Following the success of Second Sight, we began laying plans for a sequel, A Room of Our Own, based on the work produced for the ‘Virginia Woolf and Bloomsbury’ module. The important difference between the two projects was that Second Sight was unplanned and A Room of Our Own was pre-planned; this meant that the second book could have a proper structure put in place before editing began. [New paragraph]. I gathered together a talented editorial group in the summer preceding the module and we discussed initial design plans for the book. During the Autumn Term, the module was taught and, to preserve the integrity of the teaching and assessment process, work on the book was put on hold until everything had been completed.
When marking was finalised, I copied students’ entries from Blackboard and into a Word document so that students’ feedback and marks would remain completely confidential. I also anonymised the pieces, keeping a named copy of the document for myself. This meant that the student editors could not tell who had written the pieces so they were judging them anonymously. From here, the editors selected the outstanding pieces of writing, keeping an eye on the variety in the book as a whole. Because Maddie and Libby could not be expected to select their own work (they are very modest), I decided which of their pieces should be included. Only when the final selection was complete did I reveal names.
Following the final selection, I produced a new Word document including all the pieces to be presented in the book. I removed the pieces we felt didn’t fit and I added authors’ names. This document was sent to the editors.
Editing then began in earnest. Each editor took a section of the book and set about imposing presentational conformity (putting text titles in italics, for example), removing any errors in the individual pieces, and finding the most powerful order of pieces within their sections. As each editor returned their sections to me, I created the first full draft of the book on a new document. I also began preparing the Bibliography from all the references used in the pieces.