You are probing for ideas even if you don’t know what you’re hoping to find. Anything goes.
Jerry Saltz, How to be an artist
I refer to this probing and gathering as “filling my well”. In the weeks and months leading up to this grand project of mine, I’ve been saving things. Bits and bobs of memories, sentence fragments, new-to-me words and ideas, memes, and odd thoughts.
I have a literal shopping bag of ideas I had in 2019 on squares of paper and multicoloured Post-Its.
I have a digital Commonplace Book of quotes and ideas from all the media I’ve consumed since 2017. I have at least a dozen ideas a day, it seems. I log each one in my Notion system in case it may matter at another time. They certainly don’t matter now.
Never stop throwing your nets into those fundamental waters… that perverse need to keep looking till you can’t imagine finding more, can keep you receptive to new metaphors, materials, and meaning.
Jerry Saltz, How to be an artist