How To Start
So the important thing has always been to find a way to get started and not to worry about whether I am 'inspired' or not... and anything - a word, a phrase, a melodic fragment, a groove, a chord progression - can be a fertile starting point.
I am a bit of a hoarder and I tend to keep all my unfinished fragments, both lyrical and melodic, so that I always have a starting point when I find myself bereft of ideas.
I also use a book of proverbs (great for finding song-titles), a thesaurus and a good rhyming dictionary. Nowhere is it written that you have to be 'inspired' a hundred percent of the time - and these things can help you through that fallow period until your muse returns.