Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.

 Today’s guest is Abbi Waxman, author of Adult Assembly Required.

Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?

Usually I start with a character and then I mess with them. In this case I daydreamed the opening set up and went from there. That makes it sound like a smooth process, it wasn’t. I wrote the set up and then blundered from chapter to chapter trying to make it work.

Once the original concept existed, how did you build a plot around it?

In fits and starts and many backtracks and mistakes. Plot is not my strength, so it takes me a while to work them out and then I change them all the time. I’m a pantser.

Have you ever had the plot firmly in place, only to find it changing as the story moved from your mind to paper?

Are you kidding? I have only the vaguest idea or feeling when I start, and occasionally I’ll glimpse a plot through the fog and swim in that direction for a while… but it’s really a clusterfuck from start to end.

Do story ideas come to you often, or is fresh material hard to come by?

Ideas come to me all the time, until I sit down to write, at which point they evaporate.

How do you choose which story to write next, if you’ve got more than one percolating?

I’ll write the one that’s bitching the loudest. 

I have 6 cats and a Dalmatian (seriously, check my Instagram feed) and I usually have at least one or two snuggling with me when I write. Do you have a writing buddy, or do you find it distracting? 

I write all over the place, so it depends where I am. I also have a lot of pets, so if I’m at home there’s usually an editorial team of cats and dogs. I’m very easily distracted, unless I’m in the zone, in which case I can’t hear a thing.