...but my resolution this year was to do very little. I'm not generally a resolution type of person - I believe that making a change in your life, be it professional, personal, spiritual or whatever, can and should start at any time, and tying it to the Gregorian calendar is an excuse to delay things, habits, decisions, that you could be changing tomorrow.

All that said, 2012 was ambitiously busy. Some things were expected (having a baby), some were unplanned and relatively last minute (buying a house). Oh, and I got married too. On our honeymoon I spent a whole day vomiting, which could have been my body simply reacting to the stress of the previous few weeks or months. So 2013's ambitions stretched no further than spending time in my new house with my new family.

But somehow, amidst protestations of wanting to 'chill out' a bit more, I've found myself helping set up a creative writing charity. The driving force behind it are two friends of mine, but nevertheless I thought I'd weigh in with my two cents and a few contacts that might be useful. Based on an idea by Dave Eggers (see his TED talk for further info), The Ministry of Stories aims to increase children's literacy by taking learning out of the classroom. It's not to say that the classroom paradigm fails our children (although Sir Ken Robinson might say it does), but more that supplements are sometimes needed to keep them engaged.

We are going through the process of setting up a charity similar to the Ministry, inspired by or possibly affiliated with the Hackney branch of the MOS. 'The Inventive Inventors' Inventory' will be like an after-school club designed to improve children's written English, with the concept based around invention: the children wear lab coats, the class facilitators wear lab coats, the atmosphere one of boundaryless creativity. Now we're tasking ourselves with finding workshop runners. We have a solid base of potential volunteers, from comic book authors to scriptwriters to novelists, so really it's about getting a compelling schedule together to open these kids' minds. First stop: running a class at the opening of the J3 library on Tuesday 19 March. So much for my quiet year...