You remember a fragment of a song that sounds like it’s from the eighties. You do some research, but you struggle to remember where you heard it, and when. Your guesses are more imagination than recall. No hints come to mind. 

When this happened to Questlove, he was stumped. He decided to transform this research process into a creative one. He gave it more thought, and started making a new song that matched up to what his memory and imagination were telling him. 

“I heard an entire new song coming to life in my mind, and I knew that wouldn’t have happened if I had been able to quickly locate the song in question,” he writes in Creative Quest.

Something similar happens when you try to imitate a piece of work. While you may fail to create an exact replica, the attempt creates something new—and, perhaps, more interesting than the original.