Goodreads asked Joseph H. Wycoff:

How do you get inspired to write?

Joseph H. Wycoff I make a record of my inspirations in the acknowledgements for my first two self-publications. What training I have "to write" comes entirely from my training to be a historian. The environs of the archive or the library I thus find paramount in the earliest stages. Once I have stored up enough environmental stimuli for writing at length, I then go to a social space where I have no regard for the possibility of reader's block and an inspirational drink. When I completed my master's thesis, that was nothing more than my office desk and a coffee at the coffee shop--like any other submissive graduate student! For my dissertation, I diligently frequented the university library and chased that dead-time with an Irish pub where I had a whiskey during the final hours of my torment. My first self-published work took shape in the aroma of a research library, finished on the palate as the hoppy bitterness of a brew pub, affected a sensation of personal discovery in the writing process and recalled memories of aspiring to be a historian ten years after finishing my dissertation. My second work drew its breath from the demotic bouquet of a city library, budded in the salty camaraderie of a neighborhood bar, and lingered over post-doctoral dismay while at the same time recreating an atmosphere of higher learning. Lastly, as I mentioned, the content must suit the form--or, perhaps, a self-published book in the hand is worth five drafts from the office printer marked in red ink. I prefer to feel my writing in-hand when inspiration is at its premium.

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