Goodreads asked Trevor Mueller:

How do you get inspired to write?

Trevor Mueller I find a lot of inspiration in music. Not the lyrics, so much, but in the way a song makes me feel. The emotion of the song tends to spark an idea in my brain. Or the scene of a story, or a nugget of a theme. Something that gets me going.

Sometimes I start with scenes, sometimes with characters, but usually it's concepts I start with.

ALBERT THE ALIEN: "What if a kid in school was from another planet?"
THE FAN: "What if a bartender had to kill to live?"
JUNKYARD CHASE: "What if a security guard at a junkyard kept getting hurt while trying to save an animal from the dangers?"

Then I build characters and scenes around these ideas. Sometimes they sit in my mind (or in a file) for years at a time. But sometimes I jump right on the computer and start developing the story. It depends on how excited I get about the inspiration.

Inspiration is all around us - I have 1,000 ideas a second, some of which are good, some are decent, and some are terrible - so for creative people I feel like inspiration isn't the issue. It's finding the time and the discipline to sit down and do the work.

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