Nicci Gerrard is one half of the writing team, Nicci French. On day nineteen of National Novel Writing Month, Nicci talks to us about the challenges and advantages of writing as part of a team

Writing can be solitary and also rather frightening – and sometimes it can feel like going mad (and I write in an attic). Writing with Sean is less solitary and less frightening, and there’s something rather exhilarating about going mad with another person – folie a deux. In many ways the actual process of writing isn’t so different from when I write solo novels, because Sean and I actually never write together (we did try once, at the end of our first book, The Memory Game, in an act of symbolic unity – but it was dreadful: we took about an hour to come up with one drab sentence, and squabbled throughout).

There are things that are straightforwardly lovely and fun – like the planning, when we go for long walks, or sit over coffee and tea and wine, and bounce ideas off each other without fear of being ridiculous. But usually the advantages are also the challenges – what’s good about writing together can also be what’s hard. We have to trust each other and to be vulnerable in front of each other. We have to allow the other to edit an even to erase our precious words. And there’s nowhere to hide – most relationships thrive with areas of separation, with boundaries .

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