How to inspire yourself

The task is set. But your screen and your brain are equally blank, and it's driving you crazy. What to do?

The myth that inspiration should hit like lightning - a random surge of power in an instant - has nipped many a worthy creative endeavour in the bud. This should not be so. Problems can be solved and ideas grown with a little lateral thought fertiliser. You don't need to sit on a seed and wait for spring.

Here are our top five brain gardening tips:

• Waste nothing
  Don't ever dismiss an idea straight away, no matter how crazy it is or how much it stinks. (Roses grow better with manure.) Excellent solutions often shoot up from ridiculous suggestions.
  
  
• Make some choice grafts
  Choose an alien concept at random and fit it somehow with your current task. Many a brilliant tv ad has been spawned this way: think Tango and Tennents.
  
  
• Cultivate wild plants
  Talking with somebody about your task or problem obliquely - without giving away its exact nature, especially to somebody who knows nothing about your specialism, can trigger off thought patterns you never would have had otherwise.
  
  
• Ignore your parents' advice
  “Not playing with it” improves your manners considerably, but does nothing for creativity. Relearning the art of aimless play is absolutely necessary for adults everywhere, and it's sad that most of us need to use alcohol as a cover. Go on; be naughty, fiddle away.
  
  
• Have more accidents
  So much of the technology that surrounds us is the result not of logic but of accident and happenstance. The invention of photography, for example, or the popularity of text messaging. The more accidents you have, the more opportunities you give unexpected beauty to shine forth. The trick is to find ways of having safe accidents - randomising things; straying into unknown territories; pressing big red buttons; having (computer) crashes.