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Goodreads asked Gerald Elias:

How do you get inspired to write?

Gerald Elias I can't say that I truly "get inspired" to write. Ideas come to me from time to time. Sometimes it's from reading a story in the newspaper, maybe even just an interesting name. Other times I'll be driving on a lonely highway and allow my imagination to wander. Or even, though I shouldn't admit this, while I'm at an orchestra rehearsal. I develop ideas in my mind, and when I feel I've got something interesting to say, I write it down; sometimes as paragraphs, others as just a few phrases or sentences. The ideas might lie dormant for days or weeks until I start seeing how they can be developed and connected. Perhaps that's a definition of inspiration. I see it more as the pleasure of creating something from nothing.

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