And so it begins...

With the bank holiday weekend now passed, and the last of the teaching admin sorted for the year, today has been that red-letter day, the writing of the 'To Do' list.

It's quite long and contains a lot of entries which start with the word 'write', its brother 'rewrite', and its cousin 'finish'. As I go through what I want to accomplish over the summer it seems that I have more things to finish off - either by actually writing the remainder of an abandoned work, or by redrafting a first draft - than I actually want to start from scratch. Hopefully, as I work on those older pieces and reconnect with what made me want to start them in the first place, they will inspire other new works.

Among the things to work on are the novel I finished at the beginning of last year but have been unable to work on until now for a variety of reasons. However, in the last weeks, I have found my mind returning to it and starting to work on it without me being conscious of planning to do so.

I also have two plays - one for radio, one for stage - which are only each a quarter finished, but which still run round in my mind from time to time.

Add to this the range of stories, flash fictions and poems which have been written but never sent out and I have more than enough to keep me going.

However, these are not my first priority. I shall be starting with something which is much more like 'work'. I occasionally write study-guides for the EBSCO Literary Contexts database. I have a few of these to write by the end of June, so I shall be starting with these. They will be interspersed with writing my conference paper for the Great Writing conference in Bangor later this month. I'm presenting on my experiences of teaching both life-writing and fiction writing this year and the way the two crossed over, but more on that in a later blog post, I think.

Oh, and the first entry on the 'To Do' list (after the already crossed off 'Write 'to do' list', of course) is 'Write Blog post', so I shall start with the feeling of accomplishment that comes from crossing that one off. Now to start work on all those others.

Marking has come to an end and the long academic summer (longer even for us 'associates') stretches before me. My plan for these light-eveninged days? To write.

I have plans for essays, papers, stories, plays, poems and a novel. Some of it will be new, some re-writing, some working on part-finished projects abandoned some time ago.

The problem with so much time and so many things to work on is finding the motivation to work. So, here is my blog, a way for me to write about my writing - a wonderful diversionary tactic - but also a good way to force myself to write. If others are following what I'm doing then I will feel the need to keep up the work. So, if you feel like watching over my shoulder and providing a silent (or not so silent) monitoring presence to ensure I'm hard at it, then please feel free follow me.

For those of you wondering about the title of the blog. Well, it's a Frank Zappa quote and the title of one of his albums. But, additionally, I also think that blogging about my writing makes an assumption that you will think it's important enough for me to spout on about it. So, if you can forgive my unmitigated audacity, then why not come on this journey with me.

Come on, the engine's running, the tank is full, and the door is unlocked. Open it up and climb in, let's see where this road leads.