Yes!
To produce an original idea you must earn it. There is no instant full insight: you never get your idea without earning it over time, even when the discovery seems sudden.
A plain rule operates. When (aha!) you make your breakthrough, it is earned by your prior thinking, and much of it has been thinking you have not been aware of consciously, as your mind has worked something hidden without your knowing it, in a mysterious process of incubation.
The result of this secret working of the mind may show up when you hardly expect it—when—yes!—your idea arrives like a phantom out of the blankness at the center of consciousness. In this exact fashion there arrived the grand conception which was coordinate geometry when Rene Descartes, the mathematician, dreamily lying in bed, noticed a fly . . . on the ceiling . . . near the corner . . . walking . . . from a point . . . to a point . . . to a point . . . YES!
Learn from your own experience of earning an idea how your mind develops readiness and how, with just the right prompt, it releases its surprise.
thomas@discoveringyourintelligence.com