So we get asked a lot how our writing process as cowriters works, and while our usual answer to that is either a really lengthy explanation of what we do, or shrugging while we say “magic,” there’s a lot of administrative and organizational stuff that is part of the whole writing career that has nothing to do with character or plot or putting words on the page.

There’s planning which projects we’re working on and when, there’s keeping track of all of our ideas, there’s also doing edits for our publisher, there’s planning events within the romance community, planning Philadelphia office days, and keeping track of all things marketing.

And while, when we write, we both write all things — character, dialogue, plot — all the time, when it comes to the administrative stuff we split it up a bit more. My job is scheduling anything and everything, because I could not do life without Google calendar and when I say things like “But time is like a wheel and I’m standing inside of it!” Racheline tends to scream in terror.

The calendar-management extends to our fictional timekeeping as well. I have a binder of calendars I’ve printed out — one page per year — as well as a spreadsheet in Google docs in which I keep track of the timelines for the Love in Los Angeles series and all the stories that take place in that world. At some point, I’ll do a post just on those calendars alone.

When it comes to the world of marketing and events however, Racheline is god. At least once a week, more if it’s been a particularly sad or frustrating week, I open my inbox to a flood of various marketing tools, ideas, and opportunities that all have subject lines that amount to “We should do this!” and then, a few hours later “So I did all of these things!”

(And because I often get those floods when we’re frustrated, bored, or annoyed, when I get them when none of those things are the case I tend to freak out because WHAT HAPPENED WHAT DID I MISS?!)

So we both end up sending each other a lot of dumb emails back and forth: “Wait, how old is X character in this book when is Christmas we need to plan around that oh god.” “Wait, when is that conference and where is it and why are we going again?” Individually, we’d drive ourselves crazy trying to do and keep track of everything when various components of the doing and the keeping track of are not our individual strengths. But the 1+1=3 thing isn’t just for the magic of writing, and together we get a hell of a lot more done when we can divide and conquer.