Happy New Year

So here we are, at the start of another one. I've finished reading my first book of the year (Yay!) - Michael Murpurgo's 'Singing for Mrs Pettigrew', which is an enchanting collection of his short stories and of little essays describing his career as a writer and the reasons he came to write those stories. His sensitivity, his love of nature, his sense of moral responsibility and a sheer love of people and places all come across so well.

I do hope I can do better this year on the reading front - and on the writing front. I want to wish you all good luck if you're writing: if you've embarked on a novel, good luck with finishing it, if you've finished it, good luck with editing it, and if you've edited it, good luck with finding an agent or publisher!

I tend to feel that making resolutions is a hiding to nothing: you know you're going to break them. I'm certainly not inclined to joing a gym! However, in 2009, I want and hope to rediscover joy in writing. For so long the idea of publication has held such sway over me that it has dominated every aspect of what I do. Lately I've felt the tension between the ambitious, market-aware, practical me and the more dreamy, spontaneous creative me has been inhibiting any forward progress. I've also depended too much on the good opinion of others - which hasn't always been forthcoming, even from people very dear to me. It's time to strike out from this. I need to write without The Voice croaking its bleak prophecies about what I write - especially when that voice is my own inner voice of self-doubt and self-criticism.

This may well ring a chord with some of you out there: if it does, let's make 2009 the year when we free ourselves to read and write for pleasure - because when the words are right, there is no greater pleasure and satisfaction.