{
  "id": "follow-the-fragment",
  "number": "004",
  "edition": "Ideas",
  "title": "Follow the fragment",
  "standfirst": "You do not need the whole answer before you begin.",
  "when": "You are waiting for a complete idea to arrive before making a start.",
  "way": "Ideas often arrive as fragments. One fragment attracts another; gradually, the larger thing begins to disclose itself. A partial idea is not evidence that nothing is there. It may be the first visible part of something you cannot see yet.",
  "tryThis": "Write down five incomplete images, phrases, sounds or questions connected to what you are making. Do not force them to cohere. Follow the one that produces another fragment.",
  "notice": "Which fragment seems to have energy before it has an explanation?",
  "person": "David Lynch",
  "source": "The Contemporary Blueprint archive",
  "quote": "I always use this analogy of fishing: so if you catch one idea, even if it’s a tiny little fish of an idea, but it’s a beautiful little fish, and it indicates something, and you fall in love with it, but it’s a fragment, and then if you focus on that, and think about that, and desire more, they’ll swim in. Over time, they’ll swim in. You can’t necessarily count on it, but it’s our experience that they do come in. And so, one thing will start it, and more will come, and more will come, and the ideas can come at any time after that.",
  "sourceUrl": "https://youtu.be/Fxr-7O1Bfxg",
  "contexts": [
    "begin",
    "idea",
    "stuck"
  ],
  "free": true,
  "related": [
    "keep-the-question-open",
    "make-the-smallest-version",
    "notice-the-irritation"
  ],
  "sourceArchive": "The Contemporary Blueprint",
  "referenceKind": "quotation",
  "referenceExcerpt": "I always use this analogy of fishing: so if you catch one idea, even if it’s a tiny little fish of an idea, but it’s a beautiful little fish, and it indicates something, and you fall in love with it, but it’s a fragment, and then if you focus on that, and think about that, and desire more, they’ll swim in. Over time, they’ll swim in. You can’t necessarily count on it, but it’s our experience that they do come in."
}