Ryder was born. A partnership between Jeff Norton and Julie Sykes.
It was the start of a long and exciting journey. Jeff and I rode magical, giant seahorses to the island of Chevalia, where we met Princess Stardust, her best friend Pippa MacDonald, (a real live girl), a flying pony and a whole stable full of baddies too.
I’ve LOVED working as a writing team. It’s been such fun sharing someone else’s vision, bouncing ideas around together, then converting them into stories. Jeff and I have written six Princess Ponies books now. The first one, A Magical Friend, publishes this week Hopefully there will be more.
How do you feel about being part of a writing team? Have you ever written a book, or story, with someone else? Would you like to?
Princess Ponies – A Magical Friend
It’s always so I interesting to find out what goes on ‘behind the scenes’. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks and thanks for commenting. Julie
That’s a very interesting post, in the end the behind the scenes is teamwork, which is primordial to achieve excellence. Congrats for the book! I was always fascinated by ponies since I was a child , there is something mystical about it, it’s like talking about the pink dolphins in the Amazon river.
Thank you. You are so right about teamwork.
Pink dolphins are amazing. Maybe I’ll write about them next! Julie
Hi Julie! I will SO READ every single book in this set of books! I know I’ll LOVE THEM.
Hi Laura,
Thanks. I thought about you when I was writing, I knew the books would appeal to you.
Hope you’re having a good day.
Julie
Really?! Wow! Thanks for thinking of me!
Ages ago in school we had to get into pairs and plan an adventure story. We drew out our main character and all the places she visited in her quest and even worked on the opening paragraph. But then we were told that we everyone had to split up and work on their own! We made an appeal but it was to no avail. The work we did up until then was great though
Hi Faolan,
Planning the adventure story in pairs sounded great fun. What a shame that you weren’t allowed to write it up with your partner. I wonder why that was. Maybe your teacher thought it would be too hard to mark ;( Julie
I started writing a story with my best friend and we made a really good start but then for a number of reasons (not book related) we stopped being friends. The story was saved on her computer and I’ve never seen it again. I still wonder sometimes about it and I wanted to continue on my own but can’t because she could claim I stole her idea.
x
That’s the only problem with writing with someone else, but if you can find someone you really trust I think it’s great.
Good luck with the release of you pony books.
Hi Bex,
Sorry to hear that you fell out with your friend. It was your story too though! Maybe one day you’ll be friends again. You never know.
Good luck with your writing
Julie
I’d love to do that but I haven’t found my kindred writer spirit yet!
Keep looking Jane. You’ll find him/her one day. Julie