Goodreads asked Michael Phillip Cash:

How do you get inspired to write?

Michael Phillip Cash I have always written things down, anything. In school growing up, I was encouraged to put my thoughts on paper, so I constantly wrote screenplays or short stories. It often starts out like doodling, the computer on, and my imagination will go. Many times it will peter out, and sometimes the characters develop and within a few weeks I have a finished product. I love bouncing around ideas and situations of "what ifs." I can get inspired by something in the news, or sparked by a conversation. Brood X was born from the panic and helpless feeling from Hurricane Sandy. I realized as humans, we weren't as omnipotent or powerful as we thought. Sitting and waiting for gas, power, watching shelves go bare in the stores, make me realize how unprepared we are for a natural disaster. To me, that was my scariest book. Stillwell came about when I saw my Mother struggle with my grandmother's final illness. It made me think about the endurance of love, and what we would do for the most important people in our lives. Is death final? I have been to a popular psychic and the session with Georgia is based on my own experience. Many people say that my ghost stories are not scary, they're not meant to be. I am not afraid of ghosts and don't see them as threatening beings. I am quite comfortable with my spirits. The Hanging Tree is a landmark in our neighborhood that my brother and I passed on the way to college everyday. We have always discussed the spookiness of the area and it made me consider choices. What caused the horrific accident that occurred there and could a simple of matter of the right choice have avoided it? The Darracia Series is my homage to video games and a celebration that my son shares with fantasy with me. While he is still too young to read the trilogy, I know he will eventually and love the plots and politics of my invented universe. The Flip developed from all the shows on television and lastly, The After House was from an afternoon in the whaling museum with my family.

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