Trying to get inspiration to write has never been quite as trying in recent times as it has today. Maybe it’s because I’m nervous that it’s possibly my first Editor’s Note for the magazine (a term taken way too liberally I suppose, considering how I am, well, not), and like most things in life, doesn’t happen when you want it, but flows in endless torrents while you’re trying to get to bed. That and it’s a “serious” magazine, so ahem ahem, we’ve got to pull our socks up won’t we, old chap? (Somehow tacking a faux-British air to it makes it even seriouser.)

To take my mind off the task, I’ve been scouring the Internet, mindlessly hopping onto one wikipedia term after another—you know how it is, when you’re innocently reading an article and you come across five terms you don’t know and you click on them to open in a new tab, ready for exploration once you’re done with that article. Only that each of the five pages spawn five more each, and soon your mind (and browser) are exploding with pages, waiting to be devoured in a confused haze of information bingeing.

It’s like multi-level marketing, only far more viral. If you don’t believe me, start with any Greek/Roman mythical god, say Hercules, as common example. Try to read it, absorb it and go through it thoroughly. You’ll come across names of which you’ve never heard—or perhaps names you find familiar but can’t place (the most viral of them all). Clickety-click.

What do you do for inspiration? I don’t just mean writing. How about song-writing? (I find heartbreak a nice motivator, for one.) Perhaps you need to generate a report, a press release, an essay, an article.

If there were some way I could bottle all the random inspiration sweeping me by when I’m falling asleep or driving (not always two exclusive events), I’d sip from it at times like these.