Think #romcoms are just for women? Think again! Check out this brillant debut from @LjHurleyWriter .@rararesources #xfactor #chicklit #guestpost

…from the mind of a fictional character

by

Jimmy Rowland

(a character from Liam Hurley's You, Me and Us)

I did something terrible the other night. I watched The X Factor. Maybe terrible is an overstatement. But it was definitely bad. Very bad. Not for the reasons you’d expect though, yes, the singing wasn’t fantastic, but the main reason I hated it was the audience. Half of them were there to see the judges. They cheered the compliments and boo’d the criticism. Like a pantomime. All whilst some poor sod is stood on stage being judged like some sort of freak show.  I feel nothing but empathy for the people who go on that stage to chase their dreams. I applaud it. Well done to them, they’re at least having a go. 

However, some of them are absolutely awful. Really really bad. And the producers throw them on stage, full of dreams to be crushed in front of the entire country. Some of these people are severely deluded, to the point where you wonder how no-one has ever stopped them from doing this, and they are about to get embarrassed in front of a nation. It is gut-wrenching. People are boo’ing, chanting ‘off, off, off’, laughing at the judges’ snarky comments and all I feel is pain for the people up there. They are shit though. 

This isn’t sore grapes, trust me, I am in a band myself. The X Factor has never appealed to us, although it does seem to be one of the many suggestions we get from family and friends. “You should go on! You’d be great!”. It just isn’t our bag. Like I said, fair play to the people for having a go, but it really isn’t for us. Plus we probably wouldn’t get through considering half our act is me telling crap jokes to the audience whilst my two band mates argue about what key to play Faith in. And I’m not 100% sure Simon would like that. 

The only time I’d want an audience to chant ‘off, off, off’ at me is if I joined the cast of Magic Mike. Even then I’d be laughed at but at least I’d understand why! There are no illusions of grandeur when it comes to what’s underneath my many layers of clothing.

Even if you’re good and you get through to the live shows, being on The X Factor isn’t always the step to fame and glory it pretends to be. Look at the many winners of past seasons, half of them are now long forgotten about. Singing in pubs or hosting VIP nights are their local nightclub. Tosh. Utter tosh. The problem is that the vast majority go on the show for all the wrong reasons. When they get asked what their dream is they respond with words such as ‘superstar, famous, celebrity’ they hardly ever say ‘singer, artist, band’. And this is the crux of it. Being on one of these shows is advertised as being a route to fame rather than success. The two do not always go hand-in-hand.

I am not blind to the fact that my band may not end up being a worldwide success. However, if I could do well enough with music to do it full-time that would be the goal. Anything at all beyond that would be extra. If I could earn minimum wage from singing full time that would be amazing. I’d be living the dream.

So, if you’re out there reading this, future contestants, try and think about what your dream really is. Is it to sing? Come down to an open mic. Is it to be famous? Make a fake viral video and become a YouTube star. Trust me your local nightclub will always need someone to drink apple sours and pose for pictures with drunk seventeen-year olds. Or you could get embarrassed in front of millions whilst singing I Believe I Can Fly. It’s up to you.  

Introducing... 

You, Me and Us

“F*** you for breaking my f***ing heart…”

This is the heart-breaking yet hilarious story of Jimmy Rowland and Erin Poppet.

Jimmy Rowland has the perfect life. He works in his favourite bar by day, and by night he lives his dream with his two best friends in his band.

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Erin Poppet crashes into Jimmy’s life like a beautiful storm. He falls in love with her as quickly and as deeply as possible. The intensity of their relationship leaves Jimmy with a broken heart, a useless vacuum and a demon inside him. 

Jimmy’s dream life quickly becomes a nightmare when he loses his dream job and destroys his musical career live on stage. 

When he hits rock bottom, he decides he only has one choice, to rebuild his life from scratch. He has to get back the life he had before Erin. 

This is her story. This is his story. This is their story.

Or as Jimmy would say…

“… this is the story of You, Me and Us.”

About Liam Hurley in his own words:

My name is Liam; I am an author from Manchester, UK. I love three things in this world, writing, reading and the viral video of the Irish family trying to catch a bat. (My girlfriend, family, friends and cats may be unhappy with this).

My hobbies include listening to podcasts, watching grown men fight and trying every possible type of ground coffee in the world. My hobbies include listening to podcasts, watching grown men fight and trying every possible type of ground coffee in the world. 

Here are my Top Ten reasons to read my book or spend the night with me… 

1. It won’t cost you much. 

2. It will be over relatively quickly. 
3. I will be very grateful. 
4. You can tell other people about it if you enjoyed it. 
5. If not, don’t bother. 
6. It’s always fun to have something in your hands to flick through. 
7. You can review it online. 
8. It will leave a mark on you. 
9. You won’t want to put it down. 
10. It’ll make you laugh. 

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An interview with a fictional character #Christmas #rocknroll @KiltieJackson @rararesources #currentaffairs #romance #win

…from the mind of a fictional character

a celebrity interview with

Pete Wallace

(a character from Kiltie Jackson's A Rock 'n' Roll Lovestyle: A Christmas Romance)

Dear readers, today we are discussing the topic of media intrusion into the lives of people in the public eye. Just how severe were the consequences of phone hacking and how did they affect those involved. Giving us his views on the matter, I am welcoming former singer from boy-band The Astons, and world number one solo artist, Mr Pete Wallace.

Pete, before we start, please can you tell us a little about yourself for the benefit of readers who were maybe not fans of The Astons.

Of course. I’m Pete Wallace and I’m a musician. I started off my career as one of the lead singers in The Astons when I was sixteen. I’m now a solo artist, aged 33 and I’ve spent most of my adult life in the public eye.

Pete, The Astons dominated the music scene for the best part of a decade, and were reported on almost daily in tabloid press. Would it be fair to say you courted the press attention in your younger days?

I think it would be fair to say the PR companies courted the press on our behalf. We were young and naïve and followed the guidance of those we believed knew better. We were told where to go, where to be, when to arrive and when to leave. We never considered that it was all engineered to maximise our exposure.

But surely you must have realised that being in the tabloids every day was no bad thing? It made you famous after all.

We were four lads who just wanted to make music. Of course we didn’t mind the trappings that came with becoming famous and successful but we never fully understood, at that time, the consequences that would accompany being ‘media darlings’.

And what would you say those consequences were Pete?

Predominately, the loss of one’s privacy. I can’t even begin to explain how it feels to look out of your window and see people raking through your rubbish bins, trying to find something they can report upon in their newspaper the next day. I mean, does anyone really want to know what my preferred brand of butter is?

Some would argue that people have a right to know.

I think there should be limits on what people have a right to know because, without them, people will never be satisfied and will always clamour for more. This results in those in the public eye being harassed more and more frequently in order to feed the beast that society is becoming. When all is said and done, most musicians and actors are simply trying to do a job which provides enjoyment to many people. When we choose to become entertainers, we don’t sign a document which signs away the rights to some kind of private life.

But the public are the people who pay for your music and watch the films. Without them, you don’t have a career.

It is fully appreciated that the general public are essential for our careers but being in the public eye doesn’t, or shouldn’t make us public property.

Further to the phone hacking scandal which came to light a few years ago, a number of cases are still being tried at this time. Were you affected by this?

Yes… Yes, I was. Well, my family was. (hesitation…) A very close friend of my father was caught up in the London bombings in 2005. My father knew his daily commute and knew immediately that he would have been in the area where one of the bombs detonated. He tried to call him many times and left several messages asking him to call back. When it was reported later that ‘a close family friend of Pete Wallace’ had been killed in the attacks, we were gobsmacked because very few people could have known this information. This resulted in my parents being hounded even further by the paparazzi who were doing all they could to dig up any snippet of information on the victims. This was the final straw for them and, not long after that, they began to make plans to move to Austria.

Were you affected in any other ways by this?

Well it pushed my family into moving to another country. This caused a breakdown in the close relationship I had with my parents. Something had shifted and it never felt quite the same after that. I also firmly believe that, had they not felt compelled to leave the country, they would still be alive today.

Are you referring to their death when you were in hospital?

That’s correct. Once again, the lies printed in the press caused them pain and upset. They died believing an untruth.

Would you like to expand further on that?

No thank you. It’s probably best that I don’t.

Fair enough. So, to finish, do you feel measures should be put in place that restrict what the press and media can report?

I feel that the ‘freedom of the press’ is taken too literally and that some boundaries need to be put in place. If public figures are merely being hounded because their picture on the front page helps to sell copies, then that has to be curbed. If there is a legitimate investigation going on where it is believed somebody is involved in say sexual exploitation or fraudulent activities, then these should be looked into thoroughly. The press need to use more common sense. They do a great job in exposing wrong-doings but they undermine their credibility when they report lies and untruths that caused untold damage to the lives of innocent people.

Pete, thank you for being here today and for sharing your thoughts with us.

Thank you for having me as your guest.

Introducing...

A Rock 'n' Roll Lovestyle

So who exactly is Sukie McClaren?
A Christmas-loving Cat lover? A Sound of Music Fanatic? A Fiercely Independent Woman?

She is all of the above. And when she is sent to Salzburg for a business trip a few weeks before Christmas, she thinks all her dreams have come true. As she packs her suitcase, the only things on her mind are Christmas markets, lots of snow and finally seeing the Doh-Ray-Me steps. Becoming the new best friend of the world’s hottest rock-star doesn’t even get a look in.

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Pete Wallace is a reclusive, reluctant, rock-star and the world’s Number One, best-selling, male solo artist. It’s been three years since his last tour and he’s now preparing to go back on the road again. A week in Salzburg, schmoozing with the music press, is one of his worst nightmares. 

He can’t wait for it to be over.

When Pete and Sukie meet, it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Lonely for too long, he begins to remember how it feels to be happy and, for the first time in six years, Christmas feels special again. 

Eduardo di Santo however, whose kid sister suffered life-changing injuries at a Pete Wallace concert, is all set on getting revenge. When Pete’s new tour is announced, he begins to make his plans. Plans that will culminate in Pete's demise.

Will Pete and Sukie’s new friendship die before it has a chance to flourish?

A Christmas tale full of love, laughter, friendship and revenge.

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Kiltie Jackson grew up in Glasgow, Scotland but currently lives in Staffordshire.

Kiltie first began writing 'A Rock 'n' Roll Lovestyle' over ten years ago. The project was shelved on Chapter Seventeen as she felt the story wasn't flowing as she would like it to.

In her own words "The images in my head would not come out of my fingers!" Fast forward to November 2016 when, having finished reading Lizzie's Christmas Escape by Christie Barlow, she read more about the author and was inspired with how Christie herself came to be a best-selling author.

In that thunderbolt moment, Kiltie knew - with a deep certainty- that she needed to reacquaint herself with 'A Rock 'n' Roll Lovestyle' and begin writing again. She did this in January 2017 and found the words flowed faster than she could type them. Finally, the time was right for her to write her novel.

She currently has a further ten plots and ideas stored in her file (it's costing a fortune in USB drives as each story has its own memory stick!) and the ideas still keep on coming.

She now lives her life around the following three quotes:

"I love having weird dreams, they're great fodder for book plots!"
"Why wait for your ship to come in when you can swim out to meet it?"
"Old enough to know better, young enough not to care!"

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ROCK-ROMANCE - A MADE-UP GENRE!

by

Pam Howes

Oddly enough I never intended to be an author. When I began to write it was never meant to be fiction. I thought I might do articles based on the 60's music scene in my home city of Manchester and try to sell them to Mojo magazine or the NME. I'd always had a creative bent and spent a long time running my own Interior Design business. But a change of lifestyle and circumstances in the mid-nineties kind of threw me in the direction of writing and once I started I found it hard to stop. But the factual music-scene-book I'd thought myself destined to write actually turned into more and characters began to develop. Suddenly I had a tale flowing and the more I wrote the more I enjoyed the process of weaving a story around fictional rock band The Raiders, and their lives and loves. That original story Three Steps to Heaven was re-written God knows how many times until I was happy enough to let people read it. The trouble is it was hard to class it in a genre.

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It wasn't really a family saga, although it featured families and it was a saga! It wasn't, strictly speaking, romance, although there are romantic passages throughout, nor could it be classed as historical, as the sixties isn't quite that yet, or so I'm told. It could be drama - well maybe, there's plenty in it and I'm told it would make good TV viewing. It wasn't chick-lit, no fluffy girls in it, just rock chicks! And although there are a few sexually explicit scenes between the drummer and his girl, I wouldn't describe them as erotic. So what the devil to class it as? It was certainly a problem. Then it struck me - I'd have to invent my own. And so, the genre of Rock Romance was born. Amazon, of course, doesn't recognise it as a genre, and my books currently sit in sagas and romance, but it's how I promote my work. I now find it easy when someone asks me what type of story I write. It always provokes a question and answer session and with most people having a feel for a bit of nostalgia for the sixties, I can usually make a sale or two.

Since that first novel I've written two further books in my Rock'n'Roll Romance Series and am about to publish the fourth in December. I love writing in this made-up genre. I love my music and my fictional band. I've really been able to get involved and create lives and ongoing happenings for all my characters and I've taken them from late teens to men just bordering sixty years old. They're still rocking and romancing the ladies though. There's little slowing down with my lot. Love and romance is not just for young characters. Middle-aged guys like to enjoy life too and so do their ladies.

Last year I had a slight change of direction and wrote a sensual romance based on a true-life love story. This also had a music theme. I'm looking forward to expanding this series of sensual romances next year.

I totally enjoy writing, I'm lucky enough to be able to do it full time and it’s taken over my life. My head is constantly filled with scenes and conversations, sometimes to the point where I wish they'd all go home for the night and leave me in peace! I don't think I'd ever want to do anything else now though.