All goes well the first two or three weeks, and the writers introduce a varied assortment of romantic characters such as a lovely blonde heroine, a young French duke, and a Rosicrucian who transmutes metals and consorts with the devil. But after a few weeks a new writer shows up in town and duly takes his turn. This chapter, of course, causes an uproar among the other novelists. Yet some of these efforts will be serious, and will succeed. Moreover, in composing a text, in 'writing' something, the one producing the written utterance is also alone.
Writing is a solipsistic operation.
I am writing a book which I hope will be read by hundreds of thousands of people, so I must be isolated from everyone. I think one thing to bear in mind is the broad spectrum of connectivity that electronic tools enable between writers and between writers and readers. It is not simply a matter of everyone becoming everyone else's co-author. The collaboration may be simply e-mail from readers who find my fiction by way of Hyperizons . In recent months the site receives about 3000 accesses per month.