" Sounds strange, I know, but it couldn’t be more true to my experience. It’s like there’s a platonic form of the song out there somewhere, and you get a tiny glimpse of that true form at some stage in the creative act. Half the job is fighting to get the feeble work of your hands as close as possible to that flash of beauty. You have the sense that you aren’t the one who conceived of the thing but are a surrogate mother helping to birth something new into the world. That doesn’t mean we turn off our brains, or that we forfeit our agency in shaping the art. There’s a paradox at work here. Serving the work doesn’t mean we don’t have an agenda, but that the agenda works in partnership with the wild, creative spirit—not as an overlord. "

― Andrew Peterson , Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making