Author Interview-Lilly Gayle
As my 100th post, I’m excited to welcome fellow, Wild Rose
Press author, Lilly Gayle. I’ll be over
at her blog today.
Stop by and say hi!
What inspired you to
become a writer?
When I was in the eighth grade, my teacher gave us an
assignment: Write a short, 3 to 5 page story using all of your spelling words.
The entire class groaned. I smiled. I could do that. I'd been writing stories
in my head since the day I played hooky to watch the very first episode of
Young and the Restless. So, I started writing…and filled up an entire spiral
notebook. The teacher asked me to condense it down to the required word length,
but she encouraged me to keep writing. And I did. Until I graduated from high
school and went off to college. Life got in my way for years, but I shared my
secret desire to write with my husband and in 1995, he bought our first
computer and told me to stop dreaming and start writing. Gotta love a man who
listens to the important stuff. As for the small stuff, well that's another
story. Lol!
Who are your favorite
romance characters (besides your own?)
Dean Koontz's Christopher Snow from his books Seize the
Night and Fear Nothing. Snow is the main character and suffers from Xeroderma
Pigmentosum. The story is a paranormal suspense with romantic elements and I
fell in love with Snow. Forced to live in a shadowy world because of his rare
skin condition, Snow witnesses a series of frightening events that force him to
confront his fears as he investigates the dark secrets hiding in the shadows of
Moonlight Bay.
Tell me what inspired
this story.
Dean Koontz's character, Christopher Snow. He suffers from
XP- a rare, genetic DNA disorder in which the skin is ultra-sensitive to UV light
and the ability to repair the damage is deficient.
Patients exposed to UV and sunlight suffer from disfiguring burns and skin
cancers. While reading the book, I started investigating the disorder and got
an for a vampire novel. Then I saw a re-run of Universal Soldier with
Jean-Claud Vandam and Dolph Lundgren and the idea came together in a rough
draft.
How do you balance
your day-to-day commitments with your writing life?
Not very well! I still work a day job. I a radiologic
technologist with a certification in mammography. I usually, work 9-10 hours,
four days a week, but we've been so swamped lately, I've been putting in 11
hour days. Then there's writing, promoting, blogging, home and family
obligations. Sometimes I can't keep up! And I've got two WIP's I need to
finish! Any advice on how to write faster or find more hours in the day? Lol!
Is there anything
else you’d like to share with our readers?
As a mammographer and breast cancer survivor, I want to
remind women over forty to perform monthly self-breast exam, visit their doctor
for an annual clinical breast exams and ask the health care provider to
schedule a yearly mammogram if you haven't already had one. When I was
diagnosed in 2007 at age 47, I had no family history, no symptoms, no lump, and
no clue. I can't tell you how shocked I was to see the film and know—even
before the doctor read my films—that that tiny, spiky white glob next to my
chest wall had all the film characteristics of an invasive cancer. And I was
right.
In 2007, 70% of all new breast cancers were diagnosed in
women with NO family history. Last month, I was at a mammography seminar in
Richmond, Virginia and learned that number has now risen to 80%. The increase
in new cancer diagnoses is most likely related to early detection due to the
increased sensitivity of digital mammography. Some government agencies want
women to wait until age 50 before having their first mammogram because along
with an increase in cancer diagnoses there's been an increase in biopsies with
negative results.
As a woman who's had two negative biopsies and two positive
ones, despite any anxiety I may have felt, I'd rather have a negative biopsy
any day of the week than miss an early cancer diagnosis. Early detection can
mean the difference in curing the disease and treating. Thanks to screening
mammography and early detection by biopsy, I'm now a five year survivor and am
considered cured. So, I don't advice taking chances. Start getting screened at
age forty. Had I waited until age 50, I wouldn't have lived long enough to have
my first mammogram.
http://lillygayle.com
http://facebook.com/lillygayle
http://facebook.com/lillygaylebooks
http://twitter.com/lillygromwriter
