"You don't mention collaboration, competitors, and critics. I find that interacting with the right people always results in a ton of ideas. Always go to your strengths. Not the things that you just excel at but the things that you excel at and which give you that feeling of flow while you are doing them (even if they are greuling) and leave you with a sense of being recharged afterwards. Mindless time in planes, trains, and automobiles always works. So does taking a walk outdoors - a garden or through a woods. Charles Darwin, no slouch at generating new ideas and a pretty good writer, got his best ideas on walks. Going back to the beginning always help me too. Our brains are really good at constructing just so stories and then conveniently forgetting that it made them up. Being challenged by facts clears out the old stories and makes up some new ones to test. Yep, pretty much someone has always thought of it before. You mentioned the Carter Family in one of your blogs. Old A.P. was a real song catcher and melody and lyric editor. Seems like you are doing the same for woodworking."