I had dinner with a friend recently; she is an author too. We were talking about how in modern life it’s necessary to spin so many different plates at the same time. We agreed that the danger with this can be that you start 15 different things and at the end of a week / day / month don't feel you've moved forward much with any of them. I said how difficult that can be for me because I am a real completer finisher and don’t like more than a few projects on at the same time. I prefer to do one thing, finish it, move in, then start another one. Stereotypically, as a man, I’m not great at multi tasking.

Well, strictly speaking, none of us can truly multi task. What we actually do is switch between different tasks quickly. Try this and I’ll show you.

Count from 1 to 10 as quickly as you can.
Now say the letters of the alphabet from A to J as quickly as possible.
Now, alternate between letters, and numbers, as quickly as you can. A 1 B 2 C 3 etc...
Done it?
Hard isn’t it?
And I’ll bet my Taylor Swift 1989 album that it took longer to alternate between the two than it did to say all the numbers and then all the letters.
That’s because your brain has to switch between the two tasks and that takes a lot of thought. It also slows you down. And stresses you out.
I recently typed The End on my current work in progress – the story set in hacienda, called Two Big Ifs. I started writing it on 27 February and finished it (first rough crappy draft) today, 29 May. That’s 93 days of writing. It worked out at 62251 words in total. This is 669 words per day, or a weekly average of 4685, which isn’t, I feel, too bad. It has been a bit of a slog to reach the end, simply because it’s taken me so long to write it. I know I’m going to find some terrible continuity errors when I self edit it. I even think I forgot the names of some secondary characters too. I also found myself losing the ‘voice’ of some of the main characters on occasion because it may have been over a week between writing bits. But I got there in the end. I reached the finish line.
Usually I can write a novel of that length in between 4 weeks (during Nanowrimo you can check out how in these three links: 2013 2014 2015) when I’m really going at it all keyboards a blazing, to 8 weeks if I’m being sociable with other humans and being easy on myself. Ironically writing it in 4 weeks is much easier than over the 13.28 weeks this last novel took because the characters stay in my head. I remember exactly where I am in the story, and I don’t have to re-read any previous scenes when I start to write each time. I simply sit and write.

I also have to remind myself of the other plates I’ve been spinning since I started writing this novel: working full time, being sociable (with author friends and other friends), studying a MA in creative writing at Kingston University ( as well as weekly lecture reading and peer critiques I had two assignment deadlines in April which consisted of 5000 words of prose fiction and a portfolio of writing exercises – 3 poems, 8 pages of a play and 2000 words of life-writing), helping the committee organise the UK Meet, and I’m also ghost writing a memoir for a client using phone interviews with the client as source material.

How have I done this, you may be asking. Do I sleep?

I think it comes back to how I fundamentally prefer to work. I’ve done one thing at a time. I was thinking about this today as I finished the novel in the back garden. They’re hardly ground-breaking tips, but I thought I’d share in case anyone finds them useful.

1. Blocking out time for one activity. Block out amounts of time from 20 mins to 3 hours for one specific activity and then during that time, only work on that activity and nothing else. I also found it easier to get into the mental space when I knew I was doing that activity for that amount of time, rather than switching between a few. I also found this meant I often got into the flow of doing something. So when I said I’d only do 45mins to an hour of something, mostly I ended up doing a couple of hours because I was in the zone of that particular activity.
   
2. No internet. Turn your phone to flight mode. Close the web browser when you’re on your computer. Work on a devise that doesn’t connect to the internet, like an Alphasmart Neo. Why I bought one, and why I think it's better than a Freewrite. Or write long hand. The internet is wonderful, but it’s also a wonderful distraction. I read somewhere that it was a sad day when they merged the writing device (typewriter) to the access to everything in the whole world device (the internet) and created the computer. I agree.
   
3. Break things into chunks. Break down big projects into smaller steps so you can see you’re making progress in the blocks of time. For example I had to do my self-assessment tax return which I broke down into the following steps: collect info (ring banks etc for tax deduction certificates etc); photo copy papers; write cover letter (I keep last year’s one so just need to update specifics each year); enter costs and income into spreadsheet (I keep receipts in one folder and file electronically other items, and make notes for items during the year).
   
4. Using all available time. I’ve made use of a lot of dead time – on trains, on the tube, waking early, late at night, in hotel rooms around the country when I’ve been away for whatever reason. Be sensible and schedule harder things for a time of day when you’re not too tired and will think clearer. Don’t try to read a dense academic text after an 8hour work day and a 2hour commute!
   

I'll blog a snippet from Two Big Ifs later.

How do you spin the plates? Do you like to do more than one thing at a time and think my ideas are rubbish? I'd love to hear from you.

Liam Livings xx

This weekend, bought through JMS books website you can grab all 3 novellas in the David and Christian story for the usual price of one. That's almost 54,000 words or 162 pages in a paperback / PDF for the usual price of one novella!

Here's the blurb:

Three stories by Liam Livings chronicling the serendipitous relationship of lovers David and Christian as they meet and fall in love. Along the way, there are bets between friends on how soon the two men take before sleeping together, and old-fashioned family attitudes pose a problem they must overcome. But there’s plenty of British humour, letter-boxing, visits to hospital, and even talk of adopting babies, as well as plenty of time for the men to express their love for one another as they learn to love and live together.

In other news, I have some new services to help author authors improve their manuscripts and help make sense of where to start and what to do about marketing.

Best wishes,

Liam Livings :-)

I'm pleased to announce the paperback of my three David and Christian novellas is now available. If you enjoyed the first story, Christmas Serendipity of the men meeting, I decided to write two more novellas about the developing relationship of David and Christian. It didn't feel like their story was over at the end of the first novella!

Serendipity Develops tells of the year where David and Christian get to know one another better and The Next Christmas, is another festive tale of their time at Christian's parents' home.

The novellas individually are only available as ebooks, but if you want, you can have all 3 together in this pretty shiny paperback. They are available on Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk

The book
These three novellas by Liam Livings chronicle the serendipitous relationship of lovers David and Christian as they meet and fall in love. Along the way, there are bets between friends on how soon the two men take before sleeping together, and old-fashioned family attitudes pose a problem they must overcome. But there’s plenty of British humour, letter-boxing, visits to hospital, and even talk of adopting babies, as well as plenty of time for the men to express their love for one another as they learn to love and live together.

Contains the stories Christmas Serendipity, Serendipity Develops, and The Next Christmas.

Apologies for the blog silence during April. I had 2 MA assignment deadlines to meet so it was all hands to the pump for those. But I'm back, and I hope you enjoy what I have to say about this wonderful period drama set in Australia.

First, way back when, I enjoyed Downton Abbey. I'm not one who takes to costume dramas, I feel some of them use pretty costumes and settings as an excuse for a lack of plot – and having been forced to watch some while at Mum's over the years, including one episode during which the sum total of plot was a young woman walking to market to buy an apple – I was quite reluctant to start Downton. However, start it I did, and enjoy it I did. So this isn't about bashing Downton, this is about saying I've discovered a televisual gem and thought I'd share it with others, so they can enjoy said gem themselves.

Oh, and obviously, this is simply a bit of fun and I am not looking to start an online argument with the Pro Downton Abbey group while simultaneously becoming wrapped up in some A Place To Call Home (APTCH) splinter group. Simply a bit of fun. OK? Then I shall continue…

I had a week at Mum's in February and she told me she was watching this costume drama, set in Australia, and did I want to watch some with her. I was a bit reluctant – see above – but after 1 episode, I. Was. Hooked.

After returning home, I set my tellybox to 'tape' the rest of the series (it was shown during the day so I couldn't watch it live) and over the following few weeks I've binged, gorged, dived into APTCH and now it's finished I really feel sad to be leaving the world. Anyway, without further mincing about, my reasons why APTCH is better than Downton Abbey:

1. Unlike Downton, with its 2 minute long gay butler shows ankle to Lord storyline, APTCH has a proper, multi series, multi character gay storyline. Some of it's hard to watch – ECT and aversion therapy – but that's in keeping with the attitudes about homosexuality being an illness around at the time. What's really interesting is how it affects both the gay man and the woman he's married too, as well as the gay man's family.
2. The script producer of APTCH Bevan Lee, was voted in 2007 one of the 25 most influential lesbian and gay people in Australia, so that may explain why this part of the series was done so well. Also, he was a script producer on Sons and Daughters and rewrote the first script for Home and Away – so evidently, he knows a thing or two about soap operas.
3. The cars are much more car-like and sexy looking as it's set in the 1950s, unlike in Downton where they are basically horseless carriages and don't resemble much like cars.
4. The setting is much more a part of the story than in Downton. Although Downton was meant to be set in Yorkshire (and was actually filmed mainly in Berkshire, but we'll park that for a moment) in APTCH you get long sweeping shots of beautiful Australian countryside; external views of the hospital, the houses, and a few streets in Sydney. The down side is they must have used the same double decker bus driving round a corner next to the Sydney Harbour Bridge 35 times before a Sydney set scene, but it is, in my view, a small price to pay for such a lot of beautiful Australian countryside.
5. The women are much more independent than in Downton. This being the 1950s things have somewhat moved on from the early 20th Century when Downton is set; the women have – shock horror – jobs outside of the main house (Ash Park it's called in APTCH). This means we see women as nurses, journalists, general community busybodies (the character takes it upon herself to do this role so effectively and in such an all-encompasing way, it can only be viewed as a job I feel).
6. The men all have dashing brylcreamed side partings and George is the ultimate Silver Fox.
7. The controlling matriarch isn't played for laughs as Lady Grantham was especially towards the end of Downton. Mrs Bligh wants to control every move of every one of her children and grandchildren, and even great grandchildren before they even exist. This, as you can imageine, makes for wonderful conflict and a great story.
8. A lot happens. All the time. Unlike Downton, in which some episodes not an awful lot happened, APTCH is very much like a soap opera; ongoing intertwined lies and backgrounds being revealed, lots of 'I wasn't expecting that' moments to keep you guessing. Something happens in every scene. There's no 'I'm going upstairs to take off my hat' moments here.
9. There is a character so malevolent as to be almost Disney villain OTT, and she even dresses a bit like Cruella De Ville, but she is a sight to behold. She even makes the Controlling Matriarch shudder at the depths she will stoop to so she gets what she wants. As you can imagine, this makes for wonderfully entertaining drama.
10. It's less about the upstairs downstairs dramas between servants and the aristocracy and much more about the in fighting and lies within the family, between different families, and with the society as a whole. For me the whole servants / lords dynamic became a bit tired in Downton, but with APTCH the conflict and dramas are sort of spread about a lot more, so it doesn't feel samey.
11. There are some wonderfully wilful female characters, each of whom has her own issues and conflicts far wider and more interesting than simply 'get a man'. My favourites are Sarah, the Jewish nurse, who shows such strength, especially after what she'd been through in World War II, that you can't but warm to her. Anna, the younger of the children in the main house, longs to be a farmer's wife – especially when the farmer is a good-looking Italian man - but also so much more, having escaped into her romance novels, she wishes to make similar worlds of her own.
12. One of the male characters, upon returning home after a day of farming says, 'I'm so hungry I could eat the arse out of a low-flying duck.' That is all.
13. It has such warmth between the characters that you can't but cry. The character development is so well portrayed as they change from being enemies to friends, with a new found respect for one another. I don't think I cried many times watching Downton, but with APTCH it was at least once every 3 episodes; sometimes 3 times in one episode. I remember pausing one episode when I was at Mum's and launching into a long heated monologue about something or another and how wrong one character was to expect whatever it was she was expecting, and how the other character simply must do whatever it was and then it would be better. Mum, after I'd finished, simply said, 'It's only TV, no need to get worked up.'

One disadvantage
The only disadvantage APTCH has over Downton is at the end of series 3, they've left an awful lot of things open for series 4, and I'm not sure they will actually make series 4 after ratings falling during series 2 and 3. Mind you, the network who decided, before an online campaign changed their minds, not to make series 3, is the same network who cancelled Neighbours in its first year due to low ratings. And Neighbours has been running on at least 2 other networks after that since 1986.

If you'd like to read more about APTCH here's Wikipedia, IMDB page and the official website

The second book in my Best Friends Perfect series has a long section set in Australia. So if you fancy some more period (1990s) Australian adventures, you could check out Best Friends Perfect Book 2 on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk which can be read as a stand alone, or can also be read as part of the series.

Thanks

Liam Livings xx