Absolute zero

I always find it really difficult to start a new blog. You have no point of reference, nothing to refer back to. It's absolute zero. Diving straight in and writing a 'proper' entry straight away seems, well, inappropriate, there's no means of introduction... but how does one even go about starting these things?

I'm not very good at fresh starts. I almost always make an awful first impression. The first time I met my best friend's boyfriend, I managed to tell him I'm lazy and disabled (I'm neither, just a little politically incorrect and prone to severe verbal diarrhoea after one too many glasses of rosé.) But then again, this isn't technically a 'fresh start'. It's not like this is the first blog I've ever had, and it won't be my exclusive creative outlet throughout the course of its life, either. I have one other active blog, and a plethora of notebooks dotted all over the place. I hope to encourage others to contribute to this, too, which again negates the need for me to formally introduce myself here. My name, shoe size and favourite colour Smarite (orange - by a mile!) are wholly irrelevant. This isn't about me as a person, but the world around me. The world as I - and others - see it.

Basically, I want this blog to be an exercise in writing. The initial idea is that I will update it at least once every single day for the next 365 days (with the exception of any holidays I take, hmm, I'm going to France in just over a week and really haven't thought this through... I guess I'll jot things down in notesbooks and store up days in lieu. Or something. What? Stop looking at me like that! It's my idea and I'll do as I please!) The posts won't necessarily be about anything in particular, and by the same token they just might. They can be about, well, anything. I'm incredibly happy with the way my life is wired at the moment (which is a shame as writing is so much easier when you're feeling misanthropic!), so I've nothing to complain about (in the traditional sense), but there are some negative influences around me that have been making me, for lack of a better word, miserable. This has subsequently impacted upon both my desire to write and - possibly - the quality of pieces that I've produced. I've felt downtrodden and repressed and it's had a detrimental impact on my creativity.

Which is never a good thing.

I am in love with language; it's always been there for me. It facilitates my one talent: writing. It's the one thing I can do better than anyone else (or maybe not; read the blog and judge that for yourself.) I've come to a point in my life where I realise that I'm always going to be pretty average, plain. Beige. This isn't a bad thing, I've accepted it. Some people just aren't that special. But when I write, sometimes, I feel like maybe I do have that little extra something about me. The ability to manipulate and shape language, mould it into the form I want and express myself coherently. Sometimes I feel like it's all I've got, and I don't want to lose it.

Why this blog? Why now?
I need to reignite my affair with the writing, as over the past few weeks I've been feeling like it's abandoned me; packed up and left without even so much as a goodbye. Maybe I drove it away, maybe it had been unhappy for a while, or maybe "things just weren't working out". I don't know. All I know is that I'm broken hearted at the thought of it never coming back.

So, with that in mind, welcome to STORIES ABOUT ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING AND NOTHING: 365 unique stories, none of which have even been written yet. It's an exercise in creativity and language, and I hope I remain as committed and excited about the whole thing as I feel right now.