Goodreads asked Ian Loome:

How do you get inspired to write?

Ian Loome I'm on the autism and ADHD spectrums and could read at an adult level as a three-year-old, so I suppose you could say I started early. Unfortunately, as neat as that sounds, the conditions come with some downsides with respect to emotional signaling and development.

My parents introduced me to James Bond at three, Agatha Christie. I was a prodigious, five or six-books-per-week reader until my late teens, when my ADHD kicked into high gear and video games sort of took over. Even as a working journalist for two decades, I had little ability to hold concentration on a printed page. I went from a book every day or so to one per month, to three or four per year.

A few years ago I started a prescription drug that allows me more sustained focus and have rediscovered my love of reading. I do find, however, that after years of studying the craft of storytelling, I am hypercritical about what I choose to read and watch.

I recently finished Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth, as well as Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and enjoyed them both for different reasons. Lehane can be bleak and I've plotted so many detective novels I spotted the killer fairly early. Lovely writing, very patient.

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