Fitzgerald cuts through the romantic notion that genius lives in brilliant thoughts alone—plenty of people dream magnificently and then fade into obscurity. What separates the visionary from the merely imaginative is the grinding work of translation, that exhausting bridge between the mind's perfect conception and the world's stubborn resistance to it. A composer might hear an entire symphony in her head; genius is finishing the orchestration at three in the morning, then fighting with musicians who don't quite understand what she's after. That's why so many talented people produce nothing while less naturally gifted ones leave monuments behind.