Get the brain working and find ideas out of left field with these quick creative warm up exercises.

1. Open Facebook/My Space / Bebo (you know you were going to anyway) or alternatively find a school year book. Choose one friend you haven’t spent time with for many years. Imagine what their life is like now based on your old friendship. Write a quick biography of their “character” as you imagine it.

2. Open the morning paper and clip the first photograph you see. Close the paper and open it on a new page. Clip the first headline you see. Write a short paragraph on how one could be related to the other. This can be quite a fun exercise.

3. Open a magazine on any page. Look at an image for a few moments and then close the magazine. Create an imaginative description of what you remember, elaborate and add characters or events to create a piece of micro-fiction.

4. Take any object from any room in your home (try the back of a closet for interesting ideas) and tell the story of the person who invented/made/sold that object.

5. Find an article about a recent news event and imagine how your character could help or comment on it. Imagine a scenario where your favourite character could find him/herself in that situation.

6. Take a negative experience (bad customer service, an argument with a friend or partner) and tell it from the other person’s point of view. Imagine why the shop assistant was so rude, what could be distracting her, what happens in her life – create a character from that person.

We’ve all sat there, staring at a flashing cursor first thing in the morning, desperate for a little inspiration to come our way, these are a few ways to go out and grab it!

Susan Long is a novelist by night, press release and property marketer by day – see how she pays the mortgage at Sell Property Quickly.