You know, the point of a novel - or to me, the point of a novel, the gift of a novel is to go really deeply inside people's lives and inside their personal experiences.
I just like to inhabit a character really deeply.
If all you've got is somebody else's stuff that you've lifted, nothing really deep, then it is going to thin out.
You can experience play at work, not because you're messing around or wasting time or something, but because you're looking really deeply and seriously at things and asking what is possible, what can be done with them, what new ideas might emerge?
Sort of like, I have to make the Japanese lyrics really deep.