Josh and Rose are unique in that they have collaborated on a fantasy book , but are also mother and son. We talk about what it's like to work with someone that's related to you.

Since Josh is focused on a very connected universe, we talk about his worldbuilding. Below is a link to the wiki he is building for this.

https://www.worldanvil.com/w/talifar-joshforeman

And here is Rose's book on writing speculative fiction

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1640084479/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1640084479&linkCode=as2&tag=saschneider-20&linkId=363adc93b415b0a3f070a9b4f93de1d4

Transcription by otter.ai

0:51Welcome back to discover word Smith, second half of the podcast with Josh and Rose. This time, we're gonna be talking about the their writing together cooperatively. So we'll get into that in a little bit. But first, um, what are some things you guys learned? Writing together? Because rose, you said that you've written before, but now you're writing with somebody and it just happens to be your son. So what are some things you've learned differently? Writing with somebody as opposed to writing on your own?

1:21Actually, I think it's easier for me to write with somebody because then I have a direction that I know instead of where in the whole world am I gonna go? I like that part. I like assignments, I think some people would really hate to have an assigned plot given to them, or assigned character. But I like it. That's how I write most of my books worth what he does, first, we come up with this this species, human or otherwise, then we come up with its physiology, how it interacts with its its surroundings. And then we ask, what would make life hard for this thing? And, and then how does this thing overcome, based on its thought processes, and physiology, and etc. I mean, if you lay 1000 eggs, and one grows up to maturity, you have an entirely different concept of parity than, say, human debts. And so that's, that's fun for me.

2:32And it sounds like though, that you've still had that room to expand and grow, because you were saying how you basically came up with the one character, and you take some of what he has and refine it. So it sounds like you've got some constrict constraints, but you're still free to come up with new stuff and new directions. You both throw ideas off each other is what it sounds like.

2:55Yeah. So to me, it's important for, you know, like I've been talking about, I'm trying to design a franchise at the same time, that we're developing stories. And part an important part of a franchise is how are you working with collaborators? And so to me, that's as fundamental a question is, how do we make a good story. And so, in order to collaborate, to truly collaborate, you need to have a lot of freedom, be able to emotionally give a lot of freedom to your collaborators, otherwise, it's not a collaborative collaboration. It's a, you know, because sort of a I it's like a creative dictatorship, which I'm just not interested in that. That's, um, I, again, probably getting back to my career in video games, no one makes a video game alone. There's not one guy who sits in an armchair and says, I want to make a game about a spaceship flying through mines, shooting robots, you know, that's not how these ideas develop. It's, the programmer has come up with this amazing way to make a door that opens and the designer says, ooh, that would look good in the sight of a mountain. And the artist says, oh, what if there's, you know, a robot behind it, you know, and, and then it develops into something that, you know,