Goodreads asked Lydia Fazio Theys:

How do you get inspired to write?

Lydia Fazio Theys Everywhere I go, I see things that make me ask "what if?" I can go to a museum with my husband and he's off looking at all sorts of things and I'm stuck at the music box near the entryway. Thinking "what if?" What if someone came here and every time he walked by, the music started playing? What if only he could hear it? Wait, what if everyone could hear it? What if it were in a shop that repaired mechanical things? What if a shop ike that appeared one day out of nowhere in some little town? So, none of those questions are particularly great ones, but once in a while, a really good one comes to you.

I particularly like to visit weird houses. You know, the kinds of houses people with a lot of money have built as their own private castles, often looking very much like actual castles. They are almost always filled with many, many things the owners collected. Amazing things. I guess that's what inspires me--dreaming up a what-if and feeling potentially amazed a little bit by the answer.

flag