The Writer's Daughter and the Actor's Son

Question: Why do you create new pantheons when you feel like the current pantheons on the site aren't up to your expectations? (The Amatsukami were mentioned and you were talking about the Loa in the comments.) Wouldn't you rather fix what you already have before starting something new?

Ooh, a very good question and well-timed, too. The answer is a combination of division of labor and the dreaded Real-Life Constraints.

As I've mentioned before elsewhere, I think, John and I are good at different things, which means that we both contribute to our Scion work but in different ways. I'm the right brain, in charge of things like writing, symbolism and language, while John is the left brain, in charge of things like analysis, math and mechanical effects. When John writes something, I read it for content, massage it to make sure it's mythically resonant, and then throw it away and then rewrite it so it makes sense and sounds pretty. When I write something, John takes it out back and shoots it until it works.

So for large projects like purview rewrites, pantheon reorganization and Titan creation, we need both of us in the same place at the same time in order to get anything meaningful done. We can do some things apart, like preliminary research and outlines, but we need some good hours to hash it out between us, compare notes and make decisions.

Which leads to the Real Life Constraints issue; day jobs and performances mean that we don't have most of our day in the same place, and while we do collaborate remotely sometimes, most of the time employers would prefer we are doing the work we're being paid for, not the work we do in our spare time. This means that we have a lot more time, unfortunately, to work on things apart than together - which means we're masters of prep work, but our together-work happens more slowly.

New pantheons usually start with me; while John is invaluable in making sure they don't fail mechanically and in providing much-needed perspective on them, I do the lion's share of the conceptualizing and writing for the additional pantheons. I tend to work on them when John's indisposed, usually because he's at rehearsal or otherwise doing things that don't involve me, just as I also work on fiction when he's not around because all he does is hang over my shoulder and complain that there aren't enough explosions.

So new pantheons tend to get written in addition to whatever else we're doing; they're being worked on in the time we can't work on things like shoring up Tsukumo-gami or making sure that none of the Shen have ridiculously inappropriate associated powers. (This is also the reason they tend to take months to happen, because I'm not working on them exclusively.) It's time that, unfortunately, we can't use for working on things together, so we're proactive and work on things separately instead. John, similarly, spends the hours I'm at work hashing out systems and plot diagrams for running games, or statting up antagonists and artifacts that will make appearances at some point, things that he can do without really needing my input.

In that bright and beautiful future when we don't have to spend eight hours a day not doing things together, we would probably spend a lot more time getting our house in order before adding a new deck and maybe a playroom around the side. But, sadly, for the moment we are carpenters passing in the night, and we only manage to repair the stairs in the basement when we're not stuck on opposite sides of the building adding trellises.

(Ended with a twenty-point metaphor. This is why John needs input when I write things.)