"I'm not a good collaborator in general"
About this Quote
"I'm not a good collaborator in general" is the kind of blunt self-diagnosis that sounds like modesty until you hear the steel in it. Coming from Chelsea Quinn Yarbro - a prolific novelist with a decades-long career built on intricate worldbuilding and long-form voice control - it reads less like apology than like boundary-setting. In creative industries, collaboration is treated as moral virtue: the agreeable artist, the communal process, the room where everyone "builds". Yarbro quietly refuses the premise.
The intent is practical, almost managerial. A writer who knows her process is protecting it from the two classic collaboration traps: dilution and delay. "In general" matters. It signals she's not being dramatic about one bad experience; she's describing a consistent mismatch between her temperament and the mechanics of co-authoring. That phrasing also keeps the door barely open: she isn't saying collaboration is bad, only that her default mode doesn't thrive in it.
The subtext is about authorship as sovereignty. Fiction, especially the kind Yarbro writes, depends on a singular sensibility - a private logic of character, pacing, and tone that can't easily be committee-approved without losing its spell. The line also pushes back against the workshop-era assumption that all art improves through consensus. Sometimes the best editorial choice is fewer voices.
Contextually, it's a veteran's sentence. Early-career writers often talk collaboration to signal openness; established writers can afford to tell the truth: the brand is the voice, and the voice is easier to keep intact alone.
The intent is practical, almost managerial. A writer who knows her process is protecting it from the two classic collaboration traps: dilution and delay. "In general" matters. It signals she's not being dramatic about one bad experience; she's describing a consistent mismatch between her temperament and the mechanics of co-authoring. That phrasing also keeps the door barely open: she isn't saying collaboration is bad, only that her default mode doesn't thrive in it.
The subtext is about authorship as sovereignty. Fiction, especially the kind Yarbro writes, depends on a singular sensibility - a private logic of character, pacing, and tone that can't easily be committee-approved without losing its spell. The line also pushes back against the workshop-era assumption that all art improves through consensus. Sometimes the best editorial choice is fewer voices.
Contextually, it's a veteran's sentence. Early-career writers often talk collaboration to signal openness; established writers can afford to tell the truth: the brand is the voice, and the voice is easier to keep intact alone.
Quote Details
| Topic | Teamwork |
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