At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet.
Terry Pratchett's right up my alley ... give him a try!
All things make sense; you just have to fathom how they make sense.
Bink knew the dolphin only from old pictures; it was a kind of magic fish that breathed air instead of water.
I did not know at first that it would be a series; I discovered after the first novel that I had more to say about it, so I did another. And another, and then the readers demanded yet more.
As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them.