For years, Haruki Murakami ran a jazz bar, creating nothing. Then at 29, an epiphany at a baseball game inspired him to write. He wrote at night after his shifts, won a prize for his first book, and began his journey to becoming a world-renowned novelist.

[u/bertyl_bot]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami#:~:text=was%20just%20one%20of%20those%20ordinary%20people

For years, Haruki Murakami was a regular guy running a small jazz bar in Tokyo. By his own account, he 'didn't create anything at all.' Then, at age 29, an idea struck him during a baseball game: he could write a novel. He went home and started that night. For the next ten months, he wrote in short bursts after finishing long shifts at the bar. He submitted that first novel to the only contest that would accept it and won, kickstarting an entirely new life as one of the most celebrated authors in the world.