My experience is that creative work is trial and error. Can try to put yourself in a position to have inspiration, but then your actual task is to catch it when it comes, and then figure out how the hell to make it work. If it doesn't, then try something else. By being immersed in the work, working it, you are more likely to have inspiration (Poincare worked like this). Sometimes you have inspirations that are solutions to a problem - sometimes you have inspirations of what a problem is, and that it would be really cool to solve it, and that a solution exists (just, not what it is).
Some writers have this attitude too, saying they keep fixed hours when they must be at the typewriter, whether they feel like it or not. [Note: this is successful writers, who publish regularly - some might call them hacks, like Stephen King. Hobbyist writers don't need this.] There's an old writer's saying that nicely sums this up:
Some writers have this attitude too, saying they keep fixed hours when they must be at the typewriter, whether they feel like it or not. [Note: this is successful writers, who publish regularly - some might call them hacks, like Stephen King. Hobbyist writers don't need this.] There's an old writer's saying that nicely sums this up: