Creativity in this day and age, I think, mostly consists of 'standing on the shoulders of giants'. Being able to look around all your peers and greats in the present and past and see patterns, mix them up, construct a new puzzle from multiple old ones. Adding your own unique perspective that is in turn an amalgamation of countless amounts before yours. Whenever I see someone complaining of creative block (in music) I immediately tell them to start listening to lots of music. Especially stuff outside the genre they are drawn to and new music in general. I guess this is more of a arduous task in writing, in that reading a book is quite a long process. Imagine how much different music someone could've listened to by the time someones has read, absorbed and construed just 10 books. Just an observation.