Hello and welcome to the second edition of the new look blog. Thanks for visiting.

This month, as we approach the shortest day and keep ourselves cheerful with festivals of joy and light, I’m keeping the blog as bright and positive as possible.

And, whether you’ll be celebrating a winter festival or not this month, I wish you warmth, light and good things to come.

THE PERSONAL

THE BRIGHT SIDE

As I write this on a gloomy November day, having just listened to the news which was full of yet more gloom, negativity and discord, it’s not easy to maintain a positive attitude.

But I do try. I try to look on the bright side. In spite of being a worrier and being on medication for anxiety and mild depression, I do manage to be optimistic most of the time. Yes, I’m a contradictory critter.

I don’t mind the dark days too much. I quite like drawing the curtains and cosying in. I like crisp, cold days and I don’t mind the snow as long as I don’t have to drive anywhere. I try to look for the best in other people and I try to make the best of difficult situations. But, like most people, I do have moments when the glass appears half-empty.

The media saturate us with bad news – it’s what sells. We engage with it. We don’t seem able to help ourselves. And we’re programmed by evolution to react to all the possible dangers and impending disasters that are presented to us. We react. We strive to protect ourselves and our loved ones. But the threats and risks are vague, of disputed significance and sensationalised. They’re often hypothetical, but are presented as facts. It’s not surprising we sometimes feel helpless, especially if we’re already vulnerable. We may already be stressed by job uncertainty, workplace demands, lack of money, poor health, relationship problems.  In such cases it’s easy to see how we can end up seeing only the worst case scenario. We can become overwhelmed and feel powerless. We then expect the worse.

On the other hand, if we’re feeling robust, in good physical and mental health and are generally resilient in the face of life’s stresses, then we can maintain a sense of control. Not only that, we can actively protect ourselves and others. We can do this by keeping ourselves fit, by having the energy to care for others, the will to share what we have, and the motivation to educate ourselves about the issues and to do something about changing or eliminating the threats to everyone’s wellbeing. By doing so, we reinforce those positive and hopeful feelings – a virtuous circle.

So, are optimism and pessimism self-fulfilling prophecies? If we’re in a good place, we’ll act for the best outcome; but if we’re in a bad place we’ll be paralysed by our expectation of catastrophe, do nothing and wait for the worst to happen.

In her book, ‘The Optimism Bias’, Tali Sharot considers this very notion. She reports that her research confirms the self-fulfilling nature of positive and negative expectations.

But she goes further. She suggests that humans seem to be wired to mostly look on the bright side. She states that while positive thinkers expect positive outcomes, and negative thinkers adopt a defensive pessimism as insurance against disappointment, it has been found that the pessimists are just as disappointed as the optimists if things don’t work out well. It has also been find that pessimists die younger often in  accidental or violent ways. Sharot suggests this is because pessimists may well have a ‘nothing to lose’ mentality when assessing risk, whereas optimists will want to hang on for their foreseen good future and will be selective and protective when faced with risk.

However, Sharot also acknowledges that extreme optimism can have a dark side too. It can sometimes be the case that, for example, in considering the risks of smoking, an optimist will take the view that smoking only kills the other guy. Another example is the financier who takes extreme investment risks in the belief he is invincible and ends up facing disaster. Extreme optimism can give a person a false sense of security.

So as in all things, moderation would seem to be the key. And this is where those of us of a mildly depressive and anxious state of mind come out well. In another study quoted by Sharot, the mentally healthy came out as inaccurately optimistic, i.e. they didn’t foretell how things would be and also failed to change their beliefs in the face of actuality. The deeply depressed also made inaccurate predictions and also failed to adjust those predictions in the face of the real outcomes. But the mildly depressed were proved to be mostly realistic in their expectations.

So, moderate optimism it shall be.

But that’s not to say you should ever give up on hopes and dreams. No way. Rather you should set achievable realistic steps along the way. Good luck seems to follow hard work and preparation.

And, remember, as Sharot also says, ‘a penguin in a parachute can sort of fly’.

THE POLITICAL

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL

Don’t despair, it’s all relative…

Here in the UK, and in the West in general, we probably shouldn’t dwell too much on the doom and gloom of political, economic and social matters. In comparison with many other parts of the world we have it easy.

Yes, many people in Britain live in relative poverty. But it’s not absolute in nature. It’s not the poverty experienced in a South African shanty town or a Vietnamese orphanage. It could be argued that poverty here is largely avoidable. We have the means to improve the lot of the poorest in our society, but no political will to do so. Instead the follies of the richest are overlooked and the plight of the poor blamed on immigrants, the unemployed and the uneducated young, the unproductive elderly.

Yes, our economy is broken and our government complacent. Yes, increasing numbers of people in the UK are dependent on food banks and struggling to pay bills as the cost of living outstrips wages. And, yes, our once enviable welfare state is a chaotic shadow of its former self.

But it is all relative. We are battling on. It’s not as hard as the 1930s – yet. We’re not facing a world war.

Many politicians are a joke –a bad one, it’s true – but most are decent and hardworking. And they are all democratically elected, albeit in an imperfect voting system, but it’s one that outstrips most in its administration and accountability. If they mess up they are accountable. If they’re corrupt they are dealt with. We also have a strong independent judiciary, free compulsory education and health care that’s free at the point of delivery.

We’re a more tolerant society than we were, although there’s still room for improvement.  Many of us volunteer within our own communities. Many of us donate to charity.

But WE COULD DO BETTER. We mustn’t allow ourselves to be paralysed by despair. Those of us who are healthy, in work and living in good accommodation should be mindful of the fact that we are doing all right, but we should also channel our positive energy into improving the lives of those less well off. We should exercise our intelligence, inform ourselves of the issues, hold our politicians and the very rich to account. We must demand a fairer society and lots more reasons to be cheerful.

THE REVIEW

THE BEATRICE STUBBS NOVELS BY JJ MARSH

I’m a fan of crime fiction. I love the twists, the red herrings, the gruesome or clever crimes, but most of all I enjoy the detectives – police or private. I particularly enjoy the serial detectives, those main, crime-solving characters that I can get to know. PD James had the enigmatic Adam Dalgliesh, Lorna Hill has the captivating Simon Serailler, Ian Rankin has the irascible but likeable Rebus. And now, JJ Marsh gives us the troubled Beatrice Stubbs.

So far there are three Beatrice crime novels. They are, in order,  Behind Closed Doors, Raw Material and Tread Softly.

All three are very good reads.

We first meet Detective Inspector Beatrice Stubbs of the Met in Behind Closed Doors. She has been off work for over a year following a suicide attempt, but now it’s time to get back on the seesaw, as Beatrice might say. She loves mixing her similes, a delightful quirk that Beatrice has throughout the series.

She takes it as a good sign that her boss trusts her enough to give her this particular case. It is to investigate the apparent suicides of four financiers. And to do so she has to go to Switzerland. what follows is multi-layered crime thriller that builds to an exciting and, for Beatrice, perilous finale.

The second book, Raw Material, is set in a very different landscape. This time it’s the streets of London, the Irish countryside and the beaches of Pembrokeshire. Beatrice becomes unwittingly caught up in a particularly nasty type of crime while spending a Bank Holiday in Wales with her partner, Matthew. This time it’s a friend of Beatrice’s who ends up in peril as the final twists and turns play out.

And in Tread Softly we’re in yet another setting. We’re in Spain, in the wine country of the North. As in the previous book, Beatrice isn’t actively looking for crime, but when it finds her, she pursues it. She’s supposed to be on a gourmet tour as part of a sabbatical from her job. But the sabbatical bit doesn’t last long. Before she knows it, she’s compelled to investigate some very dangerous dealings in one of the wineries.

I like that JJ Marsh’s main detective character is a woman. Although we’ve had DCI Jane Tennison and, more recently, Sarah Lund on the television, there’s been a bit of a dearth, of late, of literary detectives of the female persuasion. It’s been a very long time since George in the Famous Five, or Nancy Drew and her Hardy boys. Miss Marple and Precious Ramotswe have also been doing it for the girls but they’re not exactly up-to-the-minute or real-world-gritty.

It’s also refreshing that Beatrice isn’t a ball-breaking Jane Tennison derivative. Here we have a woman who does a tough job, but who is also living with mental health problems, is in a  loving, but long-distance relationship, is sensitive and  not always confident. She’s credible and realistically drawn. The reader cares as much about her as about the solving of the crime.

I also like how Beatrice develops over the course of the three books. I admire the author’s handling of Beatrice’s mental health issues and of her relationships. But it’s not just Beatrice whose strongly characterised. The supporting cast of her partner Matthew, her friend Adrian, the other police officers and professionals with whom she works, and the victims and perpetrators of the crimes are all believable, three-dimensional characters.

The plotting is tight and cohesive. The level of suspense just right – subtle enough to be credible, tight enough to make the books real page-turners.

And the settings are glorious – European and UK cityscapes, beaches, mountains, seas, cliffs and  farmland all are rendered in just enough detail to make the reader believe she is there, with the characters, seeing the sights, smelling the smells, drinking the wine.

JJ Marsh’s writing is clever stuff. She’s a craftswoman and an artist. For lovers of crime fiction, her books will be ideally placed on your shelves alongside Hill, Rankin, James and Larsson. The books would also make excellent TV crime dramas. You heard it here first…

 

The novels are published by Prewett Publishing, an affiliate of Triskele Books and are available on Amazon.

JJ Marsh is on Twitter at @JJMarsh1 and you can find out more about her and her writing at http://www.beatrice-stubbs.com

Triskele can be found at their website http://www.triskelebooks.co.uk and on Twitter at  @triskelebooks

ON WRITING

W.I.P.s

I’ve sent some ideas for the cover of the new novel off to  cover designer Jane at JD Smith design and she’s going to work her magic and come up with some ideas. I’m also looking for ‘Beta’ readers who would be willing to read the manuscript and give comments/suggestions etc. It has been edited but more pairs of eyes is always a good idea. If you would be willing, get in touch through the comments section. I would send you a synopsis first so you could decide if it tickled your fancy. Basically it’s a romance. It’s one for the baby-boomer generation i.e. the main characters are in their fifties. It’s set in Skye and Israel and is about love, loss and homecoming. Next I need to decide about the route to publication. I would like to be an author-publisher, something that’s becoming more and more common. That way I retain control over the book, the schedule and the finances. But I’m a bit apprehensive about striking out alone. That’s where the organisations I mention in the next, TIPS, section come in…

TIPS

I’m a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. For an annual membership fee, Members receive excellent advice about going it alone when publishing their books. They showcase member authors’ work, offer online Q&A sessions with publishing experts and warn about the pitfalls as well as making recommendations. They’ve produced a book called Choosing a Self-Publishing Service which I’m currently reading.

You can find the Alliance of Independent authors here http://selfpublishingadvice.org/

Then there is Triskele. I mentioned them above as they’re the author collective which is behind the publication of JJ Marsh’s books. In their book The Triskele Trail, the founder members of Triskele share their experiences of being author-publishers. This book, available as an e-book only at the moment, is another treasure trove for nervous and inexperienced authors keen to go independent.

You can find Triskele here http://www.triskelebooks.co.uk

And finally, there’s the wonderful Joanna Penn for when I need to market the book. Joanna’s ‘How to Market a Book’ is another invaluable publication for authors – traditionally or independently published.

You can find Joanna Penn here http://www.thecreativepenn.com

QUIPS

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning. Maya Angelou

NATURAL WORLD

IN THE GARDEN

A goldfinch, a siskin and a lesser redpoll enjoying the nyjer seed.

 And finally…

Chin up and keep smiling