“I’ll do some work on novel, then. Could you get me a bag of inspiration while you’re over there? Oh, on second thoughts, why not stop by Sarah’s first? She might have some spare.”

What a pity it doesn’t work that way. There’s no one ready-made source of great ideas. They don’t just arrive to order, oven-fresh and neatly packaged, from Ideas-to-go. Yet, at some point, each of us will need to summon up ideas for a talk or a piece of writing, perhaps under pressure of a deadline.

So what can we do to help process along?

Know how you work best. For some people, ideas bubble up while they’re taking a shower or washing dishes, for others they shape up best on a jog or on daily drive to work. Some people like to kick ideas around with a few like-minded friends, while others work best alone and in silence. Some find that time pressure results in their best ideas, while for others it induces panic and blankness.

Keep track of what gets your creative juices flowing and take advantage of it.

Relax. Creativity guru Jurgen Wolf (whose site www.brainstormnet.com is a treasure trove of creative ideas) suggests sleeping on problem whenever possible. Just before going to sleep, and just after waking, are among most fertile periods for developing new ideas, so take advantage of this by keeping a pen and pad on bedside table. If you don’t have time to sleep on it, put your feet up and a favourite CD on (many people find classical music, especially Bach and Mozart, very effective).

Start from your own experience. Look at your education, your career and your hobbies and interests. Nobody else has had quite same experiences as you, and other people will be interested in hearing about new topics. Even activities they share, such as parenting, or working life, can still provide interesting material when looked at from your own unique angle, especially if your experiences of them have been amusing or educational.

If you’re anything like me, once you’ve done burning up with envy, they prompt you to resolve to change your attitude, to write more and send more out. Of course, if you’re anything like I was until recently, your resolution lasted until you got up next morning… or if you were having a really good day, maybe until lunch.

The trouble is, you can resolve to change your behaviour all you like, but until you change underlying attitudes that cause you to behave that way, it’s going to be an uphill struggle.

Most writers who aren’t writing and submitting as much as they’d like to give one of two reasons.

The first reason is ‘I don’t have time.’

There are times in your life when that will probably be true. If you’re nursing sick kids, making a major job change or moving house, give yourself a break. There are other things to life besides writing, and when things calm down and you can give your full attention to page again, odds are your writing will improve for having some new experiences.

If you’re not going through a major life change, then time is not much of an excuse. You have twenty-four hours a day, same as rest of us. If you’re finding time for other leisure activities – TV, sport or socialising - then you have time to write. Successful writers find time to write. Rumour has it that best-selling author Carole Matthews produced her first book by tying herself to her desk when she got in from work and not undoing knot until she’d reached her word-count for day!