Goodreads asked Philip Dodd:

How do you get inspired to write?

Philip Dodd My book, Angel War, was inspired by Chapter Twelve of the Book of Revelation, which speaks of the war in heaven, fought between Michael and his angels and the dragon and his angels. The Bible only says that the war happened but not why, so I decided to write my own version of the events of the war and its aftermath. One of the chapters of my book, called The Tempter, was inspired by a painting called The Temptation of Christ by Satan in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool. The King James Version of the Holy Bible was the main inspiration for my book. A tiny, yellow painted plastic toy model of a turtle, which looked to me as if it was walking on its hind legs, designed to fix onto the end of a pencil, inspired me to create a character called Klubbe the turkle. Turkles, I decided, are like turtles, only they walk on their hind legs, have the gift of language, the ability to create their own culture, and live on a planet called Ankor. My story, Klubbe the Turkle and the Golden Star Coracle, tells of how Klubbe becomes Ankor's greatest inventor and explorer. Its first two chapters can be read on Wattpad. Memories of looking at the lion on a Tate and Lyle golden syrup tin inspired me to write my poem, The Riddle of Samson. Memories of people and places have inspired other poems. My poem, Windmill and Rainbow, was inspired by a painting by Turner. Some of my other poems were inspired by paintings, too, such as The Ascent of the Prophet to Heaven, which was inspired by a Persian painting. Such odd things as reading about an insect that survives by drinking fog in the Namib Desert in South Africa can inspire me to write a poem. The Flightless Fog Drinker was the name of that poem. My interest in mythology has inspired me to write such poems as Sigurd, Volund, Thor, The Redundancy of Gods and Maze For The Minotaur. In short, inspiration is a real thing, I am pleased to say, and it is something you cannot control. It comes and goes. Life inspires me to write, in all its aspects.

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