Goodreads asked J.D. Scott:

How do you get inspired to write?

J.D. Scott How do I get inspired? You mean other than ridiculous amounts of coffee and staring at the computer screen for hours on end?

Developing my story starts on paper. I make a rough outline of plot points that I know I want or need to happen. I don't spend much time on this because I have discovered that they often take on a mind of their own and develop into something better than I had planned. I use it as a vague map that I only check in with if I start to feel a little lost. Then I just start typing. It comes. I watch each scene play out in my head like a movie. I often rewind and replay it again until it works and then describe what I am seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling and hearing on paper.

I guess you could also call me a spurt writer. When I'm not in my office with a cat on my lap (which by the way, serves to hold me down in a chair) I like to camp out at a local coffee shop. The people and movement are inspiring. I turn my headphones down to create a steady background noise and then attempt to attack a chapter. I keep each one around 2,000 words to maintain the pace of my book. I prefer to write each one in a sitting. It's like riding a wave, and I want to take it all the way into the shore. It also makes it easier for me to end the chapter with enough tension that the reader will struggle to put it down. I am proudly guilty of causing reader's sleep deprivation! Writing a chapter a day, two to three times a week is my normal and preferred process, however I also enjoy writers retreats to a cabin in the woods where I might write a couple chapters a day every day.

Whatever inspires you or whatever system works, use to keep you writing, enjoy it, develop it, but don't try and conform to someone else's.

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