...and I’m back.

I’ve been having a lovely time over at follow the yellow brick road posting all sorts of nonsense, but today I decided to wander back over here for a change. Not, I hasten to add, because I plan to say anything intellectual, but perhaps because I am going to say something about books, more specifically, visual art books. There’s a little back story to this, so bear with me for a moment...

Up until six months ago, I worked as the manager of a lovely visual arts bookshop. It was my baby: I set it up and I ran it, doing more or less everything myself from organising book events to stock control. Like most jobs, it had its good points, and its bad points, but by far the best thing about it was the books themselves, and their sheer loveliness. I have always had a thing for visual arts books. Don’t get me wrong, I love all books, all of them, even the sad, dog-eared paperbacks in charity shops that no one wants. But there is something extra special about visual arts books: the beautifully shiny pages, the glossy photographs, the strokable covers. They may not be the sort of books you read avidly all the time, but they are such a treat to look at and to own.

I loved ordering the books, and loved it even more when the parcels arrived addressed to me: big fat brown cardboard boxes that I had to lug up two flights of stairs. It was like getting presents every day: opening the boxes, with polystyrene balls flying everywhere, felt almost like Christmas. Out came lovely, brand new books, each a perfect objet d’art in itself, wrapped in cellophane or sometimes neatly in thick brown paper. And then, possibly even more fun, I got to arrange them on the shelves.

I now have a different job - a fantastic job, which also has much to do with both visual arts and literature/books, and has many delights of its own. However, what I have realised recently is that I am really missing the books, and so I thought I might perhaps use this rather sad and neglected little blog as a space to ramble on about visual arts books - and catalogues and zines and publications and all the other wonderful, pretty things out there, partly just to indulge myself as much as anything else. Of course, I'll still be posting over at follow the yellow brick road about other important matters such as writing and exhibitions and red shoes that I like. But I think this will be fun too.

New blog

OK, so for no particular reason, I have a new blog.

It's called follow the yellow brick road and it looks a lot prettier than this one. You can find it here.

Perhaps I will come back to this blog at some point when I have some intellectual things to say about books (?!), but for the meantime I'll be posting there!

Feel The Fear and do it anyway?

Today I made a decision to do something which has absolutely terrified me for years. I have signed up for a creative writing workshop - a two day novel-based course coming up in the next couple of weeks.

To anyone else that might not sound so scary, but I have always been petrified by the idea of sharing my work with strangers - with anyone really. I don’t know what it is I am so afraid of, but the very thought of it gives me The Fear. However it’s far too late now - I’ve decided to take the plunge. Also I have already paid, so I’m going to have to go through with it and be brave.

With that in mind, I am back here again. It’s not so very adventurous I know, given that (so far!) there seem to be absolutely zero consequences to whatever I post. I would estimate my current readership to be a grand total of nil. However, it’s still a step in the right direction. It’s all about just getting used to the idea that it’s OK to just have a go and see what happens.

In view of all this creative fear and angst, I’ve unearthed my copy of Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way for artistic inspiration and support. I always find it a particularly peculiar book - perhaps just because I’m not always comfortable with the terminology used and the approach Cameron takes - there’s a bit too much about God and it has that slightly discomfiting ‘self-help’ quality to it. However, there’s no doubt that it’s a great source of inspiration to get going or to carry on when the going gets tough. It’s a good place to go for straight-to-the-point advice that always hits home: today I opened the book to read mistakes are necessary... progress, not perfection is what we should be asking of ourselves.

Couldn’t be better advice. As The Fear looms like a nightmare monster, I’m taking a quote from Henry David Thoreau as my motto: Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!

Today...

OK, so I'm back. The big, bad blogosphere couldn't scare me away for too long.

Actually, I'm not so sure it is so very scary after all. When it comes down to it, I realise I quite like the idea of words flowing out into a soundless void. Good, bad, indifferent... suddenly it doesn't seem to matter. Sometimes it's nice to stop fighting, and just drift along in the tide, not worrying about consequences.

The idea of writing without consequences is a particularly appealing one. It's so easy to get fixed on results, products, and to forget that it's the process that's the point. I like the idea of being more playful, and throwing away the idea of "finishing" something "good".

Sources of inspiration? ...I came across Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto today. A bit wordy but I like it. Or, of course, Keri Smith's fabulous Wreck this Journal project. I actually bought a copy of the book for myself the other week and I'm (sort of) looking forward to wrecking it. Although it is surprisingly hard. I am, after all, a total perfectionist, particularly about visual things: the legacy of numerous childhood instances of being told by teachers I was "too messy". And this of course, is what it really all comes down too. It's all very well to write like this, stream-of-consciousness, not even thinking about it. It's all very well to declare your commitment to being adventurous, playful, experimental. But when it comes down to it, when the moment comes and you actually have to take action, suddenly it seems very, very scary.

A bit like that big orange button down there. Publish Post. Do I dare? I haven't even read it through. I don't even know if it makes sense. There's a whole host of inner voices: why would I even bother? No one will ever read this anyway. But another voice, the naughty one (the one who is "too messy" I think) is taunting me, tempting me.

Just press it. What's the worst that could happen? Just take some action. Now.

Dipping a toe in the water...

It's taken me a while to even get this far.

And this time, there's more to it than just my usual procrastination. I have to admit, I feel conflicted about the very notion of a blog. Apart from the fact that it's just a horrible word that sticks in your throat, there's something about it that's simply.... icky.

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. For a start, just today I read this in a great new blog by a fellow Mancunian, Sally, entitled nine chains to the moon:

I feel peculiar when I imagine strangers reading it. When I think of it I get a kind of creeping shivery excited sick feeling...Is it very narcissistic to want to write a blog? I feel more vulnerable than gratified at the moment.

I know exactly how she feels. Here I am, with the very tip of my toe touching the water, and right now it's feeling pretty cold and hostile. For starters, it's so different from writing a personal diary or journal: Anne Frank once memorably wrote "paper has more patience than people" yet it's quite clear to me that this just ain't the same deal. When you write a blog, or anything online, you set it free into the world, and that has consequences: as Sally points out, you are vulnerable, and that's a very scary thought. But even more importantly, the very act of writing it at all seems to hint at a particularly repellent sort of egoism or narcissism that makes me feel quite uncomfortable with myself.

Keri Smith, the author/illustrator/guerilla artist whose fantastic blog The Wish Jar is a long-standing favourite of mine is similarly aware of the paradoxes and conflicts wrapped up in the practice of writing a blog. In a post from November 2007, she asks herself:

…why does blogging (and reading blogs) make me feel icky now? i've always believed in the power of people sharing their stories, in turn helping others to feel more human and validated in their own life… issue #1 for me in all of this is the false sense of intimacy that is created within and by this medium… and issue #2 is that many times the blogging world feels more like a big popularity contest, than a true medium of creativity. the goal for many to gain as many readers as possible.

Yep, the key word again. It's just icky and there's no getting around it.

Like so many of us, what Keri seems to be searching for is a sense of authenticity, of true creativity, of communication. Yet this so often seems to get lost or distorted as we attempt to negotiate the tangled labyrinth of the web, with its corporate sponsorships, hidden advertisements and viral marketing strategies, and all we're left with is a profound sense of alienation. That's full-on, full-blown Marxist/Hegelian alienation we're talking about here. And like Keri, that's absolutely not what I'm about. I'm not a business: I'm not interested in marketing myself. I don't want to participate in a 'popularity contest' - in fact, given my all-too-often deeply ambivalent feelings about my own artistic work, I'd actually prefer it if no one read this at all, and certainly no one I actually know In Real Life (to be honest, the very thought of it gives me the heebie-jeebies).

So at this point, I suppose I have to ask myself: why am I doing it at all? Wouldn't it be better just to carry on as I always have? I've been writing diaries prolifically since I was 13 years old for myself and no one else - why do I need to do this too?

I don't know... but sometimes it feels good just to take a running jump and leap right into the water...

Right now, a lot of my daily existence feels very planned and regimented. I'm working full time in a new and very demanding job and I'm also studying part time so most of my spare time is taken up doing pretty mind-melting academic work. What I'm looking for is a space in my day-to-day doings where I can be a bit more playful - to be experimental, or to do something different... and just see what happens without any plans or expectations or consequences. Ostensibly this blog is about books, hence the title which I've borrowed from Walter Benjamin's 1931 essay, but actually we'll see what happens. Who knows what will happen? I like the uncertainty of that.

So writing a blog is definitely icky. But perhaps it can be icky in a good way. A bit like eating too much ice-cream or an entire bag of Haribo by yourself while watching re-runs of The OC or listening to Girls Aloud, or wearing leg-warmers. Clearly none of which I would ever do. Well not all at once, anyway.

I think I can safely say that my toe has officially entered the water. Perhaps that's bravery enough for one day.