Goodreads asked Russell J.T. Dyer:

How do you get inspired to write?

Russell J.T. Dyer Inspiration doesn't exist -- at least that's my cynical attitude. Look at the word: it's basically in-spirited, like a spirit entered you and told you want to write. Instead of looking for divine intervention, I think about what I want to say.

That's something I've learned over years of writing -- technical books and novels: What do I want to say? Once that's clear in my head, I just start saying it or rather, writing it -- in bits and pieces, a mess of thoughts that I string together, reorder and rewrite until I have something that can be read smoothly by someone other than me.

So if I want to say, "Life is unfair", I say that and how it's unfair. I think of a situation to demonstrate, to give as an example -- maybe from my life or someone I love. Then I have the start of a story, at least a scene. From there I develop a main character who's being treated unfairly, I tell how they feel about their situation and their life. Before you know it I have a plot going and then a novel takes shape.

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