Andrew Q. Gordon

Today we welcome Layla Dorine to the Land of Make Believe. She’s here to tell us about her relationship with her own writing. She’s also going to give you a bit of insight into her upcoming release.

And with that . . .

Writing is Personal

Writing is such a personal thing. I think any writer would tell you the same. That even when you have critique partners and betas and writing groups to bring material to, the process of writing is one of the loneliest feelings in the world. It is also a time for great joy and introspection, at least to me. I find myself recalling things from years and even decades past, drawing on them for character reactions, for events that transpire and even for some moments of comic relief.

In some of my newest writings, I’ve tackled the subject of going back home after a long absence, and in making one’s own home and family when the places we left behind no longer accept us. In my life I’ve experienced both. Last summer I returned to the place I consider to be my hometown, after fourteen years. So much had changed, but as I walked from one end of the city to the other, it was like I was walking with ghosts.

My footsteps echoed on the cobblestone that ran in front of the old five story parking garage my best friend and I loved to skateboard through. I could swear I heard him laughing. I could remember the feel of walking arm in arm singing ‘To Be With You,’ the heaviness of the old video camera we used to shoot videos for TV production class, and the scent of fresh clam chowder and fried clam strips.

The thing I missed the most though, besides family, was the ocean. I could get to it within fifteen minutes from anywhere in the city and loved to spend my free time walking along the sands, picking up shells, or sitting on the break wall, reading a book and writing lyrics.

I loved getting lost in those magical worlds I created, staring off over the ocean at the horizon, imagining castles rising up from the sea, riding seahorses across the waves and being able to dive to the deepest parts and see all the remarkable animals there. I still haven’t finished that mermaid book I started writing almost ten years ago, but those teenage musings are the basis of it.

If the places I’ve been and the things I’ve seen are what has shaped me, then I doubt I’ll ever be able to put all of my experiences into words, but I certainly plan to try. I’ve seen forty-seven states now in my forty-two years on this earth, and one thing I’ve learned is how much of an impact new experiences and seeing new things has on me. It’s like lighting a spark that turns into a raging wildfire of words and emotions, and I’ve come to love every minute of it.

That recent trip home has also given fodder for some backstory to the characters I’ve been creating. Wrapped up in those old memories, was the time my best friend tried to moon a group of us and ended up mooning our high school principal, or the time we took an old van bouncing over some potholes to park it out on the beach, turned the radio up and danced on top of it in the light of the setting sun. Later that night though, that same van started leaking gasoline all down the street and we thought we were going to end up with a fireball when our buddy who owned it went out to take a look while still smoking a cigarette. These are some of the moments that have been woven into even grander tales.

In my upcoming release, Gypsy’s Rogue, there are several moments from my life spilled out over the page. Like that first night in Chattanooga, looking for Ziggy’s place, Ultra Plague Dog 2000 and getting accosted for my style of dress. Dinner by strands of fairy lights, lying out in a rainstorm until I was soaked, singing country songs in old pickup trucks and coming home from swap meets with a mess of new critters. And if you’ve never seen a city girl try and learn to milk a cow, look out, that one will be showing up in an upcoming book too. Most of Rogue’s reactions to the animals are based off my own. Like the day I walked into the pig confinement I’d just been hired at, took one look at the huge animals and said ‘oh, you have cows here too?’ It took a while to live that down, but man, I never knew pigs could get so big. Naming dinner and skinny dipping in a secluded private pond, bouncing over back roads and dressing up just to go to the mall ‘cause it was the only place around to go to and it was appealing to look nice once in a while.

I could write more, but I don’t want to give any more away. Just that I’m always searching for new events and looking to make new memories, and hopefully, in time, they get woven in somewhere and I can share them with all of you.

Peace,

Layla Dorine

About Layla

Layla Dorine lives among the sprawling prairies of Midwestern America, in a house with more cats than people. She loves hiking, fishing, swimming, martial arts, camping out, photography, cooking, and dabbling with several artistic mediums. In addition, she loves to travel and visit museums, historic, and haunted places.

Layla got hooked on writing as a child, starting with poetry and then branching out, and she hasn’t stopped writing since. Hard times, troubled times, the lives of her characters are never easy, but then what life is? The story is in the struggle, the journey, the triumphs and the falls. She writes about artists, musicians, loners, drifters, dreamers, hippies, bikers, truckers, hunters and all the other folks that she’s met and fallen in love with over the years. Sometimes she writes urban romance and sometimes its aliens crash landing near a roadside bar. When she isn’t writing, or wandering somewhere outdoors, she can often be found curled up with a good book and a kitty on her lap.

Where To Find Layla

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