New Year Resolutions and All That. A not quite serious look at New Year Plans

Reading the Sunday newspapers last weekend, I was amazed and amused at all the advice and baring of souls the Lifestyle sections contained. Talk about over-sharing! It is bad enough that we are forever being given tips on how to manage Christmas as if it were some infectious disease instead of a happy holiday time. Mind you, with all the over-eating and alcohol consumption, it could be considered a health hazard. I always want to shout: take it easy, have soup and sandwiches, play board games with the family and maybe - weather permitting - take a leisurely walk before sitting down to tea and Christmas cake. Ban mobiles for the day and get everybody talking if they haven't already started while playing Monopoly or Scrabble or whatever your fancy is. That lost art, conversation, is better than anything on the television. Everyone will find it so much more fun once they get used to the idea of talking to each other.
But to return to my topic, we have stars and celebs giving us their take on what they did wrong and how they are going to fix it in 2020.
Before we make out that list of getting up at 5 a.m. to go running, doing an hour's yoga (Namaste!), nibbling on a lettuce leaf, let's just stop here and ask ourselves the all important question: are you happy with you (despite all your faults and not looking like the latest fashion icon, are you happy with the you of you, in other words)? I would say, you are just fine. Yeah, maybe you put on a pound or two over Christmas, or you were rude to Aunty Beth or told the people next door that you all had flu so you couldn't go to their you-knew-it-would-be-deadly-boring bash. That's what being human is all about. You don't have to share it with the whole world. You can tell yourself that you'll try and do better, be more tolerant, use less plastic, take the bus to work. That's all good, but it doesn't mean that you have made a mess of things. It just means that, like the rest of us, you are human.
I have also seen lists which give ten ways to improve your life.  Abraham Lincoln said something like "folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be". That is the glass half full, half empty idea. It isn't easy with all the social media cant that is out there. I mean, who came up with the expression "imposter syndrome"? That's just trying to scare people who are doing their best.
New Year resolutions? I haven't made any in years. I used to, mind you. I tried giving up cigarettes a lot of times and one year even made it to April when a colleague brought me duty-frees and I thought what a shame to waste them. (I did finally give up smoking but not at NewYear). Alcohol-free January? No thanks.
The golden maxim is everything in moderation: work, play, food, alcohol, shopping. Life is for living. There are no repeats.
Have a great 2020 everyone!

Do Authors Base Characters on People They Know?

Where do we get new ideas for our stories? Some writers know exactly how the idea for a plot came to mind. There are crime novel writers who read cases in the newspapers or attend court cases which inspire them. I heard a story about a famous author of women's fiction falling out of her chair in a restaurant while trying to catch what the diners at the next table were saying.
Where do I get my ideas? I don't have any set method for doing it. Sometimes it is a phrase I've heard while sitting on the bus, sometimes the idea just comes out of the blue.
I've been house-sitting in the country these past few weeks. I have much more time to read and browse social media than when I am at home, although I can't really explain why that is so. Perhaps it is the quietness that does it. 
Be that as it may, I have done a lot of reading and I came across the term "imposter syndrome" several times. Oddly enough, this helped me with one of my characters in my Christmas novel which I am currently working on. I hasten to add that I do not know anyone suffering from it - the syndrome not the novel - but I do know a lot of people who have to work very hard at their jobs.
I think, on reflection, that all writers put bits of character from people they know into their stories. There are bossy people, stroppy people, really nice people who make you feel inadequate, go-getters, losers. In other words, there is a whole world of people out there, people you know and like and people who make you pick up your coat and make a run for it. They all make up that fascinating patchwork quilt known as humankind. And that is grist to a writer's mill.