In the summer of 2015, we were young and in love. We were two college graduates working our first jobs in Los Angeles, grateful to be sharing a city following four years of long-distance. Our relationship was better for it, and we wondered what was next.

We thought: why not introduce a huge new emotional and logistical challenge into our romance and life?

Which is how we, debut authors Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka, decided to co-write a book. It hasn’t destroyed our relationship—we’ve been engaged since November!

One of the questions we get when we tell people we’ve co-written a young-adult novel—with “oh, like John Green?” (if only) and “why can’t you be normal and just watch Netflix together?” (we do)—is, “how do you collaborate with your fiancé creatively without driving each other crazy?” It’s a question neither of us could answer on our own, because honestly, it’s a balance neither of us could have found on our own. Instead, we’ll explain our work relationship the way we do everything—with each other.

Austin: Emily, what’s writing with your fiancé like?

Emily: It’s great, but not without challenges. What’s helpful is having a partner with different talents from your own. In our case, I’m the plotter—I outline and find the structure and direction of the story. You’re the word-level writer, the prose person.

Austin: Which is to say, I’m a fanatic when it comes to word choice.

Emily: I wouldn’t disagree with you there…. The fights we’ve had over comma placement or your unwavering opposition to conjunctions. I did say the process wasn’t without challenges!

Austin: How would you say we deal with disagreements?

Emily: When we’re in good moods, it’s with compromise. We heard a wonderful piece of wisdom from a writers’ panel early in our co-writing relationship—one of them said if you and your cowriter clash, you’re probably both wrong, and your best work will come from finding whatever you’re both comfortable with. Of course, when we’re not in good moods…

Austin: When we’re not in good moods, we fight. It’s inevitable. We honestly couldn’t count the evenings we’ve watched disappear into one of us or the other’s refusal to compromise on dialogue structure, whether a joke’s funny, or the use of the word “perhaps” where the other wants “maybe.”

Emily: You really love the word “perhaps.”

Austin: Perhaps too much.

Emily: What’s fun about writing with your fiancée, instead of a friend or critique partner?

Austin: Knowing we can draw inspiration from our relationship when we’re writing romance, of which our book features plenty. Especially because we write young adult. It’s impossible to ignore the ways our own story finds its way into our writing.

Emily: Oh, definitely. It’s no coincidence the characters in our books fall in love in high school, nor that the romantic interests are wordy, nerdy guys, often with interests in Shakespeare…

Austin: Nor that the heroines are talented and brilliant.

Emily: Yeah, we unabashedly flirt while writing. Really, though, it’s great to be co-writers who can realistically represent each perspective in the romance. I have us covered when we’re writing our heroine first noticing her crush, falling for her swoony love interest… But writing boy dialogue? It’s times like those I’m grateful for a cowriter.

Austin: Whereas describing our often-female central characters’ first kisses, things of that nature… I’m out of my depth.

Emily: How would you describe our writing process?

Austin: We do everything together. In one room, in conversation. One of us will pitch the concept of a scene, or the next piece of dialogue, or a sentence we want written in the book. We’ll discuss whether it’s a good idea, and if we agree, one of us will write the idea into the computer.

Emily: “One of us”—I control the computer. You’re too picky.

Austin: Perhaps.

Emily: You’re ridiculous. Of course, time constraints occasionally require we finish things individually, which we handle by dividing the work according to our respective strengths and weaknesses, then exchanging pages and getting in approximately 500 fights over each others’ edits.

Austin: Writing’s hard work. How do we keep from burning out?

Emily: We make each other laugh! It’s good we write YA, where we have room to get our characters into the kind of awkward problems everybody remembers from high school, ourselves obviously included. We have to keep the writing fun or it would become a burden. When we’re hitting our heads against the wall creatively, we recharge by watching TV or walking the dog.

Austin: Often walking the dog.

Emily: Whenever possible.

Austin: What’s your number-one piece of advice for couples or potential creative partners who want to work together?

Emily: Be certain you both do want to work together. It’s not easy to work creatively with a collaborator, whether you’re in a relationship with them or not—to push through the hard parts, you both need to be fully invested not only in the project, but in the idea of collaboration. It takes communication. Don’t push, and give your potential creative partner plenty of opportunity to tell you honestly they’d prefer to focus your relationship on other things. What’s yours?

Austin: Respect each other’s talents. Ideally, you’ll each have certain things where you’re better than your partner. Know when you’re in each other’s territory, when to hold your ground, and when to recognize you need to trust each other. Remember to compromise. It could be what keeps your partnership together.

Emily: Perhaps.

Read more about Austin and Emily’s book, Always Never Yours!