Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

Today’s guest for the WHAT is Lyla Lee, author of the Mindy Kim series as well as the upcoming YA novel, I’ll Be The One (Katherine Tegen / HarperCollins). Although she was born in a small town in South Korea, she’s since then lived in various parts of the United States, including California, Florida, and Texas. Inspired by her English teacher, she started writing her own stories in fourth grade and finished her first novel at the age of fourteen. After working various jobs in Hollywood and studying Psychology and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, she now lives in Dallas, Texas. 

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

My YA debut, I’LL BE THE ONE, is the product of many different experiences, from how my uncle won a K-pop competition when I was in middle school to how my mom and I used to watch Korean talent competitions together when I was in middle school. But the most direct origin inspiration point for the book was when I first got into K-pop dancing in 2017. Winters in Northern California are rainy and cold, and I really needed a fun indoor workout routine/pick-me-up for the days when I needed a distraction from being on submission to publishers. This was actually before BTS got as popular as they are now, and I serendipitously stumbled on them purely because I was looking for fun K-pop choreographies (they consistently upload easy-to-follow dance practice videos on their YouTube channel). I was also a dancer before I became a writer—when I was three, I was fat-shamed into quitting ballet—so rediscovering my love for dance twenty years later inspired me to start writing I’LL BE THE ONE. 

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

I actually didn’t start writing the actual book until the last half of the following year. I usually take a couple of months to build up a story, and for this one, I spent a lot of time listening to Korean pop and hip hop. I also re-watched a lot of Korean music competition shows and watched other reality TV shows (my roommate at the time was binge-watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians so I watched a few episodes with her, lol) while working on this book. The hardest part of the book, plot-wise, was finetuning the competition structure so that it felt genuine and surprising, like a real reality TV show. I did this with the help of my brilliant editor and a friend that currently works in the K-pop industry. Other than that, I focused on emotional beats and developing character relationships as well as the relationship Skye had with herself, all of which I did through listening to music.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Definitely! I am neither a plotter nor pantser but an odd hybrid of both. I do write an outline while I am thinking of the story, but then I follow the story wherever it takes me, sometimes even changing things based on the music I come across while writing the book. For example, in my original outline, Henry Cho, the love interest, was a stuck up, douchey celebrity model. So, a lot of plot beats were based off of that. But then I heard “Delicate” by Taylor Swift, which has the lines, “My reputation's never been worse, so/You must like me for me” as well as the surprisingly fragile “Is it cool that I said all that?/Is it chill that you're in my head?/'Cause I know that it's delicate.” These lines inspired me to change the story so Henry is more fragile and, thus perhaps, more relatable and human despite his fame, rather than being the indestructible celebrity I first thought him to be.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

I never run out of story ideas, which can be a blessing and a curse. I actually have the opposite problem where I’d come up with tons of ideas for scripts and novels but only be able to finish writing a small percentage of them since I’m a woefully slow writer. The rest slips through the cracks! 

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

When I’m not writing, I’m constantly listening to YA audiobooks. So, I keep an eye out for trends and consult my agent on which project she thinks has the most potential. I also ask my writer friends about their honest opinions about my ideas. Finally, I try writing out a few of the ideas to see if they actually have legs on paper. Sometimes, ideas seem really cool but then fizz out after a few pages once I try writing them. If I feel like a story can continue past that, I work on it until it becomes a full-fledged novel.

I have 5 cats and 2 Dalmatian puppies (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting?

FIVE CATS!!! You are living your best life. My housemates have an adorable golden doodle that hangs out with me in the house while everyone else is at their regular 9-5 (I don’t work regular work hours for my non-writing job). Her name is Lulu and I love her. Temperamentally, she’s more like a cat than a dog in that she’s usually off by herself somewhere in the house rather than constantly needing attention. But she’s always down to play with me when I need a brain break, which helps me out a lot!