This week I'm on Becky Black's blog talking about writing. I hope you enjoy it. It was strange actually writing down my methods. I suppose it shows there's no real 'right way' and it's just whatever suits you as a person.

In other news, I'm working through Best Friends Perfect based on my to do list of the last post. It feels strange since it's been so long since I read it through. I've had to  put The Second Book aside for a while, as I concentrate on BFP, but rest assured, I'll return to iti soon.

I can't believe the UK Meet is just around the corner. The last date to pay for the great value Saturday and Sunday combined ticket is 30 April, so get in quick if you want to take advantage.

Until next time

Liam x

No, not the Carla Lane sitcom with Wendy Craig, as Ria the dissatisfied housewife with a pageboy haircut, one son who grew up to be Rodney from Only Fools and Horses, and one who ended up as a transvestite in Corrie. Although I do enjoy it, especially now one of the high numbered digital channels is repeating it endlessly, so I may return to Ria later....No, I mean in your stomach, those butterflies.

Clare London and I had dinner and discussed her feedback and suggested next steps for Best Friends Perfect. I left a cold and wet south London with a to do list and butterflies in my stomach. For those who don’t know, I’m a big fan of to do lists, and have at some points, had lists of lists. Whatever floats your boat (or rather keeps your boat organised) is what I say to those who are shaking your heads.

Clare recommended I approach a potential publisher which does a broad range of gay fiction which may be interested in the manuscript. Best Friends Perfect is neither a category romance, nor gay erotica. Don’t misunderstand me, there’s plenty of ‘action’ as one of the characters, Grace would say, but the sex is subtly written and it's more of a coming out story. And as for the ending, is it a happily ever after? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see.

I introduced myself to this potential publisher, and although he isn’t accepting unsolicited manuscripts at the moment, he said he’s happy for me to send mine, based on Clare’s introduction! ::looks to camera:: I know, so not much pressure then! I guess the worst he can say is, thanks but no thanks, no harm done.

Over the next few weeks my writing to do list looks like this: write some back cover blurbs; write a synopsis of the book; wave my grammar and spelling fairy wand over it; take a deep breath and submit it to this potential publisher; wait, with everything crossed.

Yes, it’s scary, and yes it’s giving me more butterflies in my stomach, just thinking about it. But I think butterflies in the stomach are good, healthy, they mean you’re excited and care about something or someone. Remember the first months with a new boyfriend/girlfriend, those butterflies?

Let’s hope it’s not like one of Ria’s attempts at cooking, and more like one of her floaty, brightly coloured kaftans, so favoured by the middle class housewife in the seventies.

Do you have any interesting stories about doing things which gave you butterflies? Or any tips and hints on publishing? I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time.

Liam x

As you’ll know if you’ve been reading my blog, I don’t normally start with quotes from other people. In fact one of my least favourite things about facebook is people posting pictures of inspirational quotes which don’t mean very much. However, in this post, I hope you’ll indulge me, go on, you know you want to!

Watching the end of the American drama series, Brothers and Sisters made me reflect, (if you haven’t seen it, I can strongly advise you to box-set it asap. It’s got names who would have normally carried an entire series alone, but with B&S, as it’s known in our house, you’ve got a whole handful of them – Sally Field, Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Rob Lowe all together, all in every episode). Anyway, I’m digressing, see that’s what happens when you indulge me... At the series finale, there’s a wedding scene for one of Nora Walker’s children. Nora is the matriarch, played by Sally Field, and I’m not telling which of her children’s wedding, so I don’t spoil it if you’ve not seen it yet. Nora looks at all her children, with their families, growing and changing as they have through the five seasons of the drama, and says: "Families, like life, have a way of changing—never staying the same. But they're your family—this eclectic, deeply-bonded group. So you evolve, you adapt. And now, as I look at my life and my new extended family, I think of this wonderful quote by George Eliot—It's never too late to be what you might have been."

Yes, it’s schmaltzy, yes it’s emotional, but in case you haven’t worked that out about me yet, I love schmaltzy, emotional, tears-running-down-both-cheeks-at-fiction. I think crying at fiction, reminds you you’re human, reminds you you’re capable of those emotions, because without sadness and melancholy, you wouldn’t have great joy and love. The song which accompanies this final scene is a very under-rated Elton John song, Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters.

I watched the final scene of B&S and thought about how my extended family (and I include my friends in that) has changed and evolved during my life, how we’ve gone through awfully sad times together, and moments of hilarity which have reduced us again to tears. And I felt so grateful to have people in my life to share those emotions with.

If I had a pound every time someone said to me, they’d like to do something, but it’s too late because by the time they’ve finished, reached their goal, they’ll be 40, or 25, or whatever age they think is too old, I would be a rich man.  It could be training to be a nurse, buying a house, going to university, having a child, getting a pet, whatever long term goal that person has.

My response is always the same: you’re going to be 40, or 25, or whatever, anyway, whether you start to do this thing you’ve always wanted, or not. So why not do it?

As I’ve got older (and my actual age is a bit of an ongoing joke with the UK Meet planning group, since I was ID’d at the bar in Brighton), I’ve noticed the years really do fly by so quickly. It’s April already and it feels like yesterday we were hosting for Christmas, roasting chestnuts on our fire (no, really, it’s not just a literary image, we do have a fire), opening presents, and now it’s spring. My friend D, went to university while I’d already started full time post uni work, and to me, it felt like one month he was starting at uni, and then next season he’d finished. His three years rushed by me just like that, as our lives had continued to grow and change in that way they do. When I asked him about uni, he said it was one of the best things he’d done, and agreed the three years had flown by. Because what I think people forget is that when you start on the path of one of these long term goals, life continues, it doesn’t just stop. You incorporate the new thing with your life, and before you know it, the new thing is over, it’s part of your life – you are a trained nurse, you are living in that house, you own that dog you dreamed about for so long. And then you can think about the next goal, because people, like families don’t ever stay the same, we evolve, change, grow through the years, and that’s what makes life interesting and challenging.

When I started to write Best Friends Perfect, I felt so much regret and real sadness I hadn’t done it years before, like I’d wasted my life, not writing up to that point. When I went to the UK Meet in 2012, I enjoyed it so much, I regretted not doing it years before. I vividly remembered meeting Clare London at a mutual friend’s wedding seven years before, as she explained she was an author, and I replied that I’d always wanted to write a book, and left it at that.

What I realise now, is I didn’t write it before, because I wasn’t ready, and the biggest regret would have been not to write it at all, because I felt it was already too late. So George Elliot’s quote really comforts me as I go through this next stage of writing: revisions and submission to get the darned thing published. (Because after all, that’s the point of writing, to share it with others isn’t it?) I just hope that a publisher sees something in the world I’ve created in Best Friends Perfect and wants to share it with readers as much as I do.  

Later this month I’m appearing on Becky Black’s blog as a guest, so I hope you check out her blog and see me there.

Until next time

Liam x