CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. — Geoff Genge and Michelle Harris-Genge play with each other’s words all the time – printed words, to be precise.
The P.E.I. couple have tapped out two books together in the past year on laptops in the comfort of their home tucked deep in the woods of Lewes.
Michelle has been director of the province’s International Women’s Secretariat since 2007, had always wanted to write.
Geoff, who was promoted to assistant terminal manager with Northumberland Ferries after working many years as a deckhand and quartermaster, started to work on a couple potential screenplays. The screeplays followed the adventures and exploits of paranormal investigator and rogue adventurer named Charles Forte digging for phenomena in the early 1900s.
Drawn to her husband’s writing project, Michelle jumped on board.
Both, who have two teenagers together, decided to tackle the work as a series of novels.
Their teamwork has proved productive and fruitful.
The first effort called Terra Obscurra: A Knock in the Dark, came out in March. The second in The Terra Obscurra Chronicles (Falling Against Gravity) hit the book stores in October.
Most of the writing has been done in the evening with television being the first casualty.
“If you really dedicate three hours a night to something, you can get an awful lot done,’’ says Michelle, who will typically write until midnight.
“It’s been a tiring year,’’ she adds.
“It’s invigorating as well as exhausting … I like being busy and I like to feel productive.’’
The thickness of each other’s skin was tested in the process of creating a book together.
There are moments of contention and intense conversation, notes Michelle, but the criticism of one another’s work is always constructive.
“It is always in a collaborative way,’’ she says.
“We never fight.’’
The personal relationship, she adds, generally stays separate from the literary one.
Geoff says he was very nervous entering into a writing partnership with his wife, fearing he may crack open a can of worms.
Instead, he believes co-authoring has strengthened what was already a strong relationship. The couple have tapped into a mutual writing formula that works.
“I mean we have this thing that we both feel so strongly about, and we seem to really enjoy the process,’’ he says.
“We also bring out the best in each other’s work. That sort of critical analysis: there’s very few people that are as brutally honest with me as Michelle.’’
The couple’s 18-year-old daughter Berry and their 14-year-old son Gideon are supportive of the writing venture.
Geoff and Michelle hope to write 12 books in "The Terra Obscurra Chronicles" series with a goal of adding at least the third installment next year and perhaps a fourth.
Michelle is shooting to complete her second solo novel in 2020, following her very personal effort called "Avril’s Phoenix", which came out in July.
"Avril’s Phoenix", she says, had been stirring and formulating within her for many years.
The story, Michelle explains, is “informed’’ by the personal tragedy of losing their baby at birth to anencephaly, which is the absence of a major portion of the brain, skull, and scalp that occurs during embryonic development.
She hopes her book helps create empathy.
“When you go through something really terrible, people just don’t know how to react to it,’’ she says.
“I think, in the end, you have to go with the intention of people and not what they say because people say really stupid things like ‘oh, it’s all for the best'.’’
The collective goal of this couple, who also have their own small publishing company, is to eventually be able to make a living through their collaborative – and individual – writing.
The thought of going on book tours and writing retreats appeals to the pair.
As for the future literary give and take, Michelle says she and her husband can both work on being gentler in their collaborating approach.
“Ultimately,’’ says Michelle, “it’s about making a quality product.’’
The first two installments in the Terra Obscurra Chronicles - "A Knock in the Dark" and "Falling Against Gravity" - are available at Comic Hunter and Lightning Bolt Comics in Charlottetown.
Those books, as well as Avril's Phoenix, are also available at Bookmark and Indigo in Charlottetown.
