After reading a few wonderful books by makers and writers, I have come to the conclusion that their passing observations say more about creativity and innovation than a shelf-load of books dedicated to telling you how creativity and innovation work.  And while the skills and tools of making a chair are different from writing a book, the creative process seems less so.

‘There’s no waiting, then, for the muse to descend.  You take up where you left off the night before.  You come to the workbench every morning and ask yourself, “Where was I?”   Inspiration is for amateurs, someone once said.   The creativity is incremental, not divorced from the making.  You invent while you make.’

Source: David Esterly, The Lost Carving: A Journey to the heart of making (New York: Penguin, 2013), p. 206