It seems like you should have to consume information and ideas to get inspiration. But it’s not true.
School and most formal teaching begin with information stuffing. You cram facts into your head for weeks or even years, preparing to someday do something. This is the surest way to reduce the odds that you ever do anything original. This is like a Keynesian theory of knowledge. “We’ll all get better if we keep consuming stuff.”
You don’t need to consume before you create.
My best mornings begin on this blog. Before email, text, Slack, Twitter, or any other external source of information. When I begin with creation, the creation is better, the day is better, and I’m better.
Days when I wait until late in the day to write my blog always feel more chaotic. The blog feels more obligatory than cathartic. It’s more a jumble of reflected feelings picked up during the day, instead of an expression of stuff inside me stirred up while I slept. That’s the stuff that tends to be most original and interesting. To me, if not to anyone else. (And I blog for me, not anyone else).
I highly recommend, as an approach to writing as well as learning anything else, creation before consumption. Pick up a guitar and start plucking. Grab a brush and start painting. Try figuring out equations, speaking Spanish, or ice skating. Before you study them.
Go create. This will provide the context for consumption that makes it vastly more valuable. Creators are better critics too.