When we wrote The Cowboy and the Vampire, our lives were in a different place — I was a freelance writer working from a home office and Clark’s job was part-time. Our daughter was safely ensconced in middle school and income and expenses were more or less in balance.

I was rigid about my writing schedule; always three to four hours in the morning after Stephanie went to school, and Clark wrote in the evening. The Cowboy and the Vampire took about six months to write, and another six months or so to edit into perfection.

Today, we both have full-time “other” very demanding jobs. This means we have to approach the writing process differently. As we embark on the sequel, we are setting up a new schedule based on the number of words, rather than time slots: 2,000 words a week. They don’t have to be brilliant words, not yet, that can happen in the lightning editing round, but the words have to be moved from inside the brain to paper, or in my case, the computer. Clark still writes by hand. He’s quite charming and authentic in that way.

Let’s do the math: we figure a rough first draft will be about 150,000 words. At 4,000 words a week, that 37.5 weeks, about 9 months. Yikes! That’s a long time to write a first draft. Guess we will have to up that word count….right Clark? Yes, he said, let’s consider that a minimum requirement. Or more likely, we will shoot for 120,000 words for the initial draft. The Cowboy and the Vampire comes in at just over 110,000.

And we are starting this long holiday weekend. Countdown to the sequel, November 25, Thanksgiving, 2010, the birth of Blood and Whiskey. Mark these words!

A note on process: We have a chapter outline, or roadmap, as we call it. Nothing fancy, see the photo for the first page of it, but it captures the plot and pacing. When I write on my own, I don’t use outlines, I keep it all in my head. But when you write with partner, a roadmap is essential. Last weekend, we went to Ashland to sign books at the Southern Oregon Book and Authors Fair. We used the time in the car — about 5 hours each way — to sketch out the roadmap and rough in some key sketches for new characters (Robelin — a Russian Vampire).

When we wrote The Cowboy and the Vampire, we switched off chapters. He wrote the cowboy, I wrote the vampire. We had a general idea of what we wanted to happen, but since we were using individual voices in Part 1, it was relatively easy technique for partnership writing.

We considered doing it differently this time — just writing and rewriting over each other — but have decided that we are going to keep that technique intact. Each taking a chapter, although there will be only one narrative voice. Clark will start with the prologue and Chapter 1, I will move right away to  Chapter 2. Why?

Two reasons: one is functional, the other creative.

Functionally, it allows each of us to maintain an individual writing schedule and lets us move more quickly, given we are writing different parts of the book at the same time. And we don’t want to lose momentum.

And the roadmap keeps us both going in the same direction, as the name implies. For each chapter, we have 1) a specific beginning action or piece of dialogue, 2) a general sense of what is going to happen and what each character is going to do in each chapter, 3) and a very clear ending point, again, a piece of dialogue or an event. This navigation is  important as we move through our respective chapters separately.

Creatively, it allows us to focus in and make the initial footprint for the areas of the plot that interest us most. I like writing for Elita and I enjoy the philosophical underpinnings (in this book, it will be capitalism and government) that the vampire myth easily accommodates. Clark writes the cowboy voice, including Tucker’s killer (literally) sense of humor, so it makes sense for him to focus in on those chapters where Tucker is main character.

As we move through the stages of getting to the final draft, we will both eventually edit all of it so comprehensively so it’s “one voice” rather than two individual ones.

This early stage of writing a book is the hardest — working on a first draft, throwing words against a wall and seeing what sticks. A benefit of writing with a partner is “support.” In our case, it can be synonymous with competition.

“I bet I can write more than you in 15 minutes.”

“Yea, maybe, but it will suck.”

“No it won’t, you know it won’t.”

“Okay, 1-2-3, go!”

Competition can spur creativity. In these mini contests, we always trade what we write immediately and critique it. Occasionally, it turns out that one or both of us writes something on the steamy side. And that’s when fiction and reality collide. Writing can be very good for a relationship.

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