Goodreads asked Matt Weber:

How do you get inspired to write?

Matt Weber I have achieved a bodhisattva-like state of post-inspiration -- or, if you prefer, perpetual inspiration. I might not feel like writing, I might not feel good about what I'm writing, but if I sit with a page, the words will come.

Or, well, *some* words will come. They might not feel like *the* words. But you go to war with the army you have.

I wish I could figure out a way to answer this that respected both the you've got to admit kind of precious, fragile, self-indulgent nature of the question, and the very genuine deep-rootedness of that preciousness and fragility. On some level, Jesus, it's just words; you can delete them any time you want, what are you whining about? On another: This is a version of yourself you are recreating, or straight-up creating, on the page. It isn't you, but it's an object that says things about you, and not always the things you'd care to say, and once you commit them to the page you know them in a way you didn't previously. You have gotten in the business of creating a mirror of yourself that will throw off a reflection you can't unsee. Some hesitation is natural.

I guess what I'm saying is, the real answer to this question doesn't have much to do with the ideas or plots or characters that excite you. It has a lot more to do with your belly for looking at yourself in what's going to start out, and remain awhile, as a pretty awful funhouse mirror.

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