Inspiration is for amateurs - Jule Styne.
Do you agree with Styne?
Styne was a successful English born composer. He had a string of hit songs in Broadway musicals and could name Frank Sinatra as a friend.
What Styne meant in a kind way by is that inspiration is useless if you don’t know your craft. For us would-be authors it means having a firm grasp of the aspects of the novel. The art and craft of novel writing is a different matter, because it is an art you can't master. A craft that improves with the experience of writing.
We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master - Hemingway
We all have the ability to accomplish anything that we put our mind too; words are paint our inspiration like magic
Maybe the mastery of the craft is in the eye of the beholder, as it were: writers are rarely convinced of their own skill, but a reader - the one who gets all the enjoyment out of the end product - may consider their favourite writer to be a genius.
It was said of Bing Crosby that he couldn't read music - but that didn't mean he wasn't a consummate musician. I think we can all achieve our goals with assistance and support: inspiration is nothing without the drive and dedication to build upon it, with whatever tools that requires, after all. 'I've got a brilliant idea for a book' - how often have you heard that? And how often is it followed up?
However, professionals need inspiration too. What else are innovative ideas and plot twists that surprise and delight/frighten/enlighten, if not inspiration?