Imagination: The Pros and Cons
As a child I had an impressive imagination. I believed in Santa Claus longer than most
because I could picture him in such exquisite detail; hear him on the roof, smell the cookies he liked best, see the sooty kiss in the mirror on Christmas morning. That smudge on my forehead and the missing cookies were proof positive that he existed and I refused to listen to older children and their crazy-talk.
Whenever I heard a story, it appeared in my brain in living color. I sometimes had trouble sorting real memories from my memories of vivid stories. Unfortunately, scary stories were extra vibrant in my memory and led to my legendary fear of purple cabbage. Cooked purple cabbage was the same color as Maleficent’s robes in Sleeping Beauty! Why can’t anyone else see that? I also believed in mermaids, selkies, trolls, leprechauns and - you get the picture.
As I grew older, there were disadvantages to my imagination. When I was learning to drive, I kept picturing my car in gruesome accidents. When I was pregnant, I was certain my babies would be born with every syndrome and malady I had studied in graduate school. Downs’ syndrome, cerebral palsy, Treacher Collins, you name it. I pictured it in graphic detail. As my children grew up, I kept imagining them in every kind of accident. As I commuted to work each morning, I had to give myself a peptalk. “Get a grip, Valerie. You’re not going to crash.”
My forty-year detour into hearing healthcare required me to suppress that imagination – no one wants their audiologist to make things up! But now that I’m using my imagination daily to write, it’s coming in handy. I have no problem thinking of multiple characters, story lines and plot twists. No “writer’s block” here! My problem is that I have too many ideas. The possibilities are plentiful and so enticing! You would think that would be a good thing, but it can be the opposite. Picture a litter of puppies. I want to keep them all!
I recently took an excellent creative writing class from Samina Ali in the Stanford Continuing Education Program. Her advice? Pick an idea and run with it. Don’t look back. You can put on your editor’s hat and weed out the nonsense later. She reinforced this in different ways and quoted famous writers who have advised the same thing. My career and parenting trained me to be careful and meticulous. But I’m trying to take her advice to heart and change the way I write. Who knows? If I can learn to let the ideas flow, perhaps the next book won’t take as long to write.
I’m happily picturing myself following Samina’s advice in the new year, in my cozy study under the eaves, fast drafting my next book in the Badass Widows Series. No critics, no fear, off I go! Just know that if you see me out running errands around town and my lips are moving, I’m not talking on the phone or singing with the radio, I’m still muttering to myself, “Get a grip, Valerie.”