Goodreads asked Mary Feliz:

How do you get inspired to write?

Mary Feliz Inspiration follows action, I think. I find that even on the days that I feel most uninspired, and think even cleaning grout or sorting laundry sounds more interesting, if I sit at the keyboard and start typing, something editable will emerge. And that's the key: getting something editable. Writing is mostly editing. But editing feels easier than writing. A blank screen or white page can be very scary. Throw a few words on them, even terrible, dreadful, no-good words that don't seem to go together. More often than not, those words will become a story. Perhaps not the story you outlined or first imagined, but a story none-the-less.

Another technique I use is to immerse myself in the characters, figuring out their likes and dislikes, the quotations and philosophies that appeal to them, how they feel about parties and party clothes, and what they do when no one is looking. Once I know the characters better than I know myself or any of my friends, it's easy to know how they would react in any situation. (Of course, like most of us, they spend a lot of their time doing uninteresting things, which is why we writers have to torture our poor characters by throwing them into dreadful situations over and over and over again. It's a wonder they are willing to spend any time with us at all!)

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