My thanks to The Scotsman for printing the following quotation from David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, in today’s edition:

A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow, real poverty.

I’ve printed this off and pinned it above my desk, a reminder to stay positive however difficult things get.

I’m not intending this to become a film review blog, but as I get started on my OU AA310: History of Film and TV course, watching movies will become a bigger part of my life than it is already. I won’t be able to stop myself from writing about them.

However, I shan’t be reporting on what I think of the latest blockbusters, because (a) the films I’ll be studying are primarily from the 1950s, 60s and 70s, and (b) very few new movies actually appeal to me these days. I’m simply don’t belong to Hollywood’s main target audiences: teenage boys and young women. Despite an ‘ageing population’ most film-makers currently ignore the middle-aged. I have though recently enjoyed a movie that could have been made with me in mind: It’s Complicated. In fact, I watched it twice in a week.

‘Twice in a week’? I didn’t set out to do this, but by coincidence I watched the film one evening after Christmas and then my cousin, who came to spend Hogmanay with us, gave me the DVD as a gift. Having been brought up to be polite I thanked her effusively, saying truthfully that I’d wanted to see it at the cinema but never got round to going (this, perhaps, is a clue to why movies aren’t made for the middle-aged: we always find something better to do than travel somewhere to see a film when we know it’ll come to us eventually via Sky). John having gone to bed early with man-flu, she suggested we watch It’s Complicated to take us through to midnight. What could I do but agree?

Meryl Streep plays Jane, the owner of a chic cafe and mother of three (almost) grown-up children. She’s made a good life for herself since divorcing husband Jake, played by Alec Baldwin, ten years earlier when he left her for a much younger (and flatter stomached) woman. However, their son’s graduation ceremony in New York leads to Jane and Jake ending up in bed together. This is the start of an affair, during which Jane also begins a relationship with her architect Adam, played by Steve Martin. 

Okay, it’s pretty lightweight stuff. The Independent describes it thus: the soft, warm, doughy comfort food it was no doubt intended to be. But I enjoyed It’s Complicated  for that very reason: it was easy and engaging to watch, without being condescending or insulting. Streep looks her age, thank goodness (there’s a funny episode when, as Jane, she considers – and dismisses – having ‘work’ done on her face). And what woman, no longer in the full flush of youth, wouldn’t wish for the opportunity to choose between Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin? Baldwin has a hairy, barrel-shaped torso combined with the nature of a boy who’s never grown up, while Martin (let’s be kind and ignore the peculiar plastic quality of his face) plays a sensitive, intelligent man who’s only too keen to permit Jane to condemn half his wardrobe to the trash can.

The ending, when Jane tries to explain her dilemma to her children, is a bit nauseating, but there were enough pleasures in this film to bear a second viewing so soon after the first. And Streep and Martin (who showed flashes of the ‘old’ Martin before he started taking himself too seriously) made smoking pot seem like such good fun that had someone offered me some to see in the new year with (I’ve never taken an illegal substance in my life) I would have been sorely tempted to accept. As it was, we had a nice cup of tea.

Meryl's choice: Baldwin . . .

. . . or Martin?

Self-denial is tricky, especially if it comes straight after a period of self-indulgence (and involves giving up chocolate). So it’s particularly absurd that so many of us are drawn into making those ‘new year, new me’ resolutions. However, this is the time of year when our minds turn to self-improvement, and so the BBC news channel has trotted out a psychologist to provide hints on how best to achieve our aims, be they to lose weight, give up alcohol/smoking or nag one’s partner less (the latter being the target of one vox pop interviewee).

Apparently most new year’s resolutions are broken within the first week of January. According to the experts, we improve our chances of success (though only by about 10%, which smacks of the claims made about purportedly chloresterol-reducing spreads) by telling others about our aims. The sheer fact that everyone else is embarking on a ‘life review’ at the same time is supposed to stiffen our resolve. And we should give ourselves realistic goals to work towards.

However, the one thing that is most likely to make us fitter, thinner, less reliant on noxious substances and altogether better human beings is: perseverance. Duh – I don’t need an expert to tell me that I have to keep working at something to achieve my aims. And it’s not as though you can go to Boots and purchase perseverance over the counter. It has to come from inside you.

Writers, especially the unpublished ones, have perseverance in spades – throughout the year, not just in January. Those of us who are serious about getting our words into print just keep going. We devote long, unpaid hours that keep us away from ‘normal’ life to an enterprise that may never be seen, let alone valued, by another soul.

The word ‘perseverance’ has many synonyms: constancy, determination, diligence, doggedness, endurance, indefatigability, persistence, pertinacity, purposefulness, resolution, sedulity, stamina, steadfastness, tenacity. All of them are lovely strong words.

So, next time someone gives you that look – that mixture of incredulity and pity – when you tell them you’re writing a novel and no you don’t have a publisher for it, and they say someone along the lines of ‘Are you mad?’, take your pick from the list above.

My one resolution for 2011 is to be resolute in my belief that I will be published.

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier post, we recently emptied our loft in order to get it re-insulated. We narrowly avoided disaster when the stepladder slipped and John let tumble the box he was passing to me which contained several old Le Creuset saucepans (the orange sort, not the gorgeous turquoise models pictured). When I’d recovered from coming close to meeting my maker by being hit on the head by cast-iron cookware, we quickly filled the study with enough boxes to render the normal contents of the room unreachable bar my PC.

The saucepans were joined by several other items destined for the local charity shop. Some we no longer want or need (a jug that’s too big and ugly to sit on the shelf with the rest of my collection, a bumbag for the safekeeping of change back in the days when we sold unwanted items at car boot sales). There were also things we have no reason to possess in the first place, including two music stands – neither of us plays an instrument - and a Buzz Lightyear.

Feeling ruthless, we also made a pile of stuff to put on the bonfire: wooden curtain poles, the stand for a cheval mirror which is now screwed to the wall, an old Ikea wardrobe. The last time we had a really good bonfire was when we cremated Snowball the cockerel - the next one will be as big, and not so sad.

Much of the remaining booty was paper-based: old cheque books (remember them?), photographs, financial records, work I’ve undertaken since becoming self-employed, two years’ worth of OU studies. The shredder worked for hours, I recycled every piece of paper that had only been printed on a single side, and I was able to cross ‘plastic sleeves’ off my Viking stationery list. But there still remain some things I just can’t part with:

• Photographs from wedding number one (though only ones without the groom)
• Estate agents’ details of every home I’ve ever owned (when was the last time a flat in Fulham sold for £42,500?)
• Annual appraisals from my time working for Boots (I like to think I’m still ‘a hard worker and not afraid to speak out’)
• Copies of the Edinburgh University students’ magazine I wrote for (I can still laugh at my spoof ‘Beckhams buy Dorset’ news piece, and remember the time I interviewed the Jenners food-hall buyer for one of my ‘Wish I had your job’ articles.)

I also found several diaries, empty except for a few January entries. Now, of course, I have this blog, and am much more successful at keeping that up, probably because I know other people will be reading it.

So, to my readers: thanks for visiting and a Happy New Year!

So, that’s it for another year. What did Father Christmas bring you? Me, I got what I really wanted: a Toshiba Netbook (referred to now, inevitably, as Tosh). It's part of a plan to maximise my writing time in 2011, which is already shaping up to be a busy year. There's The Novel to complete and start sending out, the start of my next OU module in February, and an event for community groups in the Borders that I'm being paid to organise taking place on 5 March. I've also signed up for Nicola Morgan's What's Wrong With My Manuscript? seminar on 22 March and I've decided to attend CrimeFest in Bristol in May for the first time. Gosh, before you know it, it'll be Christmas all over again. Oh, and I forgot – it’s our tenth wedding anniversary in July and our holiday destination to mark this momentous occasion is currently under negotiation.

This new gizmo will enable me to write in the lounge when it’s my turn to get up at 5a.m. with the insomniac spaniel, a time which is currently spent watching NCIS or reading the Sunday Times and Practical Poultry. When it’s such a chilly day that the heat from the woodburning stove doesn’t travel as far as my study, I’ll be able to work in the lounge. And when spring arrives, I’ll be able to take Tosh into the conservatory.

This blog entry is a trial, to see how well I can touch-type on a keyboard that’s much smaller than I’m used to at 5.30 in the morning. Rather like driving a Mini after being used to a pick-up truck, I know where the controls are, but they’re a lot closer together, so I keep on hitting the wrong one. Luckily, this being a computer rather than a car, getting it wrong isn’t life-threatening, just irritating (or irritatimg as I first typed it).

Because I’m easily distracted, I intend not to put solitaire or any other game onto Tosh, and unless/until I start travelling a lot I won’t even set it up to access the internet. I have, though, already been online via my old PC and ordered a lovely turquoise and blue case to keep Tosh safe from dust and pet hair.

Speaking of ordering stuff off the internet, there was an interesting piece in The Bookseller last week. It pointed out that although retail sales of books have suffered from the snow, with the advent of the Kindle, iPad etc, Christmas Day is expected to be a sales day like it never has been before, as all the folk who’ve been given e-readers will dash off to download material to read on them.

It’s gratifying to learn that because so many literary ‘classics’ are out of copyright and thus free to download this is encouraging people to choose them over costly current bestsellers (though ask me my opinion on this when I'm published!). So maybe the predictions of e-readers bringing on the downfall of ‘the book’ were misplaced. The opposite could be true, as readers are introduced via new technology rather than school or university to works by the likes of Jane Austen. We do indeed live in interesting times. I hope you’re enjoying them as much as I am.