One Year and Counting
Our Writing Timeline and Process
This post is part of an ongoing series by the authors of Instructional Design for Teaching Information Literacy Online: A Student-Centered Approach. For more information about the entire series and to meet the authors, check out our welcome post.
Post Playlist:
100 Years by Five for Fighting
One Year, Six Months by Yellow Card
Good Riddance by Green Day
Sing by My Chemical Romance
It Ends Tonight by The All-American Rejects
Janna, David, Christopher, and myself set out to something quite ambitious in 2023. We set out to write a book in a year. And we did… sort of. This timeline didn’t include the time it took to prepare our book proposal for ACRL publishing or the time from our rough draft to publishing the final book. We set ourselves one year from when we began working on the book draft to our first complete rough manuscript. Here’s a quick peek at our timeline:
August 2022: Book proposal submitted to ACRL
October 2022: Proposal accepted
January 2023: Writing begins
January 2024: First draft of book is complete
February 2024: Peer reviewer feedback is received
April 2024: Second draft is submitted to ACRL for review
We recognize that our tight deadline was only possible due to our close working relationships leading up to this book which allowed us to develop our expertise in this topic together, workshop and trial ideas, and develop our unique collaborative style. However, strong project management during this project also had a role to play. Let’s go over some of the key factors that helped us stay on deadline.
Developing our shared book identity
In our initial kick off meeting we worked together to identify our micro deadlines to keep us on track and discussed how we wanted our book to look. However, it was difficult to know what we needed to decide on until we dove into the work. So we picked a chapter to write together. This served as our template for each of us to refer back to as we embarked on our individual chapters. Once we had drafted our other chapters, we realized this group chapter no longer fit the identity that our book had taken on and needed to be rewritten, but without doing this together our eventual style would not have had the strong roots it needed to function as a whole book.
As we made stylistic choices we kept our own style guide that the four of us could use to guide our chapters. When we did our first book review, after our initial chapter drafts were written, we used these guidelines to form a rubric so we could help our chapters flow and strike a universal voice despite having four authors with unique writing styles.
Setting up communication channels
To work towards our goal we had several concrete deadlines where we would have virtual working meetings to discuss progress and questions. We found it important to strike the right balance between working independently to make quick progress, and group working meetings for cohesion. We used Slack to chat in between meetings, but saved major discussions for working meetings to keep progress moving forward. To chunk this work efficiently we:
Worked independently to outline our assigned chapters and then met to identify gaps and overlap between our planned chapters before writing
Independently wrote our chapters, using slack and a few virtual working meetings to check in on progress, brainstorm together, and questions.
Reviewed sections of the book independently, leaving edits and comments directly in each chapter and then met to discuss how we could improve the flow between chapters and move around content that would better fit elsewhere.
Independently incorporated edits and worked together to review the entire manuscript once more to create a final draft for sharing with our peer reviewer.
Throughout this process, we had dozens of conversations, and kept record of the decisions we made in meeting notes and our communal style guide to help remember what was decided and why. Our check-in meetings were pre scheduled based around the deadlines we initially set for ourselves. We knew we each had busy calendars that were quick to fill up and so it was important we set time aside in advance so we knew we would have time to discuss questions together.
Having timelines and flexibility
Despite all of our planning, it was impossible to account for everything in our initial timeline. We did our best to pad our deadlines, but also needed to be flexible and gracious with each other to be flexible in the moment. Throughout this process we often needed flexibility as we each had to navigate other job responsibilities. We also needed space as we had new ideas or uncovered gaps that we needed to add into our manuscript. Even the best laid plans can’t account for everything. For example, even though we started our journey with a robust table of contents outlining the plan for each chapter, as we learned and developed the book, we moved chapters around, shifted content from one chapter to another where it might flow better, removed redundancies, added new chapters to address gaps, and more. In the end, we ended up revising our table of contents four separate times until we felt we had it right.
Recommendations for others
Figuring out what communication platforms work for you. Consider having plans for how to handle quick questions and what you might need to support longer conversations
Avoid making major changes during independent work time. Save big questions for the pre-scheduled check-in meetings to avoid bogging down the process
Avoid setting deadlines around your busy seasons, for example deadlines don’t have to be equally spaced, you might need longer due dates during peak instruction times during the semester
Make sure all authors are in the same space with feedback. It was important to us that we respected our individuality, while also sharing thoughts and edits with each other that would strengthen the overall book. With this goal in mind it was easier to give and receive difficult feedback knowing that we were critiquing the text, not each other.
Interested in learning more about how to apply project management to library work? Consider checking out chapter 11 in our book to learn about managing an instructional design project.
Want to learn more about this series? Head over to the welcome post for the details and to meet the authors.
Interested in your own copy of our book? You can purchase it on the Association of College & Research Libraries website.
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