Goodreads asked Gary R. Lowell:

How do you get inspired to write?

Gary R. Lowell It usually begins with the geographic setting, a place that I have been and loved. Then, I select the time period and compose a tentative list of characters (not necessarily human). That part is easy enough and may take only an hour or two. Then I wait till the story comes to me (waiting for this is the hard part). This may take a month or more but it always does come to me. When I have the story in my head I do the writing very quickly and usually have a first draft in less than a week. I am quite compulsive about editing and always spend more time with it than in constructing the story itself. Often good ideas come during the editing stage and the story evolves, or even changes substantially, during this process. At a certain point I will get the feeling that my editing is beginning to make the story worse, not better. That is the time when I submit it to a publisher.

flag