 |
| Featured Author: Chad Gayle Let It Be |
Why did you feel you had to tell this story?
After the attacks on September 11, I did a lot of soul searching and really started looking at my life and the things that had happened to me. There was a sort of dredging-up process that I went through, and while I was going through that process, I started thinking about my own parents’ divorce, which happened when I was ten years old.
At the same time, I happened to be listening to the Beatles final album, “Let It Be” (I’m a huge Beatles fan), and I got interested in the role that album played in the dissolution of the Beatles. I realized that the album itself could serve as a metaphor for the splintering of a family, that it could become not only a metaphor for what a particular family like my own had to go through after a divorce, but also that each individual song could really take on what was going on in the characters’ heads, what they were thinking and experiencing. At that point, I got very excited about the idea, and I knew that there was a story there that I had to tell, although I wasn’t entirely aware of who these people were that would form this family that was falling apart.
Where do you get your ideas?
I keep a story leprechaun locked in a drawer of my desk; he churns out ideas for me on a tiny typewriter that’s made of gold.
I am continually amazed at the fact that this question still gets asked of writers, not only because I doubt that readers really care very much where their favorite writers’ ideas come from, but because it implies that writers are somehow different from ordinary people who have imaginations, thoughts, feelings, and memories that interact on a daily and nightly basis to create dreams and fantasies that are just as interesting as a writer’s fables.
Do you ever experience writer’s block and how do you overcome it?
I experience writer’s block on a regular basis. There isn’t any way to overcome it, as it always means that I’ve hit a bump in the story; the only thing I can do is continue to sit at my desk until I figure out what’s gone wrong. Sometimes this takes a few hours; sometimes it takes a few days. Once it took six weeks.
What advice would you give to aspiring writers on the writing and publishing process?
Publishing has entered a dark period when hacks who have no talent can earn a decent living writing ninety-nine cent novels while masters of the written word have to support themselves by teaching other people how to write. Therefore, the only advice I can offer to aspiring writers is this: consider the possibility that you may not be a writer, that you may in fact be something other than a writer. Can you be happy being that something else? Can you turn your back on your writing career and feel nothing more than a faint sense of regret? If that’s the case, then you should give up immediately and get on with your life; if it’s not, then you are stuck, and you should expect to make sacrifices that you never dreamed of making in order to achieve your goals, because that’s what it will take, even if you’re as talented as you think you are.
How do you market your work? Have you found some avenues to be more successful than others?
Book reviews are the most effective means of marketing fiction, however, my publisher is making plans for some online promotions that will begin in a few months; we’ll see how it goes.
If your book was made into a movie, who do you picture playing each part?
I watch almost no television and rarely watch movies that were made after 1982, so I don’t know the names of any current actors or celebrities. My guess, however, is that Let It Be would be a made-for-TV movie, so it would probably star some B list character actors from syndicated sitcoms.
********************
Synopsis
After Michelle Jansen moves to Amarillo to get away from her abusive husband, she struggles to meet the emotional needs of her two children as she continues to rebuff the demands of her overbearing ex. She finds love and support in the arms of a coworker who is as much of a Beatles fan as she is, and she begins to gain the confidence and the strength that she needs to stand on her own, but her ex can't bear to see her happy, and Michelle is blindsided by an unexpected betrayal as her ex turns her very own son against her. When this family that has already been split down the middle is thrown into chaos, it's up to Michelle to find a path toward healing and forgiveness, a way to right the wrongs that have hurt them all.
With chapters named for and influenced by songs that appear on the Beatles final album, LET IT BE is a mesmerizing debut novel filled with true-to-life characters, a touching tale of loss, longing, and forgiveness that chronicles the breakup of a marriage, the destruction of a family, and the struggle to come together in the aftermath of what remains."
********************
About the Author
********************
FOR MORE INFO
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17840777-let-it-be
Website: http://chadgayle.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Let-It-Be-A-Novel-by-Chad-Gayle/311188812319640
Publisher's site: http://bracketbooks.com/
BUY THE BOOK
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0988661004