Start as you mean to go on.

Here we are on the first morning of January 2016 and having woken up without a hangover, the world is full of promise and possibility.

Today is a holiday, so that gives me licence not to do anything, but so that I have some satisfaction, I sat here at my computer and blogged.

My diary for the first two months has enough workdays in it for me to feel secure until at least the beginning of March. The thing I'm asking myself as I look at it is "does it contain enough excitement?". By excitement I mean challenge. No new jobs in the diary. Most of the days pencilled in for January and February are continuations of the job I was doing for the last three months of 2015. The other task looming large on my worksheet is editing my book "The Working Actor". I'm now understanding the phrase "that difficult second album". It's a year ago since I submitted the manuscript of the first draft of this book, and it's been returned to me in instalments over the year. I edited it in the summer and have got about another 50 pages to go. My editor is brilliant, and questions what I've written and encourages me to rethink and change things, but never forces me to do so. Yet as the process has gone on, I'm finding it harder and harder. Either I question what I wrote originally more and more - this week for example I have rewritten two chapters. For the better I am sure, but it wouldn't be my original choice. Another option is that I ignore some of the brilliant editing under the assumption I know what I meant. The good thing is here that I'm questioning what I've done. My book will be the better for it. That's why it's so difficult as an actor to work on your own. Dancers can attend class, musicians can practice at the piano or on their chosen instrument with immediate feedback if they get a note wrong, but if we want to practice our skills and parade around the living room script in hand, we have to be exceptionally self-aware and self-critical if the exercise is to prove useful. We need an editor. We need an outside opinion. When we are being paid, this outside opinion is usually called an audience, and that provides us with the best sort of approval possible. In the rehearsal process it's a director and our colleagues, whose support and suggestions can hone what we do.

In the isolation of an empty diary, it's important to find a way of fulfilling that function. That's why a lot of actors come to workshops at the Actors Centre. A place to find healthy constructive criticism of one's work in a supportive environment which can constantly encourage you to challenge yourself. It's not all about learning new skills. It's quite often just about honing what you have and taking the ideas and inspiration of others to make it better.

One task on my work list for next week is to create three interesting projects I hope will occupy my time in 2016. These won't come out of the air. I have a good idea what I would like them to be, but it's important they are set down in front of me and are something I want to achieve. Having given up on New Year's resolutions years ago. I will eat chocolate, will not give up smoking and will be kinder to people -a resolution which will shatter as soon as somebody in a call centre pisses me off.

I will however work hard on the projects on my 2016 list. From them will come a sense of satisfaction, and a sense of achievement, which is necessary for all of us to continue to move forward. A colleague of mine recently funded a short film he's written and will shoot early this year thanks to the generosity of friends and colleagues on Kickstarter. I send him every best wish in this endeavour.

Time now for thoughts of my own. Who knows? In the spirit of starting out well, I may even do it over the weekend!