You may have noticed that Filmstalker has been lacking something lately, updates. Let me explain. I, or the site, am not dead, so that's something.

At the end of last year my life became very busy. Not least because of our new arrival in our home in the guise of Hudson. With him, work and my starting to take my love of fiction writing more seriously, my time available narrowed.

However it wasn't these things that really stopped me, they just slowed me. Actually it was the world of film and of writing about film that did it.

I found myself writing again and again about the same flaws, slip-ups and bloody mindedness of the studios making the big films. In particular their unflappable desire to hit the PG13 demographic for the highest spreadsheet return, swamping the majority of multiplex screens with the same film, almost certainly designed for 3D before anyone even considered a decent story or script.

I'm also writing in a marketplace of sites who are staffed by groups of diverse writers, most of whom are located near the main business areas of the industry and of press screenings. Plus they are operating more as businesses than for the love of it, and I have to tell you Filmstalker earns me nothing, in fact I pay for Filmstalker, and I do because I love film, I love writing about it and I love engaging with others about my passion.

After ten years writing about film I did become disillusioned, burnt out and rather fed up and I needed a break. I couldn't keep writing multiple news stories every day and find the passion for watching and writing about films, the thing I enjoy the most.

Now though I'm investing money in the site to get it upgraded and I'm going to return to reviewing films and writing editorials. I'm not going to be leaping into writing about all the news stories there are, stories that will disappear and become old a couple of days or even hours after posting, stories that every film site is carrying. I'm going back to writing reviews and, if the desire takes me, writing about something unusual or interesting that's happening in film, not just churning out the latest trailer or casting news.

I'm going back to what I love doing. Here's hoping I can keep that going for another ten years.

Happy New Year to all the Filmstalker readers and your families. Here's to 2014.

Richard