A blog reading, and a discussion with a friend about graph theory, made me recall a fun book I've read some time ago written by Austin Kleon, author of "Steal like an Artist". The book is -surprisingly enough - about poetry and inspiration: Newspaper Blackout. TLDR : The author connects words from a random text to create new meanings.
Scientists, like artists, create content/concepts/inventions/theories based on some context and existing stuff (we call that bibliography). This overcomes the "blank page" monster, because basically what we need to do, is to catch some existing works (inspirations, words) and to connect them, creating something new. So basically, we connect dots, or "nodes", and the contribution is the new connexion that completes the graph.
With time and experience, we become able to create nodes (new works) to help close the gap between contexts that might seem beyond reach. In this case, we imagine links, and we connect these links with a new node.
It is a trend nowadays, since so much tools focus on that "spatial" thinking and creation. If you want to test that, and you're a scientist, check that : inciteful.
If you're not, you can apply that to your notes or diary using Obsidian or Logseq and the graph view to find inspiration.
