Did he do well?

December the 20th already?! Must be time to take stock of the year, look forward to the next one, and post one of my sporadic blog entries!

So, what's been happening since I last waffled to you? Well, I had a list in my last entry, let's see how I did:

30 flash365 stories for November - I was planning to write these early to lighten my load. It didn't happen. However, the stories which did emerge were, I think, amongst my best yet. I managed to write a whole series of linked stories which were both stand-alone and a single piece. The whole collection is currently with a fabulous publisher and I hope will come out as a pamphlet sometime next year. So, you know, that's okay.

I then found I had to write all of December's stories early. All 31 were done before the 9th December. This was so they could be passed on to the BBC who are going to broadcast 15 or so of them. So, if you want to hear them, they will be on Radio 4 at 5.30pm on Christmas Eve, read by Rory Kinnear, Emelia Fox, Kenneth Cranham and Diana Rigg! (The podcast will be up after the broadcast at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/ipm)

30 days of NaNoWriMo novel writing (1,667 words a day) - nah, never happened. I decided it was just one too many things to try and do. Next year, maybe. Though I have other novel plans in the pipeline. More on that below.

start work on the rewrites for my York Notes - started, yes, and got good feedback from the editor that I am on the right lines. Then I stopped to do all the other things I had to do. Need to restart soon as they all have to be done by 15th Jan. But, you know, there was this blog to write and - ooh, squirrel!

mark student work which will start arriving soon - this has taken up most of the last 6 weeks. It's quite ridiculous really. Still, there was some really good work in there, including an essay to which I gave one of my highest marks ever. That's always a pleasure.

continue promoting National Flash Fiction Day including building a website and running a competition - This carried on, and the website was finally built. It's up at http://www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk/ if you fancy a look. Of course, with something like this, the workload grows, so I currently find myself putting together an Arts Council bid, as you do.

read the entries for the new edition of Word Gumbo and put the issue together - managed this, late but in earnest. And, I have to say, it's a great issue. Why not have a read: http://gumbopress.co.uk/wordgumbo.html

pay a visit to Manchester at the end of the month to read at Bad Language - This was a great event. It was fab to be back in Manchester with all my friends. Being upstaged by David Gaffney and Sarah-Clare Conlon was dispiriting but expected. Still, I think Lucy Burkhampton went down well.

submit stories, as per usual - This also went by the board. However, with November's stories being considered for a pamphlet and December's being broadcast on Radio 4, I don't feel too bad about this. Still, with the Christmas break now upon me, I'm hoping to get a whole bunch sent out.

teach - yep.

and finally, live - this did happen, occasionally, and I need, as ever, to thank Kath for her support, and for making those moments of life so good! And, of course, to Milo, without whom my life would be a dark, dank, stinking hole.

Anyway, that wasn't what I was planning to blog about at all. I was going to do so much more... Ah well, I think I'll drop this coin in the fountain, and write another one. You know, the one I actually planned to write... So, don't go anywhere, I'll be back in a minute.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel Just Sounded its Horn

I've just been looking ahead to what I have planned for November. It looks like this:

• 30 flash365 stories
• 30 days of NaNoWriMo novel writing (1,667 words a day)
• start work on the rewrites for my York Notes
• mark student work which will start arriving soon
• continue promoting National Flash Fiction Day including building a website and running a competition
• read the entries for the new edition of Word Gumbo and put the issue together
• pay a visit to Manchester at the end of the month to read at Bad Language
• submit stories, as per usual
• teach
• and finally, live

I'm starting to think I may be attempting to munch more than is possible.

So, I hear you ask, what am I going to do about it?

Well, there is one thing in there which is not November-critical. It's not what you might expect, though. It's my daily flash365 story.

You see, the promise for flash365 is to publish a story every day, not that it has to have been written on that day. And, I will be doing NaNo every day so it's not like I'll be taking a month off.

Also, the plan for November is a series of linked stories all set in the same location at the same time. As such, it would be great to write them all before the first is posted, then there can be forward links as well as backwards ones.

So, there's my plan. I'm going to try and write 38 flash fictions in 8 days. It sounds insane, I know, but if I can do it then November has a chance to become that little more manageable.

Okay, off I go. Wish me luck!

Stuff and things...

I usually like to write a blog post which focuses on one thing at a time, but there are too many things clouding my brain right now to do that. So here is a grab-bag of things that have happened, are happening or will happen, all in no particular order.

Having finished teaching at MMU before Christmas (and having finished the marking hangover from there just today!) this week I started teaching at Winchester. Having been an Associate Lecturer for years, the process is somewhat simplified in that I know all the things I don't know (thank you, Donald Rumsfeld). So, I was able to get all of the admin sorted either before I got there, or on the first day. That much was simple. It didn't, however, take away from the first day nerves. After years at MMU, and a couple of years at Edge Hill working with people I already knew, I was the new boy again. It all went well - they were, after all, only introductory sessions - and I have no doubt that it will continue to do so, but it never stops the nerves. It's a sign that you're fresh and eager, I suppose.

I'm teaching 2 Creative Writing modules there, which is gratifying as my teaching for the last few years has been heavily biased towards literature and theory. The first is a Year 1 Module in 'Creative Voice' which is an introductory module that aims to tie together all the students' previous first-year modules in writing in various forms. It's rich, varied and exciting, and I can't wait to get my teeth into it. I shall be teaching alongside Carole Burns, who seems to have a good grasp on the course and lots of interesting ideas. More on that as it progresses, no doubt.

The other, while also being called 'Creative Voice' is the third year version of the module. This one aims to bring together everything the students have done in their entire degree and prepare them, if such a thing is possible, for the real world. My section finally allows me to use some of my PhD knowledge as I shall be talking about Electronic Writing and Publishing. This is one for me to write and design, and should be even more fun. Again, more on that as it happens. One thing which makes it even better is that I'm teaching that module alongside my friend, Vanessa, who took me under her wing on my first day and showed me around (thanks, Ness!). So, I'm looking forward to working with her too.

In the meantime teaching of Lit Theory and Life Writing continues at Edge Hill. I have promised my Life Writing students that I shall do a small memoir of my own - partly to put the pressure on myself to write a piece which I have been thinking about for a while - but that is definitely for another blog post.

In other news I heard today that my paper proposal for this year's Great Writing conference has been accepted. It will be on the pros and cons of high-pressure writing projects like NaNoWriMo and CalFlaWriMo, so much of what you have read here will form the basis for it. It's not till June, so I don't have to write it yet, but the brain is already turning it over.

While all this has been going on, I have been sending out stories to magazines and competitions. I haven't heard anything back yet, but fingers crossed. Now that I've finished my marking (for the time being, at least) it's time to send out a load more.

On the subject of stories, I have also started editing and finalising the stories from CalFlaWriMo for the book Just Another Ordinary Day, which I hope will be out at the end of the month. More news on that when I have any.

Also, despite the end of the project, my brain hasn't wanted to let go. I've already written a new story in Feb, and have ideas for 3 more just waiting for me to have the time to get to them. Maybe after I finish this blog post, what do you say?

As if that wasn't enough, I'm also plunging back into the world of Slipstream (my NaNoWriMo novel), familiarising myself with the plot and characters and making notes of where it needs any major rewriting. That needs to be done before the finer job of cleaning and polishing can be done.

I haven't yet got to my other novel, Endless Days, nor to my conference article from last year, 'Stranger than Faction', (which I want to submit by Monday, so I guess that has just moved up the schedule to tomorrow morning.) That said, I have been turning bits and pieces of Endless Days over in my mind, and having read Negotiating with the Dead by Margaret Atwood, for one of my Winchester courses, I now have some idea of how to make the article better, so I guess they're moving on whatever I do.

In amongst all that, I've also found time to do a reading and an open mic night, mark essays, read text-books, teach my classes, and somehow become embroiled in a scheme to set up a new Flash-Fiction Laureate. Possibly. How do I find the time? I have no idea.

Anyway, that's what's on my mind at the moment. A little glimpse into the life of someone who more and more feels he has every right to call himself a professional writer. Any questions?

Grinding my nose

And so the academic year has started up again. I'm teaching 6 different classes - more than many full-time lecturers - but, hey, it pays the bills. For the practise of writing the start of the new year has two effects.

The first is the one you would expect. I am now busy with all kinds of teaching related activities. Preparing seminars and lectures, planning ahead for the term, reading the texts I shall be teaching, reminding myself of the theories I need to cover and, oh yes, teaching the classes themselves. As a result, the time I have to dedicate to writing has been vastly truncated. Where, in the summer, I had the luxury of time, now, if I want to write, I have to squeeze it in around my work. You would think the result would be less writing.

But that is where the other effect comes in to play. Over the summer, the vast endless tracts of time sucked up motivation and urgency. There seemed to be so much time that nothing had to be done right away. I did get a lot done, but not as much as I wanted, and probably not as much as I could. Now, with time short, the urgency is back and so the motivation is there to work on writing when I get the chance.

The other effect of teaching starting is like having my brain jump-started. A summer of reading and occasional writing and, let's face it, growing lethargy, didn't help at all. But now that I have to get up, have to get my classes ready, and have to go out and teach, my energy levels are up, my brain is firing again, and my motivation is returning.

I have had to devote the last couple of weeks to preparation for the new term. New courses meant new books to read and new concepts to get my head around. But now that it has all started, I can see how to fit in all the things I want to do with all the things I have to do.

So, more stories have already been finished off and submitted, and my head is once more bowing over my novel. Penguin are accepting unsolicited manuscripts up to the end of October, and I plan to get my book to them within that time. And November is time for Nanowrimo's 'write a novel in a month', and I'm already planning for that.

So, despite the new teaching load, I will carry on with the writing, and let the stimulation of teaching feed into it. And you'll be hearing lots more from me about all of this and more. So, all together... 'Hi ho, hi ho...'