Inasmuch as I’ve rather trashed or at least downplayed my creative writerly self recently and inasumuch as I’m getting further in to Reality Manifesto and finding that Shields is wrong about novels and plot, I want to take a moment here and celebrate That Moment. You know, That Moment when your mind has been gnawing away for awhile on a demand — an idea or feeling or specific project or contest or something you read recently — and you get that image or character or bit of dialogue or concept and more importantly where it comes and you turn it about a bit and suddenly you see how it could work or at least that it could be workable? That’s a great moment. There’s all the work and struggle of the afterwards, of course. But if That Moment was good enough or deep enough or interesting enough or evocative enough or concrete enough or feeling enough, the afterwards eventually works itself out. I suppose That Moment could refer to a variety of cognitive tasks, but I’m referring specifically to how it operates in relation to Creative Fiction.
A Motley Vision 
I join you in celebrating That Moment. I’ve been having tons of them lately on a novel project that is really gelling together now. While I really get a buzz from it, I also realize that now I have to get busy and do some work, or all Those Moments I’ve been jotting down will just be wasted.
Perhaps the most blessed instances of That Moment are the times when it comes as a solution to problems you’ve been struggling with. As such, it can come even during the revision process, thank heavens. Otherwise I don’t know if any of us could stand to revise our own work.