Goodreads asked H.L. Macfarlane:

How do you get inspired to write?

H.L. Macfarlane I tend to have very lucid dreams so I've had a lot of inspiration from them. Outside of that, because of my academic background in genetics and synthetic biology I get quite a lot of inspiration for plots and characters for sci-fi and urban fantasy stories from biology, and research environments in general. Myths, fairy tales and legends also serve as inspiration for my own stories, because there's nothing better than a timeless classic.

Aside from that? Inspiration truly does come in the weirdest forms at times. Once I got the inspiration to write a short story from a Wikipedia entry on something, and another time I drew inspiration from a video of a goat screaming.

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