Imagine

At left on my desk this morning, a 4wt fiberglass fly rod ( Steffen blank) with stacked leather handle (custom Mark McKellip special) and an Abel click-and-pawl reel. WF 4wt rio LT line.  Three brassies in size 14.

I imagine it is spring.  Season isn't open here.

I'm finishing a story this morning after I finish this blog entry, then I'm running to work to get a jump on the week whose theme is "finishing."

I was thinking of spring - imagining it actually - and reflected on writers and imagination.

I poke some fun in these posts about fiction, crime writers, lies and deception. There is however no doubt in my mind that we fiction writers good and bad share a common trait: we have active imaginations. We see our characters in a room having a conversation.

We imagine aliens or dinosaurs or even honest politicians walking the earth.

Where did this come from?

I grew up alone without siblings or playmates. I had to find ways to entertain myself. Sometimes that was imagining my Frisbee was the Jupiter II from Lost in Space flying through the "tree" nebula storm.

Sometimes it was imagining the rope from a large elm hung was the rigging of a pirate ship.

Everyone does this. It's not exceptional.

I think it was the books. I think it was finding my current environment stagnant and all my imaginary games dull that allowed the stories I read in books to come alive. It wasn't long after they started coming alive and I started envisioning the characters as actual people that I became more entranced with books than people.

I still like books more than people. Books disappoint us less.

Anyway, my supposition is that a lot of writers come from "fully supporting and engaging familial environments" or "single child isolation." Great generalities, I know.

When I was in my teens and writing stories, my family thought it a waste. Better to be doing work and there was plenty of work to do.

I did work. But, I kept writing in my head. I completed two plays that I composed entirely in my head while milking cows. Talk about isolation. At least the ladies didn't complain about my Caruso imitation. Not sure how it affected milk production, though.

Off to write. I'm got a brain full of imaginary people. So do you. Introduce me to some of them, will you?