4: Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta: Collaborating on a Novel

Kevin J. Anderson is an award-winning, international bestselling author of the new Dune series (with Brian Herbert), the Terra Incognita and Saga of Seven Suns series, X-Files, Star Wars, and numerous comics; he has published 100 books, with more than 20 million copies in print in 30 languages.

Rebecca Moesta (pronounced MESS-tuh) started writing in 1991 and, as a solo author, has written Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Little Things and three novels in the Junior Jedi Knights series.

Together, this husband / wife team has written the Crystal Doors trilogy, several movie novelizations, a novelization of the popular StarCraft computer game; and have worked on several other projects.

Kevin and Rebecca proved to us just how well they work together. You can tell from listening to them that they make quite the team.

Some of the high points of their advice:

• One of the biggest parts of the collaborating happens during the brainstorming process
• If your collaborator is good at the same things you are, why are you collaborating?
•  You have to trust your collaborator during edits--don't try to figure out what he/she changed--fix what you think still needs to be fixed and eventually the manuscript will be a great blend of your two voices.
• Be careful who you collaborate with--if it doesn't work out, you may need to scrap the project.
• And much more....

Also, Kevin and Rebecca announced that, until the end of the month, there will be a collaboration discount for the Superstars Writing Conference: sign up with a friend and you will save $200! (Total cost of $998.) Again, the Superstars of Writing include Kevin, Rebecca, David Farland, Brandon Sanderson, Eric Flint, and Sherrilyn Kenyon. It will be held on January 13-15 in Salt Lake City, Utah. There's still time to hint to your loved ones how much you would love that for Christmas....

If you missed the call, you can listen to it below:


Or, you can download the MP3.