Bookpleasures.com welcomes as our guest Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame Member Layng Martine Jr. Layng has recently published a memoir of his life, Permission To Fly - A Memoir of Love, Crushing Loss, and Triumph.

Layng is an American songwriter whose compositions have appeared on the country and pop music charts over a four-decade span beginning in the late 1960s.

He grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut and was educated at Mount Hermon School, Denison University, and Columbia University. After a stint on Madison Avenue writing ads and a disastrous fling as a restaurant owner Layng and his wife Linda moved to Nashville where Layng could pursue his dream of writing songs and where they now live and have raised their three sons.

Some of Layng's writing credits include Elvis Presley's million-selling Way Down, The Pointer Sisters' Top Ten Should I Do It and Trisha Yearwood's I Wanna Go Too Far.

He was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1993 for Best Country Song, for co-writing Reba McEntire's The Greatest Man I Never Knew. His song Rub It In, a number one country hit for Billy "Crash" Craddock in 1974, became the long-running TV commercial called "Plug It In, Plug It In" for SC Johnson's Glade Plug-ins air freshening product.

In 2009 Layng authored an article for THE NEW YORK TIMES, Modern Love column about his continued love story with his wife Linda after she became paraplegic in an automobile accident.

Norm: Good day Layng and thanks for participating in our interview.

When and why did you begin to write songs?

Layng:  I began writing songs the summer I was 20 and painting houses. My friends had been interning at large famous corporations like Merrill Lynch, American Can etc. and were excited about joining those companies some day.

I had no idea where I would fit into the working world yet would soon be a senior in college. Near me in a gutter overflowing with leaves as I painted was a radio.

As the radio played Abilene by George Hamilton IV I thought "God, that song is so great. I wonder if I could write a song"...something in me shouted "YES! You can! DO it!" I soon completed my first song and made a demo of it in New York where I was in college. That night I took the disc home, lay on the floor, put two detachable speakers up to my ears and played the demo over and over for three hours. Suddenly, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.

Norm: What advice can you give aspiring song writers that you wished you had received, or that you wished you would have listened to? 

Layng: I have no advice. Few people would think it's a great idea to roll the dice on songwriting as a profession. If you can possibly do something else and be happy, do that. But, if you're obsessed with writing songs, then you have a chance. You'll know if you're obsessed if nothing anyone says and no disappointments, no matter how crushing, can keep you from going for it. Along the way, a little luck doesn't hurt.

Norm: What did it feel like when musicians as Elvis and others sang one of your songs?

Layng:  Apart from seeing my wife and our sons for the first time it's the most exciting thing I could possibly imagine. It seemed all but impossible that I actually could earn a living at what I loved so much. It seemed utterly unfathomable that Elvis, my boyhood idol, whose first LP I took to my 7th grade music class, stared at the album cover thinking he's unquestionably the coolest guy in the world, had learned my song from the demo I sang and recorded it. I am still in semi-shock that great singers, with their choice of the best songs in the world, recorded some of mine. At the start, it seemed far too big dream ever come true and I am always, every day, so grateful that it did.

Norm: When and where do your ideas come from when you compose a song? As a follow up, do you follow some kind of a formula when you write?

Layng: I collected words and phrases from the way people talk, from flashes of thoughts that occurred to me out of nowhere, from lines in books, movies. I'd write them on a piece of paper, or a napkin, stuff it in the back pocket of my jeans then periodically transfer them all into a notebook. I have many many notebooks filled with possible song titles and when I was stuck for an idea I'd flip through the pages to see if one popped out at me. WAY DOWN  is probably one of those. Sometimes, like the song SHOULD I DO IT? a hit by the Pointer Sisters, a song just appears in my brain and kind of writes itself fast. 

Norm: Which song that you have written is your favorite?

Layng: Probably RUB IT IN because it is the song that allowed me to begin earning a living as a songwriter and to begin calling myself a "songwriter".

Norm: Which song did you have the most trouble writing?

Layng: Probably THE GREATEST MAN I NEVER KNEW.  I co-wrote THE GREATEST MAN with Richard Leigh. It took us 5 straight days during which we often veered far off course (I know because I recently came across some of our early drafts) and I see how close we came to completely losing the song.

Norm: What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve overcome in getting to where you’re at today? 

Layng: To simply keep going when times are bleak, when disappointments tumble onto each other, and no possible new recordings were on the horizon.

Norm: What motivated you to write a memoir of your life, Permission To Fly - A Memoir of Love, Crushing Loss, and Triumph?

Layng: Twenty-six years ago my wife was crippled in a car accident. Then, 10 years ago, I wrote an essay for the NEW YORK TIMES about my wife's and my life since the accident.

The story drew an enormous response from all over the world. I felt as though I'd made contact with families and love-based people. It was a wonderful feeling, so I just kept writing and it turned into this book. The book took me all 10 of those years, but I loved every second of it largely because I love all the people in the book, the core of which are the stumbles, restarts, sheer adventure involved in finding a good life AS A WHOLE...not just in a career...and the kind and fascinating men and women who have helped me do that.

Norm: What purpose do you believe your story serves and what matters to you about the memoir? 

Layng: I think it faces up to the risks often involved in pursuing our dreams, the failures and wrong turns that almost always precede success. I think it points out how much help we all need to get anywhere good in the world. I think it makes clear the incredible price most pay to reach this good place. And I think it recognizes that there will always be a new surprise, a new curveball to navigate despite the calm moments we hope will never end. When they happen, we're not "doing it wrong", it's just the way life is.

Norm: What were your goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you achieved them?

Layng: My hope was to show the key, colorful, and guiding roles played from the start by the people to who I feel I owe my good life along with the lessons taught to me by them and by my own often errant and sometimes fruitful curiosity.

Norm: What purpose do you believe your memoir serves and what matters to you about the memoir? 

Layng: I hope it's a reminder to me and anyone else that shooting for our dreams is harrowing and uncertain but if we can keep going it can also be a way to have an exciting and fulfilling life. 

Norm: What was the most difficult part of writing this book and what did you enjoy most about writing this book? 

Layng: The hardest thing was keeping it connected. Making sure each section led naturally to the next so that the reader always knows "where they are". 

What I enjoyed most about writing it was going to work on it every single day. I never once dreaded it. As it took shape, I believed the story was worthwhile because it was communicating with and touching me. It made me laugh and it made me cry. That was the most important thing because I felt if it was really ringing true, moving and interesting me, that it might also strike others that way.

Norm: Could you tell our readers a little about your book?

Layng: My book is called PERMISSION TO FLY because that is what my mom gave me early on. She set me and my rampant curiosity free to explore and make mistakes. And when I did make mistakes she did NOT rescue me. Instead, she convinced me that I could rescue myself.

PERMISSION TO FLY is the story of a boy who's born into a kind and happy family but who gradually realizes that the life his dad and other men he knows are living may not be for him. The book is about that boy's search for the life that is right for him. Alongside love and success in PERMISSION TO FLY, is great heartbreak, failure, and adventure. By the last page a reader may feel as I do that love, in all its forms, might just be the force most likely to lead us to sustained happiness.

Norm: Where can our readers find out more about you and What purpose do you believe your story serves and what matters to you about the story? 

Layng: My WEBSITE  has information as does the website of The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame

And they may like reading my NEW YORK TIMES essay that brought such huge response and inspired PERMISSION TO FLY:

Norm: What is next for Layng Martine Jr?

Layng: Right now I'm trying to get as many people as possible to read PERMISSION TO FLY and I hope it's their favorite book of all time! After that, I'll have to see. 

Norm: As this interview comes to an end, what question do you wish that someone would ask about your book, but nobody has?

Layng: "What's your favorite part of your life so far?" Easy. My tender, courageous, brilliant and beautiful wife of 54 years, Linda, and our three sons who give us so much pleasure and affection.

Norm: Thanks once again and good luck with all of your future endeavors