Ann Royal Nicholas
Inspiration isn't really my problem. As a working mom, my issue is carving out the time to write. I've discovered I need about 3 hours to move my story forward in any real way. That's one hour to look at the assorted emails or pieces of paper gathered on my desk and clear them (or put them in piles to deal with later), one hour to move deeper and focus and actually write something and then half an hour to come back to reality. If I look at my daily to-do list and find I don't have that time, I'll often just open up what I'm working on and take notes on what I need to do when I sit down to work next. As for inspiration, I read a lot--NY Times, biographies, whatever--and there's almost nothing I read that doesn't provide inspiration. I might read a story about a murderer in the American South next to a story about a family devastated by a lightning strike in California and my brain starts spinning a story. Juxtaposing two completely different ideas and figuring out how they might go together works for me as a starting point.
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