yes, Stravinsky encourages us to search out new ideas though his use of the phrase grubbing is perhaps a little too poetic (and possibly a poor translation of either his French or Russian)
Consider Beethoven, whose work we know took many a twist and windy path before being committed to paper: he sought to work out his musical problems by exploring possibilities until he found the ones that worked best and gelled with his musical imagination
Ralph Vaughan Williams had this to say about the art of being a composer/creator; If being a composer is my job then I must keep office hours. I must work whether I want to or not, it is by the act of working constantly and consistently that I can find my way to my inspiration
he did not advocate mindless meanderings in search of inspiration, instead his suggestion was that you need to work at your craft
- then it meant studying harmony, melody, arranging, orchestrating, etc;
-now it means studying your daw, your plug-ins, your eq, your fx, your instruments, as well as the tasks of harmony, melody, arranging and orchestration
as a lyricist it means studying words, meter, rhyme, scansion