Goodreads asked Josh Deere:

How do you get inspired to write?

Josh Deere Ideas come to me usually at odd times or in odd places. Many have come to me while driving, or taking a shower, or while at the gym, while others seem to spring from reading other books or watching movies. Purgatorium definitely started while on a long car trip for work.

However, once I have the idea, I will usually develop it while listening to music that fits the tone of the story I am working. For example, I am not a very romantic person by nature, so when writing the romantic stuff in Purgatorium, I had a playlist of a few songs that played on repeat to try and get me to that "place". Once I finished it and let my wife read it, she kept saying, "who is this person who wrote this stuff?" When I was writing the scary or intense parts, I would listen to really creepy instrumental stuff, although those parts were a lot easier for me to get into.

Also, I tend to start off working through ideas by hand on a legal pad (I am, after all, a lawyer). But then I push to turn that chicken-scratch into a viable outline on my computer, which eventually morphs into the book itself. I don't really feel like I can tell if a story has legs until I get it into a workable outline.

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