When the muse is busy elsewhere, it's good to have some ways to generate ideas anyway. In my book, "Creativity Now" (Pearson Publishing--an excellent present for people on your list, by the way), I share a ot of them, but here's another:
1. Come up with some key words that relate to your story.
For instance, I'm working on a book for kids eight years and up in which a boy has to find the courage to defend himself and his family against a threat nobody else believes is real.
2. Look up quotes about those key words.
For "courage" one I found is:
"The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror in which you can see a noble image of yourself." - George Bernard Shaw
3. See what ideas the quote gives you for your story.
The quote above gave me the idea for a scene in which the boy doubts himself but it's his one friend's belief in him that keeps him going.
Another quote is, "The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity." - Rollo May
That reminded me to show how hard it is for the boy to resist the social pressure to go along with what others.
The ideas that result from this method don't just come out of the blue, often they were lurking somewhere just below your conscious awareness, and the quotes bring them out.
(You can get Creativity Now from Amazon or your other favorite book seller.)
