There are some excellent answers to this questions. And I want to hear your own explanation. There is three rules: 1. What ever you tell, it must be self invented and not true. 2. It must not violate board rules. 3. You can tell as many stories about your creative processes or idea banks as you want to.
In Finland we have this cultural equity banking system. You can put your ideas, values, creativity and childlikeness to immaterial bank. But you must have your own account - or more than one. I have several accounts in Goofy Dudes Idea Dungeon Savings Bank + one account in Creativity Hedge Fund & Fun Bank. Your creativity yields interest in those accounts. The riskier the investment, the more you can get. Or you can loose everything. (Then you can still get an career in politics.) Identity thefts and different kind of scams are big problem. I get my ideas from my own accounts.
I'm a country boy. I grew up on a farm. An idea farm. Naturally, I use only the very best home-grown, organic Ideas™ from the rich soil of home. We also have a sideline in free-range, grass-fed Themes™. So screw that store-bought GMO crap. Come on down to Herald & Sons and pick up your next Million Dollar Idea™ today! Limited time offers: 15% off on Deconstructed Tropes™, 3 for 2 on Character Archetypes™, free Red Herring™ with every purchase (subject to availability)
Oh yeah? Norwegians and their herrings. No herrings to me, thank you. Salmon or cod is ok. Your brown cheese is wonderful. But herring... No! In Finland everything that is worse is better. We have these wonderful mythic creatures. Santa Clause lives in Finland. Tooth fairy... Well... She does not. (Tooth fairy is this beautiful young & old girl who takes teeth which are under pillow and puts coin there to replace those hidden teeth. And if you put coins under you pillow, she clubs few teeth from your mouth. So... Remember this: Never put your credit card under pillow. Ok? Never.) But we have tens of thousand sauna gnomes. When you go to sauna alone, you can really, really relax. And in that relaxed solitude sauna gnome whispers his voiceless telepathic whispers to you. And if you have been good - by Finnish sauna standards - he gives you good ideas about your life, work, spare time, home... You can't see sauna gnomes, but everyone knows they look a bit like this.
Actually, I personally don't like herring at all. I'm a deviant, I know. Brown cheese is magnificent, yes, thank you. Cod and salmon is good stuff, though I'd sooner have trout or arctic char. Your local Tooth Fairy sounds pretty hardcore, as one expects from all things Finnish. I don't think our saunas have gnomes, but... is there any way to check?
My dog Henry likes to hunt – birds, squirrels and ideas. He is only successful when it comes to the latter. When we are going for a walk and he spots an idea (they often try to hide between the scrubs and bushes) he gets very still, his ears go up and his tail starts wagging. I set him loose immediately and he rushes off. Henry is a very brave dog, so he isn’t afraid even if it is a big idea. Then when we get home Henry gets a biscuit and my work starts.
Every time I fly I see ideas written on clouds. I take photos of them, and store them in an ideas album. I type them up when I land.
All Finnish things are not hard core. We don't allow bear hunting. (Wrestling with them is more fun.) There is only one exception. If a bear is drunken & angry you are allowed to self defence with knife but blade must be under 12cm long. (Drinking and wrestling with bears is allowed. Some people say it's provocative. Standard answer is that bears have rights too.) We love our kids. That is why we let them sleep their naps outside around year. We never kill without good reasons. But back to gnomes... There are real & genuine sauna gnomes in north Norway, in Kven areas. (I suppose you know that Kvens are related to Finns.) But south... I don't know. You can check your sauna. Have sauna alone. Think about this topic. If you get good ideas about getting ideas, that is a metaidea from sauna gnome. And then more about the main topic of this thread. You might have found out that coffee helps getting ideas. There is something that is related to caffeine. It's called creativine. Caffein free coffee does not have it. If you drink coffee with high amounts of creativine you start to get some ideas.
No, it's not me. I don't steal trash bags. And this is not me. This is Sulo and Juuso. Sometimes we have creative moments while hibernating with bears. (Or was it with humans?) It's not very common. BeArt.
Same place I thought everybody did: I send a dollar to a post office box in Schenectady, New York, and they send me an idea by return mail.
The Idea Catapult™ may be used with any can of alphabet soup! One lunch launch will ensure a broad spectrum of ideas stick to the wall for a variety of themes! No two are the same! Order yours today! Operators are standing by, call now! *(soup and wall not included. void where prohibited. your results may differ. items shipped may not match images shown.)
People going out if their way to have ideas. Do like I do and just steal them. The only reason I'm here is so when unsuspecting newbs drops a treatment for critique, I nab it up and turn it into a working novel before they've even decided what billing they want.
Someone sent me an email from Nigeria telling that I can have 10% of the ideas of secret idea warehouses of Felakuti and King Sunny Ade if I sent them first 25 good plots and 100 characters. They don't fool me. I'm gonna send them 100 000 euros instead of any creative work. Beware the coming of Art Artillery & A-10 Arthogs. Sorry, Dapper! Rules are rules. You did not invent stealing ideas! Get another one! (Don't steal it!)
The mod team have software that allows us to harvest your ideas telepathetically as soon as you login. Unfortunately, there's been a real dearth of good ones lately, so get thinking, ya dirty proles
That's (tele)pathetic. My trained hardwarewolf will protect my ideas from your software and bite your bottoms until you give all your ideas to me. I'm thinking about writing about my wolf.
There is a cat-like race of aliens far away in the galaxy, and they brought me the ideas that I so far have gotten, but their distance from here makes for slow delivery. I'm trying to enlist other races, but so far no takers. On the other hand, there is a race of three armed aliens who promise to toss me a stray idea or two as soon as I can tell them which hand is their other hand. I keep looking at each of their hands, but I just can't figure it out.
I have several Muse Hepatica flowers growing in a pot in my book shelf. When I need a new idea, I take a big magnifying glass and a high quality table lamp and read that ever changing small text from the bottom of one the bell shaped flowers.
If you are trying to reach my mind for ideas things are really pathetic, with or without the tele part.
I made a deal with each of the seven archdemons in which they would feed my mind with the ghosts of ideas that can, at any point, become corporeal ideas and demand my attention, where they are then imprisoned in the "To Ponder List". But they inevitably are forgotten and demand to be remembered, banging a cup on the bars of their cell until the warden gets angry and calls me down from central cognitive function to deal with the problem.
Maybe the WF staff should invest in 'super long range' transporter technology and use it to beam those ideas out of your dungeon, rather than trying to telepathetically pilfer ideas from us.