Goodreads asked Randy J. Paterson:

How do you get inspired to write?

Randy J. Paterson Waiting for inspiration is a trap for a writer. If you only sit down to the computer when the spirit moves you, you will never produce a book. The process of writing is much more about discipline and scheduling than it is about inspiration.

That said, you need to have ideas. For this I'd say there are a few factors:

1. Give up on the search for the one great idea. The great idea will only grow out of a compost heap of mediocre ones, so you have to let go of the search for a final product and instead generate lots of ideas, knowing that most of them will never see the light of day.
2. Broaden your experience. A vocabulary is partly a list of words, but it is also a set of life experiences that you can draw upon. The more varied the experiences you have, the more of an idea-based vocabulary you have to work with.
3. Follow blind alleys. So what if you spend 6 hours fleshing out an idea that never goes anywhere? Count up the number of hours you waste on other activities, and time "wasted" on exploring a concept, or book idea, or way of expressing something no longer seems quite as awful a prospect.

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