Funny. I can only shake my head at it. Sometimes reading something written by one of literature’s Greats will inspire an effort to emulate their creative effort – the effort alone, if nothing else that is theirs. But sometimes reading that very same work inspires only dread and fear.
And sometimes, the inspiration arises solely from reading something I have written in the past (which felt successful, worthy, to me at least, if to no-one else).