166. Collabora-schön
Is writing really such a solitary pursuit?
In which Rebecca explores working in a team and shares her love for the contagious community spirit of readers and writers.
💡 collabora-, from collaborate: To work jointly on an activity or project
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💡 -schön: German adjective for lovely, beautiful
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Collabora-schön (n)
/kəˌlabəˈreɪʃəːn/
The beauty of working together to produce something amazing
Linguistic frivolity by Rebecca Holden
Dear Reader,
It’s struck me every time I’ve watched any of the Paris 2024 Olympic coverage that every athlete, even one competing as an individual in a solo activity, is part of a team. Collaboration can be seen everywhere, and not just between runners in a relay race.
You see, it’s not the sheer grit of an individual which gets him or her to the podium, but also a whole lot of influence behind the scenes from – among others – trainers, coaches, physiotherapists, nutritionists, family and friends.
Collaboration can be seen between competitors in opposition, too. The astonishing Simone Biles impressed me in her individual events with her support and encouragement of every other gymnast in the Bercy arena at Paris 2024, despite being in direct competition with them for medals.
Working towards an individual challenge isn’t something that has to be tackled alone. In many ways, writing is a solitary pursuit – there are plenty of us sitting at our screens or poring over our notebooks with only our thoughts for company – but isn’t it true that there are other people making up our teams?
You see, writing influences come from all kinds of places and people. It’s good to bounce ideas off each other; after all, conversation and communication are the keystones of human existence.
Don’t get me wrong: being alone is something which I consider to be a happy state of affairs. Today Rebecca collaborates all the time with Yesterday Rebecca. I write stories of my life from memory; I read books and want to share my thoughts on them; I read posts by other writers and find things I can relate to, sparking memories from my own world to then explore in my work.
Although I enjoy my own company I also relish the chance to work with others; to share online space or to consider, discuss or write a response to something someone has written, said or drawn. And in over two years of writing on Substack I have had the pleasure of collaborating with a number of other writers on a variety of projects.
September 2022
had invited me to write this guest post for her newsletter , and I thoroughly enjoyed our exchanges in the run-up to its publication. I was thrilled to have had this first opportunity to collaborate with another writer!November 2022
When fellow British writer
approached me to correspond with him in a series of six letters – three each way – as a result of Substack’s encouragement of just this kind of collaboration in their ‘Substack Letters’ project, I was initially very daunted.‘Whatever am I going to write about?’ I asked Terry, my husband Jim, and anyone else who would listen.
Terry and I exchanged letters for the first three weeks of December, and as I wrote my final missive in the series I felt sad. ‘Who am I going to tell all this stuff to now?’ I wondered.
What the letter-writing project had brought me, you see, was a new kind of writing opportunity. Over those first weeks I’d found myself tuning in much better to the world around me, spotting all sorts of things to correspond with Terry about, and enjoying publishing an altogether different kind of post to my other weekly offerings. After I’d published my last letter just before Christmas, I sent Terry an e-mail.
‘I don’t want to stop writing to you!’ I begged. ‘Can we carry on?’
Over a year and a half later, this ongoing project continues to see me writing about things to which I wouldn’t necessarily devote an entire Saturday post, and to enjoy a writing relationship with someone whose work I greatly admire. In a letter I can change the subject multiple times, and the conversational style allows for humour, discussion of current affairs and even some good-natured roasting. 😉 Not knowing what Terry’s next reply might contain adds a certain frisson to the exercise, and certainly keeps me on my toes when it comes to penning my response.
Interviews – July 2023 and April 2024
In summer last year the writer
asked if he could interview me for this post on , and I had a great time responding to his questions.In April this year I participated in a rather different kind of interview along with three other writers.
of had invited us to be part of her regular series of posts, Up all night with Raymond, and it was such fun!You can read it here.
September 2023
Having seen a post I’d written about a shopping list I’d found blowing across a park,
of sent me a list she’d found abandoned in a supermarket shopping cart in Austin, Texas. ‘I wonder if you’d like to write about this one?’ she asked. Heck, yes!One of the lovely things about collaborating with another writer is that the subject matter is often unexpected, so to be presented with a shopping list to write about – one which contained many curious-to-a-Brit-sounding items (and no teabags!) – was an absolute gift.
August 2024
Most recently,
of asked me to lead the Wonder Walk in the first week of her Substack summer project, Camp AweGust. After a great discussion via e-mail I took some of the ideas we’d talked about and worked on developing my contribution to her post in the form of a self-contained creative project containing words, photographs, drawings and plenty of imagination! It was published on Thursday, and you can see it here.
Here’s what Tami has said about her collaboration with a number of creatives for Camp AweGust:
🙌 🙌 🙌
I agree wholeheartedly: writing can be a community activity in all sorts of ways. Soon after I had first started reading and writing on Substack in summer 2022 I began to participate in
’ weekly writing sessions on Zoom, and most weeks ever since this part of my week has been a highlight of my Substack experience. Since March this year, Club can be found in real life as well as online: every Monday Julie meets with a group of other runners/writers to run together for thirty minutes and then write for thirty more. This thriving community – both online worldwide, and in person in beautiful upstate New York – is everything that collaboration should be.Julie’s Write Along sessions on Zoom, which are free and open to all, are held on Mondays at 11am EST (4pm UK time). The link is here.
Collaboration doesn’t just mean direct involvement. You see, it’s more than that. A platform such as Substack thrives on exchanges between readers and writers in the comments. Liking and sharing, subscribing and commenting, and conversing about what we’re reading, writing and experiencing, are all elements of community collaboration.
It’s teamwork.
In your Olympic race with yourself as a writer, you might be chasing a deadline, a word count or a dream. But you’re not alone, you’re in a field of others, and being part of a bigger whole is a powerful feeling.
Solitary or not, we’re all in this together.
Thank you for being on my team.
Love,
Rebecca
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You really get around! 😅 I've wondered about the collaborative stories that crop up here from time to time, Rebecca, curious about how they come into being and whether the connections are there before the joint venture or whether they develop as a result.
Having exchanged letters with my mother for many, many years, I often miss that ritual, so the conversation between you and Terry is especially inviting. I also find myself sequestering little bits of information these days when I am among friends in real life, because I know I want to write about it and don't want to spoil the fun. That, too, is rooted in the tradition with my mom. On a phone conversation, one or the other of us might say, "I'm not going to tell you about that, because it will give me something to put in a letter!"
Fun to see how you're sharing your explorations and with whom!
Thanks, Rebecca, for the link to your Camp Awe-gust posting! I would have missed it otherwise. Instead of going out on the bus to find inspiration this week, I am definitely going out in my back yard and looking down to see what story I can find there. Great idea. And as for the shout out, Raymond thanks you and sends love and fishes.