Lyla Dune
Hello friends. For those of you who know me by my real name, I hope you like my pseudonym, Lyla Dune. I'll opt out of sharing my real name here, as not everything I write is suitable for children and I work with children. I think the name Lyla Dune is lyrical, sensual, and beachy. I love the beach and I'm glad I live a mere three miles away from it.
Who am I?
The Short version:
I live in North Carolina with my wonderful husband. I'm a musician and dreamer. During my dreaming hours, I write songs, stories, and poetry.
Who am I?
The Long version:
Our past experiences shape us, so below I've revealed some of the milestones in my life that have molded me into the writer I am today.
As previously mentioned, music plays a big role in my life. When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she was thirty one years old and I was eight, her dying request was for me to learn to play the piano. After my mother's death, I moved to North Carolina to live with my grandmother where I poured my heart into piano lessons. Sometimes I would practice so long I would have to be ripped away from the keys, literally. Within two months of lessons I was performing Mozart in a piano recital. I'm no prodigy; I was simply obsessed with making my mother proud. I discovered music has healing powers. It is an emotional outlet. An outlet I desperately needed as an introverted only child.
When I moved to North Carolina, my third grade teacher requested that I repeatedly read into a tape recorder and listen to how I stammered and how slowly I read. Her goal, I think, was to motivate me to read faster and smoother. Her plan didn't work. I grew to detest reading altogether. You see, up until then, reading had never been difficult for me. Public speaking, however, made my intestines pretzle. After the tape recorder torture, I not only stopped reading aloud, I stopped talking in school. This made it rather difficult to fit in socially, as you can imagine. Thank goodness I had my piano to turn to.
Now, I love to read, but for years, I only read what I HAD to read and I devoted myself to musical studies. I went on to get a music degree and have taught music for seventeen years. It may surprise you to know that my primary instrument was clarinet.
After divorcing my first husband, I pawned all the jewelry he'd given me for a silver sax I saw hanging in the store front window. I taught myself how to improvise and entered the world of blues jams where I met my current, harmonica playing husband. We've been happily married for twelve years and I look forward to many more years to come.
About five years ago, my grandmother, who practially raised me, and my father became very ill. They lived within two blocks of each other in my hometown. I moved back home to take care of them. My grandmother, who had early stage alzheimers and congestive heart failure, passed away two years ago. As caregiver to both her and my father, who had a triple bypass, I stopped gigging and stayed home. It's my nature to be introverted, but through the internet, I was able to connect with other creative minds, many were poets. I started writing poetry instead of playing blues and I discovered poetry allowed me to release my emotions in a way I had never done before. I became a writing addict.
My love for writing poetry grew into writing flash fiction, short stories, and now novels. The one thing I've noticed about my writing is when I write about love, I feel happiest. I spent a great deal of time writing about sadness and I needed to get it out of my system, but love makes my spirit sing.
So, as I embark on the next phase of my journey through this world, I've embraced the choice we have to make, the choice to be happy and share joy or to be sad and spread negativity.
The way I hope to share my heart is through my words and music. Even though we all must face the darkness in our lives, we also should embrace the light. Romance is a multi-faceted genre. One can explore imaginary worlds or your own backyard. The one constant is the happy ending. The romance genre appeals to me a great deal, not only because I have a vivid imagination and adore the freedom to explore a wide array of settings and storylines, but because I can think of no other way I'd rather leave a reader than in the warm palm of love.
Who am I?
The Short version:
I live in North Carolina with my wonderful husband. I'm a musician and dreamer. During my dreaming hours, I write songs, stories, and poetry.
Who am I?
The Long version:
Our past experiences shape us, so below I've revealed some of the milestones in my life that have molded me into the writer I am today.
As previously mentioned, music plays a big role in my life. When my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she was thirty one years old and I was eight, her dying request was for me to learn to play the piano. After my mother's death, I moved to North Carolina to live with my grandmother where I poured my heart into piano lessons. Sometimes I would practice so long I would have to be ripped away from the keys, literally. Within two months of lessons I was performing Mozart in a piano recital. I'm no prodigy; I was simply obsessed with making my mother proud. I discovered music has healing powers. It is an emotional outlet. An outlet I desperately needed as an introverted only child.
When I moved to North Carolina, my third grade teacher requested that I repeatedly read into a tape recorder and listen to how I stammered and how slowly I read. Her goal, I think, was to motivate me to read faster and smoother. Her plan didn't work. I grew to detest reading altogether. You see, up until then, reading had never been difficult for me. Public speaking, however, made my intestines pretzle. After the tape recorder torture, I not only stopped reading aloud, I stopped talking in school. This made it rather difficult to fit in socially, as you can imagine. Thank goodness I had my piano to turn to.
Now, I love to read, but for years, I only read what I HAD to read and I devoted myself to musical studies. I went on to get a music degree and have taught music for seventeen years. It may surprise you to know that my primary instrument was clarinet.
After divorcing my first husband, I pawned all the jewelry he'd given me for a silver sax I saw hanging in the store front window. I taught myself how to improvise and entered the world of blues jams where I met my current, harmonica playing husband. We've been happily married for twelve years and I look forward to many more years to come.
About five years ago, my grandmother, who practially raised me, and my father became very ill. They lived within two blocks of each other in my hometown. I moved back home to take care of them. My grandmother, who had early stage alzheimers and congestive heart failure, passed away two years ago. As caregiver to both her and my father, who had a triple bypass, I stopped gigging and stayed home. It's my nature to be introverted, but through the internet, I was able to connect with other creative minds, many were poets. I started writing poetry instead of playing blues and I discovered poetry allowed me to release my emotions in a way I had never done before. I became a writing addict.
My love for writing poetry grew into writing flash fiction, short stories, and now novels. The one thing I've noticed about my writing is when I write about love, I feel happiest. I spent a great deal of time writing about sadness and I needed to get it out of my system, but love makes my spirit sing.
So, as I embark on the next phase of my journey through this world, I've embraced the choice we have to make, the choice to be happy and share joy or to be sad and spread negativity.
The way I hope to share my heart is through my words and music. Even though we all must face the darkness in our lives, we also should embrace the light. Romance is a multi-faceted genre. One can explore imaginary worlds or your own backyard. The one constant is the happy ending. The romance genre appeals to me a great deal, not only because I have a vivid imagination and adore the freedom to explore a wide array of settings and storylines, but because I can think of no other way I'd rather leave a reader than in the warm palm of love.