Then you can quit. Then, once I've started, I usually do more. It wasn't a normal collaboration, though, since we were expanding a pre-existing work of mine. Nina didn't have as full a creative scope as she would have if we had been starting from scratch. Or a little of both.
Projects take on a life of their own.
I could sit down and outline a novel-length story for you in twenty minutes, if I had thought about it for an hour or so first. I'm pretty quick about assembling at least the skeleton of a story. Q. Your characters, in all of your books, are very well developed. I just ask questions about them. I'm not sure I have a favorite character.