When I come up with something new and complex (either something that qualifies as an invention or just trying to solve a complex data analysis problem using a single SQL statement), I tend to first have a big blur in my brain... And then it may feel promising... and then individual structural components of the final solution start to emerge non-visually (like where to apply recursion in SQL that generates data for the remaining layers)... it's more like that I feel that there are some solid parts (vs entropy?) in that blob... the whole thing doesn't fully make sense until the last important component has "manifested" itself. Nothing visual though and often I have to "roll back" to the blurry blob from half an hour ago and wait until something better manifests itself from there. Doesn't always work and sleep helps! :-)