No idea arrives fully formed from nowhere. Every maker has sources: designers who shaped how they see composition, writers who trained their ear, engineers whose architecture decisions they’ve internalised. The useful question isn’t whether you’re copying, but what you’re doing with it. Transformation is what makes the influence yours. [[Lots of inputs and a strong filter]] is the upstream condition: you can only transform what you’ve absorbed, and absorption requires both breadth and deliberate filtering.
Study the work you admire closely enough to understand why it works, not just that it does. [[Write notes for yourself by default]] is how you process what copying teaches you: working through it privately until it becomes something you actually think rather than something you borrowed. [[Never brainstorm for a topic]] finds its raw material exactly here.