Inspiration is for wannabes. Inspiration has job security. It can pick and choose it's opportunities. With millions of hobbyist writers waiting for it to fill out an application, do you really think inspiration will answer your small classified ad that reads, "Inspiration needed to write next article for my newsletter." If you started all of this as a hobby, go ahead and wait. You have time. For those of us who take this seriously, we have to take a more active approach.

That starts by writing every single day. Going to your computer or getting out your notebook every day and writing something, anything and seeing it through to end. You have no boss to tell you to do this. You have no reason except to put words on paper and improve slowly day by day and eventually make it habit. In order to teach your mind that you aren't playing here, that this isn't a game, that you are not going to tease yourself. You want results. Eventually, if not every day, at least a great majority of them, you will reach that magic spot where you don't want to stop, where you know you have an idea on run and it is not going to get away from you this time.

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.