Goodreads asked William Kinsolving:

How do you get inspired to write?

William Kinsolving I wish the answer were simple. Because I write in different forms – novels, screenplays, plays, even a musical, I start out with trying to figure which form will best serve the subject I want to write about. For instance, the novel coming out now,
BLACK AND WHITE AND READ ALL OVER, focuses on a very spectacular trial. That obviously is perfect for a theatrical telling. But then there is the unique, conflicted love story, which would be ideal movie material. But the complexity of both the law and the romance clearly could not be adequately told in the limited frame of either form, so I started research in order to write the book.
How do I get inspired? I’m not sure it’s inspiration. It’s more the excitement of a good idea. The first thing I ever wrote was a play. Then I wrote screenplays and doctored them in Hollywood – where I admit any inspiration was coupled with money. But by then, the habit of writing had become visceral, and when I wasn’t writing, (Hollywood is not consistent in its employment) I was unhappy, filled with self-doubt, self-loathing and self-indulgence – the usual in that sunny clime. Ironically, I convinced 20th-Century Fox to let me write an idea I’d just pitched them as a novel before writing the screenplay. It became a best seller, and I haven’t written a screenplay since.

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