Blank Sheet Creativity

I was walking through Michael's with my girlfriend looking for something (sand timers?) and I a realization:

I'm lousy at blank creativity.

I've always envisioned creativity as a process akin to being locked in a small white room, given a sheet of blank paper, and being told "Invent a new mouse trap."

Other topics that come along those lines:

• How are you feeling?
• Name a date activity for Friday night.
• Create a new board game idea.
• Figure out how to make church more innovative.
• Illustrate a theological principle from real life.
• Find a compelling (to me) blog idea.
• Layout an ideal living room furniture arrangement.

I'm realizing that I'm not very good at any of those activities while sitting at a computer or a piece of paper. Most of my ideas come from borrowing and modifying what I see around me:

• Most of my blog ideas come from being somewhere (outside walking, in a store, talking with a friend), not from being on my computer.
• I mostly come up with illustrations when I have a theological concept in mind and am living out life - something happens, and I think "Oh, that's a good illustration." It's really hard, though, for me to look back through my life for good illustrations.
• Many of my date ideas are borrowed and modified (or occasionally just downright copied) from other people's activities and suggestions.
• Walking around Art Van or Home Depot is one of the best ways for me to get ideas about home decorating. It's not exactly that I want my home to have what is there, but it gets me thinking about what is possible.

(And yes, I'm even much better at the the emotion question when I have a specific context: e.g. How are you feeling about waking up to sunlight?)

I suspect the only weird part of this realization is that I'm just now figuring out what tends to stimulate my creative thinking. But it's still weird to me.