I think this is a common misunderstanding of what art is. Every art has its mechanical, detailed side that must be worked through. The end result may be a lofty and soaring creation but it doesn't follow that the artist lofted and soared their way to get there. On the contrary, what's striking in the lives of great artists is not how they transcended the tough slog but how they did more of it, far more than their peers. The mundane and the creative are closely related, and the idea of the creative without the mundane is an ungrounded fantasy.

I remember reading something about the Beatles (by one of their early girlfriends or wives) that said when they went to parties, Lennon and McCartney would usually end up in a corner going over song ideas. There are countless such anecdotes. A woman walks up to Picasso in a restaurant and asks him to sketch whatever he likes on a napkin and charge her whatever he thinks it's worth. Picasso does so and says, "That will be twenty thousand dollars." "But it only took you thirty seconds to do that!" "Madam, it took me thirty years to do that."