*

 

The history of human creativity is filled with examples of people who got their best ideas by first working hard on a problem, then resting  . . .
John Updike explained that he would frequently leave his study, where he was writing, to sit in his garden and stare at the sky.  Often some family member, seeing him apparently doing nothing, would approach and ask him to do some task.  “No,” he would tell them.  “I can’t.  I’m working.”

      (From How To Be A Writer by Barbara Baig)