Stimulate your imagination with something different. I first encountered this technique in a book by Edward de Bono, and it’s surprisingly effective for something so simple. Take a word, picture or object at random - from a dictionary, newspaper, or magazine, or even just first thing that catches your eye when you look up from page - and find ways to apply it to problem at hand.

Brainstorm ideas related to your topic. There are few things more demoralising than carefully crafting a talk or article only to discover that it’s half length it should have been and you’ve run out of material. Start by jotting down any ideas, facts and anecdotes related to topic, then roughly plan structure of your talk. Spider diagrams or mind maps are excellent for helping to organise your material (If you haven’t used them before, or if you’d like to know more about them, Tony Buzan’s The Mind Map Book explains in detail how they work).

Fill gaps. If you’re talking about a subject you’re already familiar with, you will probably have most of information you need, although you might still want to check odd detail in a reference book or with someone else who knows subject. If you’re researching a subject that’s newer to you, you may need to visit library or search internet for more information. You may also need to seek out stories or quotations to illustrate some of points you are making, and as well as dictionaries of quotations, there are a number of web sites which can help you do this. For example, The Internet Movie Database is full of film trivia and quotes, and lyricserver.com can help you track down relevant song lyrics.

Get a head start. Now you know you can come up with great ideas at short notice, but why not make life a little easier by getting a head start for next time? Keep these techniques in mind and you’ll be amazed how many of things that happen to you can spark off ideas for your next talk. Keep a notebook and jot them all down, and next time you come to prepare a talk you’ll have your own idea store to pick from.

Your job is to figure out what’s getting in way of doing that.

If you’re anything like me, behind worries about time and motivation, a big part of obstacle is some form of that old chestnut, fear of failure.

‘What if it’s not good enough?’ we worry, and tinker with piece a bit longer instead of sending it out into world to be judged. ‘I’m not enough of an expert to tell people how to do things,’ we say, and then fume when someone else with even less experience lands prestigious ‘Question and Answer’ column.

For most of us, difference between us and those hugely successful and productive writers is not ability. It’s confidence. It’s having guts to pitch for a tricky, but rewarding job, knowing that you’ve always delivered before, and you’ll find a way to do so this time. It’s taking plunge and sending your synopsis and sample chapters off to a handful of agents, and then, if those come back, to another dozen or so for good measure. It’s being able to withstand any individual failure because you know it’s not end of everything, just an inevitable setback on road to ultimate success.

This sort of confidence doesn’t appear overnight, but there are some easy tricks you can use to move yourself along.

Don’t worry about starting small – most successful writers do. Give yourself a goal that’s just a little bit ahead of where you are now – perhaps a number of submissions per week or month, a competition to enter or a new market to pitch to. Reward yourself when you get there, and keep a record of your successes to cheer yourself up when things are going less well. And each time you reach a goal, pick a new one that’s just a bit further along.

Just like everything else you do regularly, writing success soon becomes a habit, and before long people will be looking at you and wondering how you do it!