The best stuff comes from unexpected bursts of inspiration. Lightning strikes.
But what separates all the bursts that fizzle into those that set the world ablaze? The conditions of the environment when the lightning strikes.
You’ve got to create the conditions for a brush fire. You’ve got to ready the tinder and kindling and forests. This is boring, tedious, inglorious, and doesn’t have much to show unless and until the lightning strikes. It’s the daily discipline, but without it, the lightning strike breaks a tree or two and no one remembers. But with daily discipline, the lucky strike leads to an inferno that forever alters the landscape of the world. In fact, if conditions are good enough, lighting may not be needed at all. A few good days intense sunshine could do the trick.
This belabored metaphor is all to say that creativity requires inspiration. But inspiration without discipline is useless, even destructive.
Get to work. Don’t worry about inspiration. Control the conditions.
