What Inspired Sparkle Prep?

I don't tend to get inspired in the traditional sense. My stories don't "Come from the headlines" or anything like that. They just come from my brain. :::POP::: New idea!

I knew I wanted to write something LIGHT and FUN... which was the exact opposite of what I was writing/reading at the time. My first novel is pretty dark (bullying/murder/angst/revenge), and I was reading a lot of darker fantasy and thrillers. No one was ever happy or having a good time. It was all tension and despair. And that gets old after a while.

A lot of my stories start with a title, and the idea for the plot follows—not always, but more than 50% of the time. When SPARKLE PREP came to me, I knew it was the one I'd been looking for, and I immediately wrote the first five chapters. From there, I actually put the book down for over a year as I rewrote my first novel, but I did eventually pick it back up again. And now I have a beautiful 80k word novel-baby.

SPARKLE PREP is my ode to gay boys. I had a few friends who knew I was gay in high school, but I always wondered what it would be like to be unapologetically, unequivocally, fuck-you-I'm-gay GAY. And that's what I decided to write. None of my characters have any angst about their sexuality or gender identity (they encompass most of the LGBT* spectrum... except the L, obviously, because it's an all-boys school). And for the hell of it, I decided to make some of their parents billionaires. But once I did that, it took on this whole other dimension. As I started to look further into each character and the rest of the plot, more personal issues came to light... family dynamics, money issues, relationships with parents/siblings/boyfriends and, most importantly, each other. What I intended to be a GAY GAY GAY story turned into a STORY STORY STORY with characters who happened to be gay. And the latter works much better.

I've come to love these characters and, with any luck, I'll get to live with them for a good long time. SPARKLE PREP is only the beginning.

Check out what inspired my fellow Mentees!

• Amanda Rawson Hill
• K. Kazul Wolf
• Vanessa Barger
• Michelle Tran
• ES Wesley
• Cindy Baldwin
• Ashley Martin
• ichella Domenici
• Tracy Gold
• Brian Palmer
• Julie Artz
• Joan He
• Ashley D. MacKenzie
• M.C. Vaughan

What Am I Doing Now?

Now that I've finished my second draft of Sparkle Prep, what am I doing now?

SP is currently being queried to Agents. Finding an agent can take a long time, if it happens at all. I'm very hopeful that an agent will love it and want to sign me, but I know the odds! Yet I remain patient and optimistic. :) So while I am no longer working on SP right now, I am still plotting out the rest of the books in the series. However, it doesn't make sense to start writing SP2 until I know the series will sell. That's a lot of commitment for a what-if.

To that point, I am picking up a novel I started several years ago. I actually began it BEFORE Sparkle Prep, but put it aside to rewrite With/Out, and then SP. Now I'm ready to work on it again! It's a paranormal thriller. Originally I envisioned it as an adult novel, but the more time passes, the more I realize my passion is really in Young Adult books. This creates some challenges, because now I have to convert the 30k+ words I already have written and rework it into a YA book. No simple feat!

Also, I've decided to try out a new software program to aid in the process. Currently I write my novels in Microsoft Word. Each chapter gets its own file, and then I have a master document so I can keep an eye on overall length and word count. The program I'm trying out does that for you automatically, as well as helps with outlining, keeping character and location info, and many other benefits. It's called Scrivener and LOTS of people have recommended it to me over the years. I've very curmudgeonly decided to make the transition! The novel has been imported in its current form, so now begins the editing! Wish me luck!

I'm also continuing to plot out several other books/series on top of that. I've no lack of ideas, just time. Has anyone seen the 2002 Nickelodeon movie Clockstoppers? It's about someone that invents a device that slows down time so much that it essentially stops, and several hours can go by, though it's only nanoseconds in reality. Yeah, I need one of those.

Until next...

~Kyle