I find that it is easier to produce creatively if the process is constrained. If I look at a blank piece of paper, or computer screen, I’m often paralyzed by the infinite possibilities. But if I limit what I must do — the poem must have this rhyming scheme, the story must use these words — then I’ll get results faster. I often use random words to kick things off — it used to be opening the dictionary and pointing, now it’s helpful web equivalents of that.
I remember a story I wrote where I required myself to incorporate termites, and had the Phoenicians bringing them back from the New World in their boat — but of course, as my stories often do, it ended tragically when the boat broke apart close to shore (from termite damage), and none reached land alive. My poem Brown the Clown (here) is a good example of a constrained rhyming scheme — and it’s one of my favorite poems.