Things you learn from collaborating with people who don't communicate

My girlfriend and I love goin on long walks.

No phones, no distractions. Just us.

She’s a writer, and a much better one than me so I like to pick her mind-brain here and there to get a different perspective because she’s not a copywriter, she writes supernatural thrillers, psychological torture, fan fiction, and I’m pretty sure she’s a serial murderer, which is why I love her, I like to live dangerously.

The other day we were walking and talking about an artist she used to work with, we’ll call this person V.

Now V is a great artist, insanely great.

My girlfriend and V were collaborating on a visual story, which was V’s idea.

V would do the art and my girlfriend would do the writing.

Things started out well, but quickly fell apart.

Over time V became unreachable. My girlfriend set up a discord server, was keeping V in the loop with updates on the writing, reaching out regularly to see what was going on with the artwork for the story, and wasn’t getting anything back.

But V was updating her Twitter regularly, and active on other platforms but not communicating with my girlfriend.

At this point my girlfriend is pissed, and rightly so.

Before and during the project my girlfriend told V not to put too much pressure on herself to pump out art, have fun with it, told her she has a talent that people would kill for, and that if she(V) needed an ear to let her (my girlfriend) know.

In the end V decided that she didn’t want to continue for whatever reason.

Not only that, but she blocked my girlfriend on one of the platforms they both use.

So after being an unlicensed therapist for this person, lifting her up when she fell down, constantly encouraging her, tagging her work to help her out, and a slew of other things, she decided to behave like an infant.

All V had to do was… communicate.

I told her what I’d do in this situation, but she’s a lot nicer than I am.

Now, my girlfriend is putting her own works out there and it’s gaining traction.

People are leaving her comments on how it’s helped them through family drama, helping them cope with a shytty job, and sending words of encouragement daily.

This is why you don’t burn bridges.

This is also why I don’t collaborate with people.

Most don’t know how to communicate effectively.

And this whole email is just word vomit, but I think I got my point across.

Mike “i need a cold brew” Downs

PS - If you’re into fan fiction, Heaven Officials Blessing, or danmei you can check out my girlfriends Twitter here → TheDivineCharis