Hello, and welcome to my third in a series of blogs where I discuss my thoughts on parts of Barbara Cartland's biography - Crusader In Pink. For previous posts, check out part one, part two. Italics are my thoughts, all comments not in italics are from Henry Cloud’s Barbara Cartland Crusader in Pink 1979.
Tips from Lord Beaverbrook to Barbara about writing: ‘Never be boring’ Barbara said, ‘I then reduced all the paragraphs in my novels to about three lines – if they were longer the reader skipped them.’

Northcliffe adage, ‘Get names into everything you write, and the more aristocratic the better.’ Snobbery was an important selling point.
Never be boring is a great tip. Similar to the ‘don’t write the bits readers tend to skip’ tip too – which is about removing large chunks of description. Similarly, reducing paragraphs to three lines, aids the reading experience. I’ve also spoken to many romance readers who write exclusively about Dukes and other aristocracy and are selling very well thank you very much. It seems Northcliffe’s assertion still rings true! In addition, keeping language simple and clear in a novel means the reader can enjoy the story without much effort. I also think using deliberately flowery language if it doesn’t move the story forward or isn’t necessary for a character’s role in the story, is essentially just showing off to the reader. Literary fiction tends to ask more of the reader to interpret the meaning of the text.

Genre fiction, by contrast, tells you what you need to know and then moves on. Or, as Janice Radway describes it, in Reading The Romance, ‘simple language of the romantic novel minimizes the labor the reader contributes to the production of the story. This particular linguistic practice then insures that reading will be marked not as “work” but as “pleasure” by the women who indulge in it so frequently.’ (Radway p197) As someone who’s been told by many other authors, story is king, story is king, I don’t think this is a criticism of genre fiction. Fiction is competing with other forms of entertainment – the internet, DVD box sets, TV, netflix, Amazon Prime etc – so if it needs to deliver readers the story very clearly, rather than rolling about in its own beautiful language, I don’t see that as a problem. The fact that someone is reading – which is a much more active form of entertainment than watching TV because the reader still has to use his or her imagination to complete the story - instead of watching another hour of TV is positive.

She had perfected her technique: shorter paragraphs than ever; more and more reliance on direct speech in the narrative; and the action carefully toned down so that no sub-plots or diversions could impede the fortunes of her Cinderella and her Duke. Despite the dire warnings of her publishers, she insisted on steadily producing a minimum of six new books a year.
These techniques have now become what is expected of mainstream genre fiction. Long blocks of text / description are not normal practice in genre fiction, unlike genre fiction from years ago before TV existed – Hardy, Dickens, Austen even have quite an introspective style, with long descriptions. Reliance on direct speech – this is the ultimate in show don’t tell. Nowadays we read novels with an understanding of the conventions of cinema and TV, hence lots of dialogue to show is what the characters are doing, is comfortable easy and immediately dramatic to read. The advice about no sub-plots fits with the conventions of pure romance stories. I’m not talking about women’s popular fiction, or sagas, or anything broader with a romance element – I’m talking about pure romance stories – in the Mills and Boon / Harlequin mould. In gay romance, as in straight romance, these are all about the main coupling of man and man (or man and woman) with little else in sub-plots to distract from the fortunes of the main couple. Radway found with her readers ‘the most striking characteristic of the ideal romances – its resolute focus on a single, developing relationship between heroine and hero – is noticeably absent from those [novels] judged to be failures by the Smithton women.’ (Radway p122)
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People often ask me how I manage to write new fiction, promote & do edits for contracted fiction, study and have a day job and my simple answer is I just fit it all in. This, I realise isn't too helpful, so I've tried to break it down into 7 things I now take for granted.



1) Prioritising

With larger blocks of time, say I've got a day to spend on writing things I will aim to complete:
1 big thing – writing 2000 words on the WIP or spending 2-3 hours plotting the next story or doing 20 pages of a content edit. If you want to know more about writing productivity on its own, I use the Rachael Aaron technique, and it works well for me.
3 medium sized things – a blurb form, writing a few blog posts and
5 smaller things – emailing ebooks to competition winners, scheduling some updates through Hootesuite, saving royalty statements in folders for tax
Of course other things come in during the day and you have to have breaks, but by making sure you cover the 9 things above, you will definitely feel you've moved forward, ticked things off your to do list.


2) Focussing

I don't have the luxury of great swathes of time, even at the weekends I am usually busy with seeing friends or family. When I have a block of time – anything from 20mins to 2hours, I work out what I need to do in that time, and I do that thing. Nothing else, no just checking email (unless that block of time is for dealing with email) and I work on that one thing until the time is up, and then I put it aside and get on with my life.
There's this lie we tell ourselves about multitasking, but it isn't true. Unless you're doing one thing passively and another thing actively – listening to music and writing an email for example, you can't actually do two active things at the same time, because 1)you've got one pair of hands and 2) you have one brain. Even if you think you're making dinner and writing a letter, or washing the car and doing your Christmas cards, actually what you're doing is switching between the two activities. Every time you switch between activities it takes your brain time to refocus on what you're actually doing. By focussing on one thing for that time I am usually surprised how much of that one thing I can do in the time available. And then I move onto the next one thing to do.


3) Making the best use of dead time

I never get on a train without my laptop. I never get on the tube without my writing device or a notebook or a book I need to read. I often get on the Tube with my laptop. Even if the train journey is 1hour that's an hour I can spend- on edits, writing promo blog posts, filling in a cover / blurb form for a publisher. All these things take time and if I leave them I end up doing them on a Sunday when I'd much rather be 1) watching TV and relaxing or 2)using a big block of time, like a morning, to write fiction.
Even if it's just a tube journey, I will write ideas, notes for myself to remember later, on my phone. I have now started first draft writing of fiction on the tube too – ok it gets a few looks when I get out my Fisher Price esque Alphasmart Neo and post it notes, but do you know what, it's nothing compared to what I've seen on the tube before. And it's my time and as long as I'm not offending other people, I'll do with it what I want.
Last week, on four hour long tube journeys when I could have read fiction, I took my laptop and edited some fiction I needed to submit on a deadline. This meant that when I got home Saturday afternoon I only had another hour or so of editing to complete, rather than 6 hours of editing. I’d already done about 4 hours in ‘dead time’.
I look at my weekly to do list, work out where I will have pockets of time (at home, away from home in hotels, on public transport) and work out what requires a laptop and internet, and what can be done with less required, and then allocate tasks to time slots during the week. I don't write this down, because it's usually not a long to do list for the week.
For example this week work for my MA, drafting for Nanowrimo and some requests from publishers / readers to deal with.
The MA work needs a laptop and internet and involves large books – I did those things early in the morning, at lunch time and evening before dinner. Some of the MA work was reading documents on my laptop I'd already downloaded and making notes. I did that on 2 tube journeys as it didn't need the internet.
The Nanowrimo drafting requires my Alphasmart Neo and my post it notes – I did those on the other tube journeys and a flight (no way I was using my laptop on the flights).
The publisher / reader requests needed laptop and internet, so I did those at home too.
The plotting of the remainder of the story required pencil and paper – I did that in the lounge at the airport and on the flight.


4) Bear in mind time of day

Don't try to read a 14 page essay by Simone De Beauvoir and take notes at 7pm after a day's work and a commute, as I did once. Use that time to send ebooks to people, or maybe if you're not too tired write 500 – 1000 words on your WIP. Or maybe, and this is important too – relax. Know when you're flogging a dead horse and leave it all until another day.
Go early, go difficult. Go late, go simple.


5) What about writers block?

I don't want to sound smug here, but I've never suffered from writers block. Ok, I'll caveat that – a while ago, when I'd written to the end of my work in progress I needed to plot the final 1/3 of the story. When I sat down with my Post it notes and pencil to plot I didn't know what to plot. I suppose that's plotting/writers block isn't it? But once I've plotted what I'm going to write, once I have time to write it and once I have enthusiasm to write it, I can always write.
I think this comes from having a journalistic / PR background. When my editor used to say, 'I want 1000 words on the cat stuck up tree in Cosham story by 5pm' I just got on and wrote it. There's no mopping your brow and waiting for the muse to strike with journalism. With journalism you have to write all the words. Same with PR, when I was told to write a press release about us having the lowest MRSA rate in the hospital where I worked, I did my fact finding, wrote a few headings on what I would cover and then just wrote it.
With fiction writing, even if I don't feel in the mood, once I start writing I normally write myself into the mood. And if that time is for writing, I will make the most of it and use it for writing. I simply vomit the words on the screen, to tell the story, and worry about polishing it up to make it good later.
Someone said, 'You can't edit a blank page.'
Someone else said, 'writing is about rewriting.'
Another person said, 'Writing is where you create the words, editing is where you make the words good.'
Read these words. Absorb them. Remember them. Now go and write some words of your own!


6) Keeping an up to date to-do list

I have a number of to do lists which give me flexibility and keep me on track.
Daily to do list – this keeps me on track when I'm working out my 9 things for my whole day of writing time.
Weekly to do list – this allows me to spread out what I need to get done that week over 7 days depending on how much time I have, where that time will be (trains, tubes, at home) I work out what I will do when for that week.
Monthly to do list – I list the main things I want to achieve each month, usually over a 3-4 month period. This picks up on more long terms writing goals so I don't get to the end of the year and say, 'I meant to do that this year and I haven't.'
Yearly writing goals – I set myself a few overall goals for the year to ensure I'm moving in the direction I want to go, and these keep me on track in the middle of the frenzy of activity.


7) Make sacrifices

I only watch 2-3hrs TV per night – less sometimes. I only watch TV I've recorded, and programmes I really want to watch, so no channel surfing.
I only really read for pleasure late at night in bed, when I'm too tired to do any of the stuff above.
Sometimes dinner is cheese and crackers, or a takeaway or a ready meal. This is usually only in extremis as both me and Himself enjoy cooking and eating and it's a good way to wind down after a busy day. But sometimes, it happens. It's not the end of the world.
I don't sacrifice socialising and seeing real people though. That's a dangerous road to go down I think. I will always make time to go to writing events, see friends and family, because I've fitted in the things I needed to do by using the techniques above.


7.5) And finally

I am not perfect. I do sometimes lose half an hour looking at pictures of cats on Twitter, or browsing at online clothes shops. I am human. I am not a synth like in Humans. The important thing is to realise these lapses happen, don't then think I’ve wasted half an hour so I won't bother with the rest of my to do list for today – get back on track.

Hope these tips are helpful, I'd love to hear if you have any others like like to share.

Liam Livings xx

If you enjoyed this blog, consider 'donating' to it by buying one of my books. I wrote Escaping From Him by using all the above tips. And it received an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Rainbow Awards.

Escaping From Him
Darryl’s on the run – from controlling boyfriend Chris, an air-conditioner called Dave (deceased), an intolerable, claustrophobic situation and a person he just can’t be any more. The trouble is, he doesn’t have a plan – or any money – and all he knows is he needs to get away from everything. That’s where a lucky lift to Glasgow comes in, which turns out to be just the beginning of a whole new life …

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What other readers said about Escaping From Him
This was a great story, with love, romance and car crashes. I love the way Liam writes and tells his stories, and having read a short excerpt I wasn't sure I would like it, but I ended up loving it. Ford was a great character coming into his own in the end, and there was one breath stopping scene that I couldn't believe what was happening, and even wanted to kill his friends for him, but it all worked out great in the end.

This is my first book by this author. From the beginning I was pulled into the world he created. I could not put this story down needing to see what would happen next and how the story would end. I will be looking for more from this author in the future.

Here’s the second in a series of blogs where I include my thoughts on some interesting parts of Barbara Cartland’s biography. My thoughts are in italics, the quotes from the biography – Barbara Cartland Crusader in Pink by Henry Cloud from 1979, are in normal type. Check out my thoughts on Cartland's writing process.

One of the most phenomenal things about her work is that she never seems to falter, never needs to correct herself – and never fails. She cheerfully admits she cannot spell and that her punctuation could improve, but incidentals such as these are taken care of by a retired Classics master who reads each manuscript before it is finally re-typed for the publisher.

I’m the first to admit my punctuation and grammar isn’t perfect. Having the luxury of a retired classics master to correct all these would be wonderful. However, I’ve worked with many brilliant editors who’ve taught me so much, and who’ve worked with the story I’ve written and ironed out minor errors along the way. I suppose having an editor you work with regularly, across many books, would develop a sort of symbiotic relationship where the editor knows what you tend to do, and you’d know what she would tend to fix in your story, hence allowing you to move on with the next story while the editor did her thing.

Another extraordinary thing about her work is the speed with which she can construct a book. Her theme, as she explains, is traditional. The Cinderella virgin meets and falls in love with her challenging dark hero on the first few pages. Events occur to mar or complicate the course of true love for the next six chapters. But in the seventh, love wins through, the pair are safely married, and we leave them as the joys of licit carnal bliss are just about to start.

[Cartland produced]...six to seven thousand words an afternoon, forty-five thousand words a book – and after seven afternoons with Mrs Elliott behind her, the book is finished and only has to be typed by Mrs Clark whose manuscripts, Barbara says, are the best any publisher or editor ever has seen. ‘I expect, and get perfection,’ she adds.

According to Christopher Booker’s ‘The Seven Basic Plots’ there are only seven different stories in the world, and you can fit a romance into many of the seven. In case you’re interested, the seven are: overcoming the monster; rags to riches; the quest; voyage and return; comedy; tragedy; rebirth. And to be honest, every romance I’ve read basically follows Cartland’s structure. Does this mean they’re formulaic? Only as formulaic as a crime novel, or an adventure story, or even a more literary piece of fiction – all of which have their own genre conventions and established structures. I’ve written, what can be described as gay fiction (more about the experience of being a gay man, coming out etc, with a romantic thread throughout) as well as gay romance (the main story is the romance, the coupling between two male main characters, after some trials and tribulations, which ends happily) so I can definitely recognise Carland’s structure. I too, can write a book (a first draft unlike what Cartland used to do) in a matter of 15 days as during Nanowrimo and undoubtedly if I was writing full time, with no day job, I could write 15000 – 20000 words a week over a five day working week, hence giving me a Cartland-length novel of 45000 words in 11 days or so. I actually find writing a first draft very quickly much easier than spreading it over many months because I stay with the characters, the plot and keep the characters’ voices in my head without forgetting what has gone before or what should come next.

But after a lifetime writing just this sort of book, Barbara’s skill consists in the endless ingenuity with which she adapts this constant theme to different historical back grounds and events.

I find this very interesting because in Reading the Romance, Janice Radway found that romance readers separated the plot from the setting of the story. ‘A romance is a fantasy, they believe, because it portrays people who are happier and better than real individuals and because events occur as the women wish they would in day-to-day existence.’ Or to explain clearer: ‘Even though the Smithton women [who took part in Radway’s research] know the stories are improbably, they also assume that the world that serves as the backdrop to those stories is exactly congruent with their own….anything the readers learn about the congruence of the two worlds, anything the readers learn about the fictional universe is automatically coded as “fact” or “information” and mentally filed for later use as knowledge applicable to the world of day-to-day existence.’ (Radway p109)

This explains why romance readers happily read books with broadly similar plots (see seven plots point above) with different settings and different characters, again and again. I’ve never written a historical romance because getting the details right terrifies me, and I also worry I’d lose days and weeks and months of research when I’d much rather be writing. Cartland reckoned she read 20-30 non-fiction books to inform the setting of her fiction. I find this slightly unbelievable, unless she read as fast as the speed of light, and didn’t sleep each night, but I have no evidence to the contrary.

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What do you think of the assertion that romance stories being similar to one another?

The Guardian Angel, a gay romance where the main character falls in love with his guardian angel, is available now. If you like your romance with lots of twists and turns, to a happy ever after, then I hope you enjoy this story of mine.

What happens when a man falls in love with his guardian angel?

Richard Sullivan is plagued by white feathers turning up at the oddest moments. Amy, his best friend, suggests his guardian angel is trying to contact him, but he dismisses the idea out of hand as nonsense.

Until, that is, he meets Sky. Six feet of muscle in a man skirt with white feather wings.

What exactly is a guardian angel? And what happens when your guardian angel takes leave and sends in a temp to cover? Do you wait for a perfect boyfriend on the off chance you may be able to touch him, to be with him, or do you grab happiness with another human? And, why the hell has Richard’s life suddenly become so complicated?

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Until next time,

Liam xx

A few days ago, almost a week after the shooting, Mum called, asked if I’d seen the news about the night club. ‘It was a gay night club. In America.’

‘Yes, I know.’
‘I’ve only just heard about it. I don’t watch the news. My friend called me to ask if I’d seen the news. She said you and Himself would know about it.’ Pause. ‘Do you and Himself go to gay night clubs?’
‘We used to, but not so much any more. We have friends who do. Lots of other gay people go to gay night clubs all the time, all over the world.’

‘Right.’

On 12 June 2016 Omar Mateen, 29, killed 49 people at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando Florida, before he was shot dead by police. I read that Omar’s father said he’d become ‘very angry’ at seeing two men kissing in Miami recently. It has since emerged that Mateen had attended the night club previously on a number of occasions, drank and talked to other patrons of the club and then left.
The thing about being gay, I’ve found, is you spend most of your life checking yourself in public so you’re not too affectionate to your friends or boyfriend in case you get a comment or a look or worse a punch. I do this all the time, whether I’m meeting gay friends in a train station where I don’t kiss on the cheeks like I would if meeting a woman friend, or saying goodbye to my boyfriend on the Tube, where I just wave goodbye and don’t kiss him away.
As a gay man I’ve got used to that. I know I can’t hold my boyfriend’s hand in public outside of Soho or Brighton, without getting comments or worse. I accept that. It is the way of the world. Plus, I tend to attract attention for being gay without holding another man’s hands in public, so I’ve accepted this as the way things are. I’m not saying it’s right that I can’t hold hands in public, but the alternative of getting homophobic abuse assault is much worse, so as a pragmatist, I accept it.

I’ve had men in white vans shouting at me as I walked on the pavement. I’ve had people shout at me as I’ve driven around in my soft top sports car.

More than ten years ago, on a Tube journey crossing London late one Sunday night, a man sat opposite me on the tube, leaned forward, with his legs either side of mine and his hands on my thighs and then he started whispering what he thought about me, how disgusted he was by my gayness and what he wanted to do to me sexually. I froze to my seat because I couldn’t believe it was happening and listened to and when I realised no one else was close enough in the carriage to help, I stood and walked away. The man didn’t follow me, but I shook all the way back to my flat until I closed the door finally sure I was safe. Homophobia is everywhere. But it's not with everyone.

I know other gay men who are much more open about their public displays of affection then me. The two men kissing who apparently angered Omar were obviously being public about their displays of affection.

Does this mean gay people shouldn’t be affectionate in public?

Of course not. Everyone should be able to be themselves however they want, without causing harm to others. However, some people’s anger and disgust at simply how other people love is so all-encompassing that they have to resort to acts of violence in response.

Some people say there’s less need for gay bars and clubs with hook up apps and a more tolerant society but I disagree. Gay people go to gay bars and clubs for more than just to hook up with people – they go there to be themselves without fear of checking and holding back as I’ve described above.
Gay bars and clubs are our spaces where we can be ourselves unashamedly without worrying about a look or a comment. This is what makes the events in Orlando even worse. In the rest of the world, as a gay person, you kind of get used to being a bit savvy in public, watching yourself, and being careful where you sit or walk to avoid dodgy situations that could put yourself in danger. Of all the places you’d avoid, you wouldn’t include a gay club, because that’s your safe place.
There’s been some wishy washy commentary about how the attack wasn’t homophobic, how it was an attack on people enjoying themselves and dancing.
Twaddle. Bollocks. Nonsense.
An attack on a gay nightclub is an attack on gay people. Just like an attack on a synagogue would have been reported as an attack on Jewish people. Or an attack on a church would have been reported to be against Christians.
Gay people collect – congregate if you will – in gay night clubs. Simple as.
A gay club, even in an age of hook up apps, and the internet, is still our space. A space where you can be your flaming rainbow coloured gay self without having to apologise.

In 1999 The Admiran Duncan, a gay pub in London’s Soho, was bombed, in a deliberate attempt to target gay people. Three people were killed and about 70 people were injured. It was part of a series of race attacks by a Neo-Nazi on racially diverse areas of London – Brixton and Tower Hamlets ending with a gay pub in London’s gay area – Soho. This was undeniably targeted at gay people.
The thing about targeting gay people is you can’t just target gay people.
Gay people don’t live in splendid isolation.

Gay people touch everyone’s lives whether you want us to or not.

The Admiral Duncan attack killed Andrea Dykes, a pregnant woman, her friend and the best man at the wedding of Andrea and her husband. Even if you hate gay people the chances are through the three degrees of separation rule, you probably know one in your family or friends group.
The 49 people killed in Orlando isn’t just killing gay people, which is tragic enough, but it’s killing a little part of the gay people’s mums, dads, cousins, sisters, colleagues.
My thoughts are with the parents, friends, colleagues, brothers, sisters of the people killed and injured in Orlando.

What should we do in response to this?

Certainly, let’s not start with hate and blaming religion, or Mexicans, or guns, or mental health, or homophobia, or self-hatred.
Let’s respond with love. Love among the gay community. Love from the majority of straight people who get on fine with gay people.
Let’s also respond, as a gay community by carrying on and living our lives. Just. Like. Before. Because what else can we do, but that? Just like after the 7/7 bombings on the London Tube network, millions of Londoners the next day, got right back onto the Tube and continued with their London lives.
Gay people must carry on going to Pride marches and festivals. Carry on going to gay bars and night clubs. And, where we feel safe, carry on with our public displays of affection, be they a kiss on the cheek or a hug. Personally I’m not for full on face-sucking in public whether it’s between a man and a woman, two men or two women – get a room please!
Because, like it or dislike it, gay people aren’t going away. GLBTQ people, make up between 5 and 10% of the population depending on which research you believe and how you define GLTBQ. Bottom line, we’re here, we’re queer and we walk amongst you.

I’ve recently finished a Barbara Cartland biography from 1979 and full disclosure – I absolutely loved it from page one right through to the end. It included some wonderful descriptions and tips about her writing process and the sort of books she wrote and why she felt they were popular, as well as an interesting account of her childhood and life; much of which felt like the plot of a romantic novel. As a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association, founded by Barbara Cartland, I thought I’d better become more acquainted with the woman herself.
This is the first in a series of blogs in which I’ll analyse and comment on passages from the biography which I hope you’ll find interesting.
This section below was in a chapter called The ‘Factory’ about how she writes in Camfield Place in 400 acres of park and woodland near Hatfield House.
My comments are in italics after each section from the biography.
All text not in italics are from Henry Cloud’s Barbara Cartland Crusader in Pink 1979.

Her writing process
She walks from the dining-room, followed by her dogs, across the hall and into Grandpa Potter’s big library...There she makes herself comfortable on a big yellow-brocade sofa in front of the fire – a hot water bottle at her feet and over her legs a pink rug covered in white fur.
I’ve often written in bed. I think it’s important to write somewhere where one is comfortable. Often Domino sits next to me as I type away on my Neo. Are we sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin...

Mrs Audrey Elliot, her literary secretary, sits behind her, pad in hand. As an extra safeguard a tape-recorder is switched on. And for the next two and a half hours, Barbara dictates a chapter of her latest novel. It was Godfrey Winn who first advised her to do this: ‘The words you speak are so much more immediate and sincere than those you write,’ he explained to her – invaluable advice.
For she has taught herself the virtuoso art of unhesitating dictation. It requires extraordinary powers of concentration, and Mrs Elliott, apart from being very accurate, has long discovered how to remain invisible and totally discreet throughout the process.
Having a secretary to take down what you say aloud in shorthand is certainly a product of its time. In 1979 pre-computers in the office, a secretary would have taken letters shorthand and then typed them. Nowadays where everyone in the workplace tends to have their own computer, shorthand is a dying art. Even a chief executive would probably reply to their own correspondence (emails now). Dictating your writing would, I’m sure, make it much more conversational style. One of the criticisms of overly clunky cloying writing is it feels like writing. If you write like you talk, that pitfall can be avoided. I’ve been told I write exactly like I talk – which is a nice complement I feel. I wrote an academic essay and was told although it covered all the requisite parts, it was in first person (the point of view I prefer to write my fiction in) and was far too conversational (just like my fiction, I’m told). To be able to simply talk a story out loud while someone takes it down in shorthand is an enviable skill. I’ve not tried dictation software yet, but I know many other authors who dictate their fiction now, so it appears straight on the word processing programme from their lips. Because I write all over the place – trains, tubes, libraries, cafes etc, this wouldn’t work for me, but I’m told it’s a great way of getting a 5000 – 7000 daily word output relatively easily – which is what Cartland enviably did.

She herself describes the process: ‘As I sit there I’m simply telling myself a story, and I am told my voice changes as I take each separate part – I see exactly what is happening as I describe it and I live through each dramatic incident.’
For me, this is exactly how it feels when I’m writing a first draft. Once I’ve sketched out the plot and got to know the characters, I actually ‘see’ the story in my mind’s eye, and simply write what I see through my fingers. Although I could say what I see, as Cartland did, it would be harder in the variety of places where I write than typing it. Because I can touch type, about 60 – 100 words per minute (using the home row and not looking at the keyboard) so the translation between my mind seeing it, and my fingers typing it is relatively seamless.

If you fancy a bit of romance, with some summer sizzle and sex, check out Heat Wave Astoria

Brad's shop is known as the most popular tourist attraction for certain men in his home town, Astoria. Brad doesn't do relationships -- why would he? He’s an unashamed slut, and he loves it.

British IT programmer James is much happier working with software and computers than people. He finds escape in his encyclopedic knowledge of childhood films like The Goonies and Short Circuit.

When James walks into a quilting shop in Astoria, he decides he'll take his brother's advice and talk to a stranger. That stranger is Brad, melting slowly behind the counter during the longest heat wave America's had in years.

Buy links: JMS Books Amazon.com Amazon.co.uk

I'd love to hear what you thought about Cartland's writing process and my comments on it.

Liam Livings xx

I'm talking about my favourite box sets on the JMS Books blog. It is to celebrate the release of Serendipity as a box set of stories bundled together. Comment on the JMS website with a chance to win a copy.
I've copied the text below too:

Liam Livings has stopped in to talk about the Serendipity Box Set, published by JMS Books! And we’re giving away a free copy to one lucky reader!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.
Contains the stories: Christmas Serendipity, Serendipity Develops, and The Next Christmas.

Read more about each story or read an excerpt!
Liam’s favorite box sets:
In the Serendipity Box Set, David and Christian are both massive Harry Potter fans, so one of their favourite box sets is the Harry Potter films. They enjoy watching them together, at Christmas and throughout the year.
I have so many favourite box sets that I’ve categorised them because picking one would be like picking a favourite meal or child or album, and who can be so confident as to pick one favourite out of all those choices? Not me!
Read on … and enter for a chance to win a free copy of the Serendipity Box Set!

Favourite teenage American box set — Gilmore Girls or Dawson’s Creek
I grew up with Dawson’s Creek and love all the angst and teenage soul-searching about finding themselves and their love and their place in the world. The ending was also perfect; it tied up all the loose ends and had everyone (except one character who sadly died) happy ever after.
The storyline about Jack coming out at high school was pretty ground-breaking in the mid-nineties and it showed me a positive response from his friends and some of his family, which gave me hope while I struggled to come out.
Gilmore Girls — I was a late-comer to this party. I accidentally stumbled across it on one of the higher up channels and was instantly hooked by the snappy, funny dialogue and cultural references and the sparky relationship between the three Gilmore girls of the title — Emily Gilmore, the matriarch; Lorelia, her wayward daughter; and Rory, the teenage born-out-of-wedlock daughter Lorelia had while in high school.
In one scene, Lorelia listed some essential films she and her daughter watched regularly; I subsequently bought them all and wasn’t disappointed.
The secondary characters are a joy, too — Paris Geller in particular has some brilliant one-liners. The friendship between Lane and Rory that evolves through the whole box set, through different schools, university, and boyfriends, is wonderfully comforting. I loved the friendship between Lorelia and Sookie (Melissa McCarthy could film herself drying her hair and talking to camera and I’d go to the cinema to watch it).
I loved this box set so much that, when I reached the end, I went right back and watched the first episode again.
Favourite adult American box set — Brothers and Sisters or Six Feet Under
Brothers and Sisters has an ensemble cast comprising the sort of A-list actors you’d have leading a drama on their own, but here you get them all. In one drama. Sally Fields, Calista Flockhart, Rachel Griffiths, Rob Lowe. And of course the gay brother played by Matthew Rhys with his happy-ever-after after lots of false starts and bumps in the road.
It’s soapy, it’s multi-layered, it’s family, it’s funny, it’s dramatic. I used to save it to watch on Saturday morning and my friend and her partner used to watch it, too, and we’d almost always text saying how much we’d cried at that week’s episode. Loads of twists and turns in the storyline.
Each character has a properly developed story of their own, but it’s the way they’re interwoven that got me every time. It perfectly showed how you love your family because they’re your family, but you don’t always like them.
Sometimes I watch the last episode just because it brings it all together so perfectly and it STILL makes me cry, watching it now, even though I’ve seen it tens of times. If you’ve seen the film Steel Magnolias, it’s like watching that, over five seasons. It. Is. Amazing.
Six Feet Under is similar to B&S in that it’s focused on a family who run a funeral home, which is also where they live. Each episode focuses on a death that the family then organise the funeral for. It sounds morbid, but it’s actually anything but. It’s very life-affirming.
There’s so much dysfunctional family dynamics going on between the two brothers and sister in the house, just like in a real family. Each character has their own storyline and issues and secrets they keep from the others.
I didn’t watch this when it was first on TV because I’d just lost my dad (and this starts with the patriarch dying) but, given time and distance, I actually really loved this complex, multi-layered drama. It’s another box set I’ve re-watched numerous times, too. You see so much more each time around.
Each episode has its own story, but there’s plenty of long story arcs across the seasons and the whole box set. This has a gay brother, too, and I enjoyed the rivalry and contrast between him and his straight sibling. It reminded me of my relationship with my own brother.
Favourite British box set — Gavin and Stacey
This is a character-driven comedy romance about Gavin, a boy from Essex (a county just outside London, renowned for its brashness and glitz, too — see Towie, a reality TV series set there) and a girl, Stacey, from a remote part of Wales, who fall in love.
There’s contrast, there’s humour with the secondary characters — both Gavin and Stacey have a best friend who is even more Welsh/Essex than they are themselves. My mum is almost exactly like Gavin’s mother, Pamela — the diets, the clothes, the fussing over her son, the phrases she uses.
If you’ve not seen it yet, I can thoroughly recommend it. There may be a few British cultural references some Americans don’t follow completely, but I think most of the character and humour transcends that and works as long as you speak English. I mean, I love Friends and that has plenty of American references I’m not 100% about, but I just go with it and enjoy the ride.
If you’d like to enjoy the ride David and Christian follow together, you can now buy all three novellas about their story in one box set.
Read an excerpt or buy a copy of the Serendipity Box Set today!
Giveaway!Or enter below for your chance to win a free copy! One winner will be announced next Saturday, so enter today!