Goodreads asked M. Jonathan Jones:

How do you get inspired to write?

M. Jonathan Jones Inspiration is a tricky thing to pin down. To adapt something from Edison, I'd say inspiration is 1% revelation, 99% perspiration. You could read that as meaning every project involves working long and hard on a sudden flash of 'phantasie', or that 99 ideas out of 100 are solely built on hard work, and just one comes ready to write. I have had moments of sudden revelation - the idea for Race the Red Horizon came to me in a moment - but it needed lots of hard work afterwards. I do think some people give up on an idea too soon. Even if something starts off as quite derivative, given time and effort it can turn into something quite novel. Either way, hard work is usually involved somewhere...

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