Writing is solitary work, as you hunker down with your thoughts in hopes of extracting a good enough chunk to eventually have something to share with others. During all of it, you're mostly alone.
Such a sentiment is echoed by multi-award-winning author Margaret Atwood, as she shared her own rules in writing to The Guardian, saying, "Other people can help you a bit, but essentially you're on your own. Nobody is making you do this: you chose it, so don't whine."
Although her advice would hold true in most cases, a recently released project called "Fourteen Days," which Atwood was "instrumental" in, is sort of an antithesis to this personal adage.
This is because the work itself is a momentous collaborative effort that involved a total of 36 acclaimed Canadian and American authors, each of which has carved their respective names in their chosen genres.
'Fourteen Days' by Thirty-Six Acclaimed Literary Figures
The jointly written novel's story is set in a New York apartment during the first few weeks of the dreaded COVID-19 pandemic and amid "Fourteen Days" of lockdown.
According to CNN, the book's main selling point lies therein with its cast of characters, as each of their arcs is authored by a different writer. What's more, is that the writer's identities and which characters they wrote for are only disclosed at the end of the book.
This unconventional process lends to a more potent narrative experience for the reader, as they are left guessing which famous writer wrote which part, choosing from a pool of authors that includes John Grisham, Celeste Ng, Diana Gabaldon, RL Stine, and Atwood herself, among others.
Playing this "minigame" might prove challenging, too, as the writers took advantage of the rare occasion and chose to deviate from their "bread-and-butter" to make things a lot more interesting.
Douglas Preston, co-editor of the book alongside Atwood, was the originator of this ambitious idea and was thus tasked with writing its "frame" narrative to dictate how the individual stories will be told in a larger encapsulating story.
Preston achieved this through his central character of Yessie, the apartment's superintendent and inheritor of her predecessor's notebooks filled with details about the residents, including their personal histories and even nicknames.
In a statement to CNN, Preston gave credit to Atwood's "instrumental" contribution in terms of scouting and onboarding a "wonderful and diverse group" of authors that brought a higher level of vividness to each character in the novel.
From real-life anecdotes to almost fantastical tales, each story ranges from a spectrum of themes and approaches that contribute to a big narrative tapestry built on the structure of solidarity and a sense of community that both the novel and its novelists revolve around.
