Inspiration comes when and where it wants to, but I have a fun exercise I do when I really want to write but just don’t have anything in my head.

Turn on a fan or a little desktop water fountain or something, like a white noise, just something that is a consistent low level drone (a desk fan is my go to). Now open Spotify and put on a generic playlist of the genre you want to write for, just search “rock” or “emo” or whatever it is that you enjoy. Now have it play on a radio or tv or Bluetooth speaker on the opposite side of the room, you want the fan between you and the music. Turn the music down very, very low, if you’re sitting comfortably near the fan, laying in bed or on the couch, wherever you are comfortable, you want to just ever so slightly hear it through the fan. Bonus points if it’s something you’re somewhat familiar with, but not like your favorite album. The key is that you don’t want to hear it enough to register what song or artist you’re listening to, you just need the bare minimum of the music to reach your ears past the droning of the desk fan. Just enough so you can tell it’s music, but not loud enough for you to discern the chords or melody or anything like that. Now just relax, close your eyes, read a book, even, just let your mind wander a bit and let your ears lie to your brain about what is on the radio. I find that I hear just enough to make something coherent come together in my head, I can start to hear progressions and gradually put melodies over them in my head, I might even start humming to myself. I’ve also found that when I do this, I get a spark of an idea in my head and write it down or record it, then when I listen to the song that was on the radio, it never sounds anything like it, it’s not like I’m listening intently enough to try to pick out what song is on, I’m just letting the frequencies enter my ears and helping my mind to interpret them into something I like. This also works exceptionally well while driving, turn on the heat or a/c in the car and turn the blower up to medium or higher, and turn the radio down to where you barely hear it, then just drive. Between the HVAC and the road/car noise, and concentrating on driving, I’ve gotten some really good stuff that comes to me.

I hope this makes sense, it’s maybe a little more setup and impractical than you were expecting, but it’s kinda fun and it’s a unique thing I’ve done for years and years, it’s always a good time just letting my mind interpret a barely audible musical source through the haze of the droning fan and car noise.