The Writing Experiment by Hazel Smith

When I collaborated with Anne Brewster we usually wrote a section each,
though occasionally one of us would write two or three passages
consecutively. We often responded quite directly to each other, and I rarely
felt that I would have written a particular piece in the same way if I hadn’t
been collaborating. Nor do I feel that individual sections completely stand
on their own: they seem most effective in the context of the whole text. In
the following extract, the first section was initially written by Anne, the
second by me. However, we commented on and edited each others’ work
in ways which merged our endeavours.

Example 6.7

Lost in Thought

Today, at last, I had some time for reading. I sifted through all sorts

of bits and pieces, everything from Levinas to de Certeau.

In the mid-afternoon I forced myself to take a break and do the

shopping. Driving to the supermarket and wandering among the

aisles I didn’t feel quite adequate to the task at hand. I wasn’t

thinking of anything in particular; I was simply suspended, lost in

thought.

De Certeau says: like those birds that lay their eggs only in other species’

nests, memory produces in a place that does not belong to it... It derives

its interventionary force from its very capacity to be altered—unmoored,

mobile, lacking any fixed position.

what I know now must change

what I lost then. what you have

never owned you recreate.

the present coughs into the faces of the past

knocks pictures sideways on the wall.

so memory digs up birds have flown away

are laying eggs in foreign beds

From ‘ProseThetic Memories’ (Brewster & Smith 2002, p. 199)

This example shows how collaboration consists of ‘dialoguing’ and is
an interactive process. As you can see, I have taken up the de Certeau

Dialoguing 127