The Middle Distance

Nothing can be completely original, and one of the benefits of reading so much is that I can find more ideas to draw on.

That's a very important point. Often, the people we think are the most original are really the most widely-read, the most widely intellectually-travelled so they have a broader range of "raw materials" to bring together and collage with. It's something I aspire to a lot, to try to learn about all sorts of random things. You never know when it'll be useful, or when it'll come together in a story just right years down the road.

Sometimes it's even fun for me to take a plot line or idea that I feel has been overdone and challenge myself to write it differently. I don't feel that that's plagarism at all.

Definitely not. That's a lot of books written on that principle right there.