Tristram La Roche

Today my guest is American MM author Brien Michaels whose debut novel Sparks Fly is being published by Etopia Press in August. As usual there’s my interview with Brien below, but then please scroll down because he has a clever competition running and I’m sure you will want to join in.

Tris:  Welcome Brien and congratulations on your book.



Brien: Thank you so much. And thanks for having me, today!

Tris:  What made you start writing and when did you begin?



Brien: I don’t even remember what made me start, honestly. I just remember sitting down, bored in class one day, and I just started writing this story where my teacher was really this demon-thing sent to kill us all. This was in about grade 5, so you can probably imagine my parent’s distress when they read it.

Tris: When you start to write a story, do you begin with a blank
sheet of paper and just dive on in there, or are you more of a 
plotter?



Brien: A little of both, actually. Sometimes the idea will come to me so perfectly formed that I just have to write it as is and let the story take me wherever it’s gonna take me. But then there are some stories that aren’t quite that easy. I’ll sit down and try seven or eight different openings and none of them will work the way I want them to, or I’ll get a paragraph or two in and just freeze, and if that happens and I really love the idea, then I’ll sit down and plot it out.

Tris: Can you tell us a bit about your book?



Brien: Sparks Fly is this crazy dark post-apocalyptic story. But it’s not your typical apocalypse story (no offense to anyone out there who writes apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic fiction). It’s about these two guys: Lincoln and Eduardo, who meet on this cruise ship that’s sailing to meet the last woman on Earth. They start falling for each other almost instantly. But the only problem is, there’s someone on board killing off the other passengers, and everyone thinks Lincoln is responsible.

Tris:  How much of your own experience have you drawn on in the story?



Brien: Not a lot, actually. But a good deal of it was inspired by this vacation I took last year and it was my first time on a cruise ship and it was just horrible. Thank goodness, corpses didn’t start popping up, though!

Tris: One thing I have been surprised at as a writer of MM, or gay fiction as I prefer to call it, is that the genre is read by women as well as men. What’s your thought on this and does it affect the way you write?

Brien: I never really thought too much about it, at all. When I sit down to write I try not to think about who’s gonna read it once it’s done, I try to think more about if it’s something I’d like to read. Because at the end of the day I feel like, if I don’t want to read it, who else will?

Tris: What’s the future hold? More books? Same genre or do you fancy a change?



Brien: I actually do have another book already contracted with Etopia. It’s called Can’t Make You Love Me and while this one is another M/M, it’s a lot less horrific. It’s all about this guy struggling to figure out his sexuality. I’m trying to keep myself entertained by playing around with different genres of m/m, so I’ve done horror, the next is contemporary, there’s one more horror already done, and then I’m gonna try paranormal. But not vampires. I’m thinking angels, maybe.

Tris: How would you like to be remembered?



Brien: As the writer and Wicked junkie I am. It’s my favorite musical, ever.

Tris: Thanks for joining me today, Brien, and good luck. Could you just tell us where we can find you on the internet and, most important, where we can buy your book?



Brien:  Thank you, and thanks again for having me! You can find me online at brienmichaels.com, brienmichaels.blogspot.com, and twitter.com/brienmichaels. Oh, and on the Etopia-Press.net New Releases page on August 5 when Sparks Fly releases!

Tris: Okay, Brien. Give us the information for your competition. I’ll get out of the way, the page is all yours.

Brien: Thanks, Tris. Here is a sentence from Sparks Fly-

“Eduardo’s pubic hair was barely more than a buzz cut and above it was a tiny tattoo in cursive script that read Stop Staring And Suck.”

This is a random sentence from Sparks Fly and I will be posting two more on the next two stops of my blog tour. There will be a sentence from each chapter and, whoever can put these sentences in the correct order, or closest to it, will win a free copy on release day. Just make your way to my blog at brienmichaels.blogspot.com and, in a comment on a post that I’ll put up on release day, post the sentences in the order you think they go in. Sounds like fun, right?