I was recently invited by the most excellent folks at The Culture Vulture to take part in their lovely Travelling Moleskine project as part of The Big Draw 2009.

The concept for the project is relatively simple: dozens of pristine new Moleskine notebooks have been ‘unleashed into the world,’ each with its own theme. The recipients of the notebook respond creatively to the theme on one or two pages of the notebook, and then passes it on to someone else, who in turn will make their own contribution, and pass the notebook on. The result will be dozens of mini collaborative exhibitions-in-a-book: completed Moleskines will be returned to The Culture Vulture at the end of September, to be exhibited as part of a special project exhibition.

I was very pleased to start the ball rolling for a beautiful brand new Moleskine, with the theme of ‘My Party Trick’:

I love projects like this, and especially anything involving collaging, doodling or drawing. However, I make no claims to be an artist (I didn't even take a GCSE in art and, to be honest, still struggle to stay inside the lines when colouring in) so I'm not sure my effort really stands up next to some of the much more accomplished responses to the project, which you can view at the flickr pool here - I especially love this one by Katie of What Katie Does. However, I certainly had myself a lot of fun with the felt-tip pens and stickers!


You can find out more about the project and some of the contributors so far on The Culture Vulture website, which is also an excellent place to go for information about all manner of cultural goings on in Leeds, Bradford and beyond.

I woke this morning, on the first day of December, to snowfall - a gentle flurry of featherlight flakes. There’s something so magical about snow.

Now it is December, I can start enjoying thinking about Christmas - because regardless of what the shops seem to think, Christmas does not start in mid-October. But now I can start planning presents, and thinking about cards, and contemplating mince pies with brandy butter, and (when I am better) trips to the Christmas market for mulled wine and other good festive things.

I have decided to give myself a small challenge for December. Writing about the things I like over the last week or so has been so cheering. Thinking about the things you love make you feel good (very medicinal), and also in some way reminds you who you are. It’s also made me realise how easy it is to forget about enjoying the small, lovely things in the face of all the negative stuff - the Big Important Worrying Things - when actually I can’t help thinking that it’s the nice things that really matter in the end.

I’m aware that writing about ‘nice’ things perhaps isn’t the most intellectual of pastimes, but it is extremely enjoyable, and to be quite honest I couldn’t care less about being intellectual at the moment. Anyway, lovely things give a fairy-light twinkle, a snowflake sparkle to grey winter days.

So... throughout December, I will be counting down the days until Christmas with my own advent of cheerful, interesting, inspiring or lovely things - festive or otherwise. There will be a little bitesize something that takes my fancy each and every day.

... my word, there’s a lot of stuff online about blogging. There are whole blogs about blogging. Talk about self-referential. It’s all terribly po-mo.

Far from “ooh - project!”, in fact I have found that a lot of it quickly becomes rather boring if like me, you’re not especially bothered about the technical stuff (widgets, rss feeds, search engine optimisation and the like), but are more interested in the words themselves, and why this might be an interesting thing to do if you like words (and writing them). I haven't found much out there about the blog as a literary or artistic form.

However, what I have found on my travels is a lot of actual blogs written by actual writers who are doing actually interesting and challenging things with this as a format. I have started a list of blogs that I like, which I’m going to add to as I go along. It’s over there, on the right, where it says ‘blogs that are good’.

Interestingly, apart from getting to read a lot of fine writing, another piece of important information I have garnered from these blogs is that if I am going to be serious about this whole blogging (and writing) business I am probably going to need to get myself a much cooler hairdo. Oh well. As long as I don't have to wear a trilby, or gladiator sandals, it will all be fine.

Just to clarify, I think I ought to briefly explain exactly what I mean by "ooh - project!", for those who are not so intimately familiar with the 1995 Amy Heckerling tour-de-force that is Clueless. Sadly, it is a truth universally acknowledged that not all are as appreciative of the 1990s teen movie oeuvre as I, and so for the benefit of the unenlightened, “ooh, project!” is an exclamation one might make when confronted with a new and exciting task, such as transforming a high-school no-hoper into a fully manicured, coiffured, knee-sock-flaunting, plaid-miniskirt-wearing hottie, or indeed getting stuck into any particularly appealing new scheme, in this case trying to suss out exactly what the whole crazy world of blogging is about (see below).

I would love to say here that in future this blog will be referencing more highbrow, intellectual sources, perhaps some Adorno or Derrida, a little Nietzsche, maybe Foucault, Baudrillard? (But not Lacan. Definitely never Lacan.) However in spite of all my academic credentials the truth is I’m much more likely to return to Clueless. It is after all, possibly the most quotable film ever made: for any given situation, I promise you there is an appropriate Clueless quotation to fit it. And at the end of the day, shocking though it may be, I can’t help suspecting that when it comes to a stand off between Of Grammatology and Clueless, I suspect that Clueless is just a teensy bit more fun. Of course, it's also "way existential"... like, everyone knows that.

OK, people. And of course, by people I mean readers. So that’s one, two of you maybe, if I’m lucky? At least one of whom is my mum? (Hello mum!)

But I digress...

Starting this blog has got me thinking about writing in general, and blogging in particular. Before I started writing here, I knew next to nothing about blogging, and indeed about writing online - though I’ve had work published online, I’ve always approached writing it in exactly the same way I’d approach writing in general. I think (I hope) I know a little bit about writing. I certainly have vey extensive experience of what I might term 'personal' writing - diaries, journals, that kind of thing. In spite of this, I’m very happy to admit that I know very little about what writing a blog is really all about. I’m even a little bit ambivalent about the whole exercise, as you will see from this initial post in my having-a-go, testing-the-water blog, unpacking my library. And as I’m sure any reader of this blog will gather, I certainly haven’t started with any particularly coherent plan or considered approach to what exactly it is I’m doing here - I’ve just been posting whatever is in my mind.

But since starting to write here, I’ve become aware that this whole world (I really can’t quite bring myself to use the word ‘blogosphere’) is a complex one, and far from being as straightforward as it might initially seem. Now, I find myself asking two key questions. Firstly, what is a blog, really, when it comes down to it? Personal diary made public? A forum to discuss and communicate with others? A place to gather stuff together? To explore ideas? To showcase work? Or even something akin to fiction - a novel, a fictionalised autobiography? What does a blog really mean? Or, to rephrase the question in a particularly annoying way, which I am afraid I can only justify by explaining that I can't help it - I am currently half way through an English Literature MA course which is especially heavy on the cultural theory - how does it mean?

And then my second question, perhaps the most important one: what is it that makes a blog good? What makes it readable, compelling, meaningful, interesting, engaging? What is it that takes it beyond just another place to mess about and waste time online, and turns it into something altogether more?

Like any good and faithful student, of course my next step is to undertake some research into the subject - i.e. do the reading! I already read a number of blogs I like, and in my work I come across lots more -usually writer's blogs - on a more or less daily basis. However, I’m very much aware that I’m only just starting to scratch the surface. So with this in mind, I’m (perhaps rather optimistically) asking passing readers (if there are any of you out there) to leave a comment below with a link to any blog(s) that you think might be of interest. Blogs you love, blogs you laugh at, even blogs you think are downright awful. Blogs to inspire or enrage or enrich, or that you simply think are a really great read.

We’ll see what I get and I’ll do some investigating. In the meantime, I’m starting by reading this article about internet writing on the Canongate website by fellow Manchester resident, writer (and blogger) Chris Killen. (Chris is also the author of the fabulous 'untitled supermarket nightmare' novel which you can read online here)

And of course, whatever I find out, I’ll be posting it here.