Plot is evil. Say you've just finished writing the first book in a series, and now you want so badly to start the second book, but you're missing one thing - plot.
After analyzing my overall writing method, I believe I've come up with a way to create plot. It's not an easy way, and it may be missing some steps, but here goes:
Think about your characters. Who are they? What's at stake for them? What are their goals? Consider the end of your book. What do you want/need to happen? Write towards an ending. Now consider the beginning. How can you open the action? (It helps if your previous book ended on a cliffhanger.) Now think linearly: how do you get from point A to point B? How can you tie your beginning to your end?
Make a chapter list based on what needs to happen in each chapter to get you to the end. There's quite a jump here, from ideas to chapters. This part will take the longest, perhaps weeks. Now take each chapter and repeat all the "beginning/ending/how to get there" stuff for Every. Single. One. Write your chapter descriptions you just came up with, on paper, in order. Yes, all of them. Look them over. Read them a few times, out loud if necessary. This is your plot treatment. Do they all fit together? Rethink, reorder, redo any chapters that don't quite work. Take off chapters, add some on. Do they work?
Now (finally!) try writing Chapter One. If it works, keep going, if it doesn't, look at its description and try again.
This process might be useful for the times when a complete plot doesn't just jump into your head. It might seem a little obsessive, and it probably is, but I am a very orderly person, and this is what works for me. Maybe you don't do plots or chapter lists at all and just dive into whatever creative work you find interesting. Or maybe you're more in between and like the chapter list but can't do all those descriptions. That's perfectly fine. When in doubt, remember the old saying:
Whatever works.