Goodreads asked Janice Erlbaum:

How do you get inspired to write?

Janice Erlbaum When I'm working on a project, I write longhand in my notebook before I sit down to "work." It's just blather -- complaints, to-do's, fragments of dreams, banal observations (e.g., "It's sunny in here.") -- nothing of any literary merit whatsoever. I blather for 5 or 10 minutes, then I start writing about the work I want to do (e.g., "I feel like I need to start with action, not description, but I don't know what action to start with. Maybe description is okay?"). That revs me up and gets me going.

When I don't have a project, it's much harder for me to get inspired to sit down and work. What am I supposed to do, type aimlessly until I accidentally write a book? So I'm always looking for potential projects, and filing things away for those fallow times.

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