And we're off! Behind the scenes of face2face Part 3

And we’re off!

Remember when you were a pup, Dave, and we took you to puppy classes. You’d be in the middle of the room, all eyes on you - and the question on everyone’s lips was, Will Dave the pup be able to deliver a perfect sit and stay on command? Well, it felt a bit like that for Chris and me, only it was a sit and write command. Once the planning meetings were over, it was now up to us to deliver. Yes, you’re right Dave, a lot of pressure, just like there was for you – well, a bit more actually!

It was now September 2002 and the publishing date for the first two levels of face2face was early 2005.

However, to take a book from the final manuscript to the final product can take up to a year. So we only had about eighteen months to write both books. It was left up to Chris and me to decide how we were going to divide up the work. We could have written a book each, but we chose to share the writing of both books so we could ensure that the writing style was fairly consistent. We could have chosen to write units together as some author teams do, but we chose to take responsibility for different units. It suited our lifestyles better that way.

So how did we get going? Before actually starting on a book, Chris and I would meet up and share ideas and any material that we’d found. According to the structure of our books we needed twelve unit topics and forty-seven related lesson ideas. And it all had to fit the language syllabus we were working to. Can you imagine how challenging that is, Dave? Actually, no you can’t, you’re a dog.

But let me tell you, it’s tough. All we usually managed to do at those initial meetings was choose a topic for each unit and decide on the sequence according to our syllabus. And if we were lucky, from the articles we’d already collected, we’d find a few texts we could use. Then before we parted company we’d decide who would take responsibility for which units. Harder than it sounds, Dave. It was like being in some Moroccan souk.

OK, I’ll do unit 8, then you can do 9.

Erm,9? OK. But how about I give you 6 and you let me have 8.

But somehow it always worked out in the end and we’d go our separate ways and begin writing in earnest, but more of that next time.

And you thought learning to fetch a ball was complicated, Dave.

Find out more about face2face 2nd edition here.