Writers: Doctors for the Imagination

I would like to start by saying I love the updates to the YWP page!  Geoff Gevalt, you are awesome!

As far as seasons for writing, I have always considered winter to be the most evocative of all the subtle emotions required for poetry.  However, as I am discovering even as I write this, fall is definitely the best season for stories that take our imaginations on graceful, soaring flights.  However, this is, sadly, not the case for some of us.

As we grow older, many of us are struck with a terrible, tragic, and often irreversible ailment.  I am not talking about senility, nor about the loss of mobility and sprightliness that overcomes our bodies as we age.  No, this is an ailment that afflicts both the heart and mind, and it often strikes people long before they are anywhere close to being "old".

I am talking about the death of imagination.  We all say that it cannot happen, that it will never happen to us, that it never truly dies; if only this were true!  Now, more than ever before, technology allows us to broaden our horizons of knowledge, to open our eyes to strange and wonderful things, to reconnect with old friendships.  But all too often, we allow it to shut our eyes to the wonderful world of reality, and the even more wonderful world of our imagination.

A textbook case of imagination death is chronicled in the famous Peter, Paul and Mary song "Puff the Magic Dragon":

A dragon lives forever,

But not so little boys.

Painted wings and giant rings

Make way for other toys.

We all know how the song ends: Jackie Paper leaves his childhood behind, and his fire-breathing friend is left to languish sadly in a cave.  What happened, Jackie?  In fact, what happened to many people?  We have all had our adventures with, and learned lessons from, our childhood friends.  You could tell them anything, knowing they would never tell another soul.  They were always there when you needed them for something, or when you just wanted someone to talk to or play with.  For many of us, the beings of our imaginations rescued us from our worst moments of childhood.

And yet many people repay these dear friends by promptly forgetting them, only mentioning them when gabbing with real friends about what their imaginary friend was.  "Oh, my imaginary friend was so-and-so, and she was a flying pink horse!  Can you imagine?  Ha ha ha!"  We banish them to the subconscious, never to hear from them again.  Those more sophisticated than I call this "disillusionment" or a "wake-up call".  I call it one of the saddest fates to befall a person.

But there is hope!  There are those who valiantly combat this foul affliction that numbs the mind and dulls the colors of life.  They are the doctors of our imagination; the tireless surgeon's of our hearts and souls.  Who are these people?  They are us...they are writers.  We tell people the stories they need to keep that flame alive inside of them.  And although it may seem hard at times, we are usually victorious in our struggle to save the imagination of others.  

So as fall, that colorful, lively season of changes, season of stories, comes into full being, we shall take up our pens and sit down at our desks, and craft whole worlds, breathe life into characters, and set in motion the next great story.

The doctor is in.