Creative ideas are DIFFICULT to explain.
I usually just idealize whatever I'm working with and try to think about what is most natural, what makes most sense... Perhaps it is only too quick of a simple operation, that I don't really notice it... but if you explode my thoughts before I have some sort of creative revelation, my brain is hard at work analyzing the problem, and this alone my be creativity. Transferring a real problem into something that my brain can grasp and open up and toy with, may be in it's self, creative.
So basically I just turn reality into an abstract thought and then use it's own purpose as another abstract, idealistic, sort of reflection. Then it's all about creating a symmetrical image. You just change the thing in reality to be as it is if it were perfect for it's own purpose. Now, also, before you think that this is implosive, when I say idealistic, this isn't dreamy. It's not real, but it's held to every limitation that there is in reality... because this is part of it's purpose too.
Then there are times where you've fought with an idea for so long that there's almost nothing more to do with it accept identify problems and see if any of them correspond with one another...
Eh, I am so boring.