Years ago I started doodling. Not drawing, but doodling in everything. Photography, filming, writing, drawing...
I'm reminded of classes saying "just start writing!" to get through blocks and get ideas on paper, but the issue was "write about what?" The question was asked by just about everyone in the classes etc. every time.
After spending some time doodling in drawing during meetings, classes, long drives or plane rides... My answer was "anything," including just writing random words on a page. The writing equivalent of doodling.
A doodle, to some people, needs a purpose, a shape etc. When I am bored and idly drawing on a flight, I'm literally making small circles, squiggles etc with NO purpose or goal. A goal sets an expectation and a negative reinforcement if not met. A real doodle, an aimless, ignored meandering of action on paper has no assumptions of purpose. Now, if I did spot a corner of a squiggle and thought "I like that. That reminds me of a fence I saw outside a horse rescue...," then I can start working toward that goal. There's no writing, no purpose, no reinforcement but a positive IF I find something I want to continue, and no assumptions that I need to complete anything.
In writing, the same thing can happen. Grab a dictionary, look one up, start clicking through synonyms on m-w or thesaurus.com... just start writing random words that come to mind of the things around you. Provide no plot or course, no intention in its placement on the screen. Save the file, of course, but as a notepad or a scratchpad. Even a notepad/textedit file is enough. Forget the formatting and goals. Save it, though, just in case a random string of letters and words (misspelled or not, who cares?) becomes inspiration for a scene... just a scene with no purpose or connection to anything or anyone in anything you want to write.
If you like it, run with it.
Some of my writing has come from a scene never once seen in the final project. Agape, in particular, was started with a scene nowhere near the content of this book.
Then another character was introduced, as a flash-forward, then I wrote and kept writing, bringing new characters in until I had a coherent story. I stripped away the prologue and its flash forward, removed the characters that never showed in what the story became and removed the scene that started it all. Why? because it was a great scene that helped me build a character, but it wasn't a scene that was good for THIS story.
I still have it, I kept it because it was a doodle that turned into something useful, but it served its purpose of putting me in a mindset for a character, which then begged for a reason, which then became a story slowly chipped down into a singular, coherent story with all the complexity and answers needed for this character to become the thing I had doodled and loved about her words. The scene and where it fit in the society, now built around Cinna, was relevant without having to reach that scene at all.