Goodreads asked Rudy Castaneda Lopez:

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

Rudy Castaneda Lopez Open Your Eyes, Jackson Ryder grew out of a long held frustration I've had that artists in literature are often portrayed in an overly romantic way. I blame society's notion of Vincent van Gogh's life for this. It has been the template for almost every artist in literature for the last 120 years.
In my experience, as a painter, and in art history he is actually more of an anomaly than the norm. Think Henri Matisse, or Willam de Kooning, Georgia O'Keefe or our own Julian Dashper, to name a few. These are essentially normal, nice people just doing a job.
The scope of my original concept was too broad and the narrative ended up being a coming-of-age story but perhaps in the future you will hear from a mature Jackson again.

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