I’m Fixin to Let My Imagination Run Away With Me
I’m fixin to let my imagination run away with me.
When I was a kid and came up with some outlandish or harebrained idea my momma would tell me it was just my imagination running away with me.
It turned out later on that the Temptations recorded a song by that title and it reigned at the number one spot on Billboard for three weeks in 1971. I saw them perform it live in Cincinnati in 1972, but no one would listen to me when I told them the group had stolen the title of the song from my momma.
Imagination is the ability to form new images and sensations that are not procured through sight, hearing or other senses. When considering imagination it should never be confused with fantasy or unreal thoughts, but rather as a powerful and natural God given ability that every single person possesses. Some people even contend that if you imagine with intent, and focus long enough and hard enough your, imaginings can become solid and real.
When I first began scribbling I was told I should write about the things I knew, but I soon found out that I didn’t know very much, and desperately needed some help from my imagination to make things like my plot work. At first I was very skeptical of the use of imagination in my work, but then I made an awesome discovery! I read where literary Putlizer Prize winner Anatole France, a famous French writer who died in 1924, once said: “To know is nothing at all; to imagine is everything.”
Old Anatole set me free, and I went on to discover that some other very famous people had some very powerful things to say about imagination:
Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
Mark Twain said, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”
Emily Dickinson said, “Your brain is wider than the sky.”
Yoko Ono said, “You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my head.”
And on the dark side, Steven King said, “Just don’t take your eye off what you see, for even in your imagination, here is a creature who can do you damage.”
So from my readings, observations and scribbling’s I have determined that it is not always better to know things than to imagine them. Ofttimes I have also discovered that what someone else knows is not enough to stimulate my curiosity to an extent sufficient to pursue reading whatever they have written.
In view of all the above, I have concluded that by using what you know coupled with what you can imagine can make for some fairly good reading. I have some techniques I use to write creative fiction. One of them is a theory of getting painted into a corner, but instead of painting my characters into a corner, I write them into a corner by placing them in impossible situations without having imagined how I can get them out beforehand. Then I just let my imagination run away with me!
I’ve been sitting around here focusing real hard on imagining a steak dinner on my table, but so far nothing solid and real has appeared, so I’m fixin to go get a pizza.