Having done nothing with this blog up until now, I’ve decided to put it to use. Recently got a copy of “A Daily Creativity Journal: Make Something Every Day and Change Your Life” by Noah Scalin. Yes, please, do go ahead and click on the link, I might get a teeny-weeny bit of commission if you are persuaded to buy it. Do it now, because after reading the following, you probably won’t want to.

I have to say that when I first looked at the book – I’m not going to say ‘read’ because there is very little to read – I was disappointed. Most of it is empty space, sprinkled with creativity ‘prompts’ and a few anecdotal accounts of how other people took up and completed the challenge. Well, yeah… it is supposed to be an actual journal, so I suppose there will be empty spaces. But then, in that case, it’s not empty enough. I’m not terribly impressed with the prompts, for example, “Create something that floats on water.” Now, now, let’s not get lavatorial but, really, it’s not terribly inspiring, is it? I’ll just say here that the reviews on Amazon.com are 5* and everybody is terribly enthusiastic about this book that is mainly fresh air. However, on AmazonUK, they seem to be a little more demanding and definitely see the book as a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes. Yes, I admit, I was swayed by the Am.Com reviews.

So, anyway,  my choice was to either send the book back – very tempting – dump it (maybe to see if it floats on water?) or attempt to do something with it, i.e. accept the challenge. I’m going with the challenge. For a while.

Now, I’ve had to give it a lot of thought because I already do make lots of things – like Zentangles, art journal pages, textile art, Squidoo pages… and sometimes I even cook for my kids. So my dilemma was, what should I do? It needs to fit in with the other stuff so can’t be too overwhelming or I will simply neglect it until it dies.  In the end, my choice of what to do has been determined by the book itself. It’s a nice sturdy softback with good quality, shiny paper and nice curved corners. The content not being up to much is irrelevant because my 365 day challenge is to alter this book every day, just a little bit until it no longer is what it is but is a work of art, a proper journal and something to be proud of.

Starting right here:

Tune in to see how the cover turns out tomorrow.