something which helps me is to build little exercises:

desrcibe something before you write it.

i.e. write a melody that is
- question and answer in the melody
- question and answer between melody and chords
- contains a big interval up with added half step approach
to the upper note
- start with a climax and than go down
- avoid every third note on a downbeat
- main target note in a melody is outside of the key and
needs chord change
- motive repeated one step above first, than a third above
- a melody that follows the line of the horizon when you
look out of the window
- hold notes over chord changes and move while chords stay
- etc...

possibilities are endless. to find new ones just listen to

music and describe what you hear. The first four examples I
wrote up there fit on:
- Twinkle twinkle little star
- Don't get around much anymore
- Maria (from West side story) or Bewitched
- Somewhere over the rainbow or Night and Day

I was taught a brilliant way recently, basically begin with

a chord sequence and try to make the chords as weird and
un-related as possible, literally anything,
it may sound terrible at first but once you add a melody it
sort of contextualises the harmonies, stick to the notes of
the chords you're writing over when doing the melody, so if
your first chord is C, use notes from C, then you go to F
sharp major, stick to notes in F sharp major, use whichever
you think sounds best and play around with it

sometimes i do this on piano playing completely unrelated

chords in succession and trying to fit melodies to them,
you use your ear and intuition to a degree, but also get
completely unexpected results, was also told it's how
Rachmaninov wrote. A lot of his works modulate very rapidly
to unexpected keys