The Creative Process

In 1815, Germany's General Music Journal published a letter in which Mozart described his creative process:

 

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone, and of good cheer; say traveling in a carriage, or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep; it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. All this fires my soul, and provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodized and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost finished and complete in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue, at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. When I proceed to write down my ideas the committing to paper is done quickly enough, for everything is, as I said before, already finished; and it rarely differs on paper from what it was in my imagination."

This letter has been used as a classic explanation of the creative process, the appearance of the finished product through an almost mystical experience, almost devoid of work and sweat.
Regrettably, it is a forgery. More important, what is says and implies is untrue. Visionary moments are rare. Eureka breakthroughs unusual. The real creative person is more like Edison, indefatigable, tireless and methodical.
The lightening struck creator is a unicorn.