Interview with AD member Sandi Layne

Sandi Layne, author of the upcoming novel, Garrison’s Girl, graciously picks me up every Tuesday we have a writers’ group meeting. In honor of her second book publication, October 4, 2003, by Publish America, I wanted to be the first to interview her. She unwittingly agreed. Layne and I first met through an ad she placed in our local paper about a writers’ group she wanted to initiate to help fellow writers find like-minded individuals. She believes, “No one but another writer knows what it’s like to write! It can be a lonely vocation, but here we will applaud one another’s efforts and give credit where credit is due.” This interview is just for that purpose. Layne began writing almost 5 years ago, December 1, 1998. She admits her first novel has yet to see the light of publication. But she has written a total of 17 novels, and Garrison’s Girl is her second novel to be published. Layne says it only took her 30 days to write it from start to finish in 1999. “It’s a story about forgiveness,” she says. At the time, Sandi only had one child and she says, “He was terrific about letting Mom write all day”. Now that she has two children, Layne admits, “I just write one sentence at a time, at any hour the opportunity strikes”. Having to juggle housework and child rearing, however, hasn’t stopped her from writing and sharing her experiences with others. Garrison’s Girl is a Christian romance about a young high school student named Dawn Packard, who finds herself pregnant and decides to raise the baby on her own. Years later she meets her daughter’s father, once more, and has to come to terms with feelings she long buried. Can Packard forgive and learn to love Garrison again? Layne says she was inspired to write a story where someone may find it difficult to forgive another person and oneself. Teen pregnancy is a controversial topic, but Layne wanted her characters to have real life obstacles to surpass. Then she worked on weaving this into a romance. Layne says the best thing about being a writer is you “have all these lives to play with, to enjoy, and to communicate through”. The downside to being a writer is how subjective the field is. Layne says, “You might have a stellar work, incredibly well-written, but the submissions’ editor might reject it out of hand, because they are having a bad day. Poof,” you have to move on to another publishing company. It isn’t easy to find the right publisher for your book. But any writer will agree it is worth the time and effort when you see your work touch the lives of others. Sandi Layne has a weekly column featured at http://www.writetoinspire.com entitled, “Kids-n-Keys”. Her work can also be found on AD at http://www.authorsden.com/sandilayne. Writers Club Press published her first novel, Faith Under Fire, in May 2001. You may contact the author through her website at http://www.sandilayne.com. Make sure you mark your calendars so when October comes, you won’t miss purchasing your copy of Garrison’s Girl and enjoy the read