Goodreads asked Mark L. Watson:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Mark L. Watson Inspiration is everywhere. I often find it least in other literature though. I find get it from music, certain tracks, certain bands, and certain scenes in films. The way that a certain song can make you feel can leave me with enough of an impact that it can spawn an entire story, or at least part of it.
Where Fires Are To Burn picks up the world left behind from my first novel. It's decayed and its ruined and its mostly lawless, but the people who are there are the same people. People don't change, they adapt.
I did a lot of research into what would happen when we lose the ability to trade internationally, the effect that would have on all of us. Once our ability to power our lives and out machines goes then we regress hundreds of years. Food becomes a commodity that people will fight for, or kill for. In a largely hot and dry country, where would we get our water from.
The idea of survival interests me. Even in the very depths of despair, we still know how to survive.

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