Goodreads asked Ren Benton:

How do you get inspired to write?

Ren Benton Day to day, it's not a matter of inspiration but one of inherent preference. Given a chunk of time that's not otherwise spoken for, we all have to choose what to do with it. I'm a storyteller, so mostly I choose to tell stories. If I'm doing someone else's choice of activity, I'm thinking about how to use it in a story. That's just how my brain is wired, as opposed to a gardener who can't walk past a plant without checking it out or a musician who seems half deaf all the time because the sound in his head is competing for attention or a skateboarder who looks at everything as a potential ramp. Whatever you are, it's on all the time, no inspiration required.

Clever ideas and brilliant solutions to tough problems generate a lot of excitement that fuels manic writing marathons, but those don't happen every day (or week or month or sometimes year). Most days, writing is not exciting. It's my comfort zone, and 99% of the work gets done in that quiet, uninspired state because I chose to be there.

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