Alan Dean

CTO, Developer, Agile Practitioner

Photograph of Alan Dean

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Working out a writing schedule

This is the top-level view of my book:

  • Introduction (20 pages)
  • Chapter 1: Introducing the Project (10 pages)
  • Chapter 2: The Product Data Store (20 pages)
  • Chapter 3: User Authentication (50 pages)
  • Chapter 4: Product Management (80 pages)
  • Chapter 5: Product Pages (50 pages)
  • Chapter 6: The Shopping Cart (100 pages)
  • Chapter 7: Checkout (150 pages)
  • Chapter 8: Personalization (100 pages)
  • Chapter 9: Deployment, Monitoring and Management (50 pages)

My next task is to work out a writing schedule to accomplish these chapters. This is my first book, so I am on a steep learning curve.

Aside from community commitments, I will be devoting my weekends to writing and my weekday evenings to preparation, editorial and revisions.

I will backload the Introduction and Chapter 1. Luckily Chapters 2 to 4 form an ‘up ramp’ in terms of page count, which I hope will allow me to accelerate into the writing rather than needing to be at high velocity from the start (an objective I would be unlikely to achieve). Another piece of luck is that the UK Bank Holiday season falls right in the middle of the schedule, just at the point where I have the largest pieces of work to accomplish.

So, thinking in units of ‘weekend’ my initial plan is as follows:

  • Feb 28 = Environment Prep & Ancillary Tasks
  • Mar 07 = Chapter 2: The Product Data Store (20 pages)
  • Mar 14 = Chapter 3: User Authentication (50 pages)
  • Mar 21 = Chapter 4: Product Management (80 pages)
  • Mar 28 = Chapter 4: Product Management (80 pages) [Open Space Coding Day]
  • Apr 04 = Chapter 5: Product Pages (50 pages) [DDD Belfast]
  • Apr 11 = Chapter 6: The Shopping Cart (100 pages) [Easter Bank Holidays]
  • Apr 18 = Chapter 6: The Shopping Cart (100 pages)
  • Apr 25 = Chapter 6: The Shopping Cart (100 pages)
  • May 02 = Chapter 7: Checkout (150 pages) [DDD Scotland], [May Day Bank Holiday]
  • May 09 = Chapter 7: Checkout (150 pages)
  • May 16 = Chapter 7: Checkout (150 pages)
  • May 23 = Chapter 8: Personalization (100 pages) [Whitsun Bank Holiday]
  • May 30 = Chapter 8: Personalization (100 pages) [Open Space Coding Day]
  • Jun 06 = Chapter 9: Deployment, Monitoring and Management (50 pages)
  • Jun 13 = Introduction, Chapter 1
  • Jun 20 = (manuscript)

A tough schedule, I know, but I really want this book out on the shelves by the time that PDC ‘09 rolls around.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Tough indeed. I think I average about half the speed (even when writing in my native language) … good luck, and I promise to be suitably impressed if you manage it :-)

Alan Dean said...

How many hours a week does your speed relate to?