Several (approximative) quotes from your braincast :
“No story without Character” : relates to the “identification process” ; one reads stories, to enjoy “ONEself”. Identifying oneself to banana tree or a Nazi can work for some, but it’s not for everybody. So, yes, Characters. Enjoyable characters. Stories like “Amelie from Paris” have no villain in them. And they work.

To the question “Where do you get your ideas ?”, my personal answer would be : mostly from two sources : 1) stories made up by other people that I enjoys; 2) a never resting, wandering brain which can ponder over a stupid gallery sign for ten minutes, wondering if it could be part of a story taking place in the Iron Age.

“trick your brain to become more receptive to external influences”
“let things marinate in your brain”
E-xac-tly

“professional authors don’t tell you much about the process” : problem of dissecting inspiration. My point of view is that it’s useless. Dissecting only serves one purpose: analysis. And inspiration never comes (as far as I’m concerned) from analysis. It comes from emotion.

“motivation” : a lot different than inspiration. “The thing that gets it done”.
“motivation builds on itself” & “delaying tactics”
This is the tricky part. If you want to become a writer, you must have a strong enough ego to make you spend thousands of hours working for no salary writing stuff that most likely nobody else will ever read. An excellent interview with Paul Auster I watched some years ago explained that better than I could ever do.

Some of my ‘rough’ principles.
1) stop watching TV : TV is a sense duller. Stopping watching TV is the better decision I ever made (apart from marrying my wife).
2) Beware of the internet. It’s a tool, nothing more. That being said, it’s the most awesome tool ever provided to authors. (in terms of documentation)
3) confrontation between unrelated ideas often propel a fuzzy story idea from the stage of fuzziness to that of liveliness. Our own CucuC storyline was born from the meeting of LOTR/Celtic fandom & John Irving’s Garp.
4) trusting your emotions is vital. It’s emotions that move human beings. Worse part in the writing process is the dulling of emotions. When that happens, I know I’m on the wrong track.

Thank you Steve, your podcasts are good for the soul. They really are.