… genius is something that must be literally cultivated.
If there’s anything I tried to impress on my talented students, it’s this. Yes, sometimes great stuff will come to you like a bolt from the blue, but if you want that to happen, there’s lots of things that help make you more attractive to the gods above hurling a lightning bolt your way.
I’ve never known a successful writer who sits around waiting for inspiration. They go out and seek it. They walk around a field in a lightning storm wearing a knight’s suit of armor holding a fifty foot long metal poll in one hand and flying a kite with a key attached to the other.