Brainstorming Alone

Long ago I read this book where the teenage girl discovers she's a witch.
I can't remember title or plot, only that there's some struggle for her to accept this (Harry Potter-like, but it wasn't that book).
Finally, through the help of wise witch-ly mentors (Yeah there are plenty of those) she accepts herself and her talents.
Then the end of the book, she's lying on the floor and she'd created this ball in the air that looks like the planet Earth (I may be getting details wrong) and she's got several Earth balls and she's magically juggling them, realizing how powerful she is and how she can remake so many things to be better, as she perceives they should be.
Her mentor comes and sees it and says, "It's really tempting when you have magical power to want to juggle the whole world. Make it go where you want it to go and do what you want it to do, but you must not. That is an abuse of your power."

OKAY, I have a point to telling you this old, dimly remembered story.
That's how I see myself when I'm juggling my books, juggling the details. Tossing ideas up, catching them, turning them, adding, subtracting. I'm in charge of my world.
It's weirdly powerful even if it is in fiction.

I'm thinking of this today because of two reasons.
One...homing pigeons.
Two...ships.

I've been trying to figure out how the bad guys are communicating with each other. They are quite a few miles apart and secret partners.
So how do I let one know what the other needs to know to carry out their nefarious schemes.

I kept tossing ideas around, including just dropping it. No communication and how would I make what I want to do work.

I finally came up with homing pigeons. Did you know they were used a lot in war time back then? They even called the War Pigeons.

I do that. I lie awake and brainstorm my books alone. I'm not really in a good location for writer's groups, the kind that get together and brainstorm...and I like brainstorming. I've gotten some good things that way.

So I juggle my fictional world. Give it time. It's surprising how long it takes to wade through the first things that come to you and find the unusual, the nugget, that can be used.

I think homing pigeons meets that unusual nugget. Of course now I have to research homing pigeons.

And on to ships.

I'm thinking of a ship board romance. Get on a ship and sale around the tip of South America.

I could skip this. I've never done it before, though I've read a few historical ship stories. Honestly it's a little daunting to think of the research I need to do to get the whole SHIP part of the story right.
For that, a lot of research and a lot of brainstorming.

So how do you twist your story? How do you pass up the obvious and find the quirky, the unusual?
And do you get a sense of power over your fictional world?

Tell me how you brainstorm.