TECH: Don't kill your imagination!
Dec. 27th, 2010 07:10 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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writercisesOriginal posting Nov. 3, 2010
Sigh. Today has been kind of difficult for me -- it's a holiday here in Japan, and our church held a bazaar, which resulted in my standing behind a tableful of odds and ends for most of the day, laughing at people, telling them how cheap it was, and so on. It's also the height of the fall allergy season, and mine hit hard, so I took a pill. Dried up the old nose, but gave me a crushing headache along the way. And dry mouth and munchies, too.
Anyway, somewhere in the midst of all this, a young boy came by with his mother. Somewhere on my table, there was a set of small glass animals, one for each of the 12 traditional years -- rat, rooster, etc. (check dr. google, I'm sure he remembers the 12 years, or look at the paper placemat the next time you're in a Chinese restaurant, there's a good chance it will explain). Anyway, we were looking at that, and the boy was talking about how fast animals are. The man nearby said something about a leopard being the fastest, and the boy said, "I think a dragon is faster than a leopard."
What a delightful thought! And his eyes gleamed, and I think he was about to tell us why he thought that a dragon was faster than a leopard. I'm sure he had some perfectly wonderful reasons for thinking this?
But for some reason, the man nearby and his mother both jumped on the poor boy, telling him not to be ridiculous, that a dragon was imaginary! And he shrugged, and went on into the crowd.
I was left behind the table, wondering just why an imaginary dragon couldn't be faster than an almost equally legendary leopard? I mean, I have seen leopards in the zoo, but that's not really the same as a leopard in the wild. I've got relatively little real experience of leopards, and if someone turned up tomorrow having discovered dragons in central Australia or some such place, well? Anyway, why can't we compare the speed of an imaginary dragon and the speed of a non-imaginary leopard? After all, just toss the square root of minus one in, and we get imaginary numbers. Why not imaginary animals?
But before I go completely over the illusionary edge chasing the merits of imaginary animals, let's admit that our imagination deserves some support! This business of immediately blocking flights of fantasy and fun with labels like ridiculous and imaginary seems to me unnecessary.
And that seems like an excellent point for Nanowrimowers to keep in mind. Sure, your story just mixed a little fantasy into the drabness, or took a step along the edge of wildness? Let it go! Heck, so what if your race track happens to have a leopard, a dragon, a rocket-propelled dragster, and maybe some other strange participants alongside the run-of-the-mill horses, whippets (are those dogs actually real?), and so forth? Drop the startling flag (yeah, I know most race tracks have starting flags) and see who runs, let them whip around the track so fast that the bend stretches out and back like a cartoon rubber band, and see who crossed the finish line out in front!
Okay? Don't stop the flights of fantasy, the rainbow borders, the gilding of the lily of reality with a dose of imaginary glitter. Enjoy it. Let your mind daydream, and see what gold lurks at the base of the wild and woolly rainbows.
By the way, have you ever stopped to consider which is faster? A dragon, or a leopard? Now why do you think that? Come now, I'm sure you have an opinion, and I promise, I'm not going to let those strange people tell you how ridiculous it is to compare them. Just between you and me, I suspect that the dragon is faster, too. After all?
Just write, okay?
Sigh. Today has been kind of difficult for me -- it's a holiday here in Japan, and our church held a bazaar, which resulted in my standing behind a tableful of odds and ends for most of the day, laughing at people, telling them how cheap it was, and so on. It's also the height of the fall allergy season, and mine hit hard, so I took a pill. Dried up the old nose, but gave me a crushing headache along the way. And dry mouth and munchies, too.
Anyway, somewhere in the midst of all this, a young boy came by with his mother. Somewhere on my table, there was a set of small glass animals, one for each of the 12 traditional years -- rat, rooster, etc. (check dr. google, I'm sure he remembers the 12 years, or look at the paper placemat the next time you're in a Chinese restaurant, there's a good chance it will explain). Anyway, we were looking at that, and the boy was talking about how fast animals are. The man nearby said something about a leopard being the fastest, and the boy said, "I think a dragon is faster than a leopard."
What a delightful thought! And his eyes gleamed, and I think he was about to tell us why he thought that a dragon was faster than a leopard. I'm sure he had some perfectly wonderful reasons for thinking this?
But for some reason, the man nearby and his mother both jumped on the poor boy, telling him not to be ridiculous, that a dragon was imaginary! And he shrugged, and went on into the crowd.
I was left behind the table, wondering just why an imaginary dragon couldn't be faster than an almost equally legendary leopard? I mean, I have seen leopards in the zoo, but that's not really the same as a leopard in the wild. I've got relatively little real experience of leopards, and if someone turned up tomorrow having discovered dragons in central Australia or some such place, well? Anyway, why can't we compare the speed of an imaginary dragon and the speed of a non-imaginary leopard? After all, just toss the square root of minus one in, and we get imaginary numbers. Why not imaginary animals?
But before I go completely over the illusionary edge chasing the merits of imaginary animals, let's admit that our imagination deserves some support! This business of immediately blocking flights of fantasy and fun with labels like ridiculous and imaginary seems to me unnecessary.
And that seems like an excellent point for Nanowrimowers to keep in mind. Sure, your story just mixed a little fantasy into the drabness, or took a step along the edge of wildness? Let it go! Heck, so what if your race track happens to have a leopard, a dragon, a rocket-propelled dragster, and maybe some other strange participants alongside the run-of-the-mill horses, whippets (are those dogs actually real?), and so forth? Drop the startling flag (yeah, I know most race tracks have starting flags) and see who runs, let them whip around the track so fast that the bend stretches out and back like a cartoon rubber band, and see who crossed the finish line out in front!
Okay? Don't stop the flights of fantasy, the rainbow borders, the gilding of the lily of reality with a dose of imaginary glitter. Enjoy it. Let your mind daydream, and see what gold lurks at the base of the wild and woolly rainbows.
By the way, have you ever stopped to consider which is faster? A dragon, or a leopard? Now why do you think that? Come now, I'm sure you have an opinion, and I promise, I'm not going to let those strange people tell you how ridiculous it is to compare them. Just between you and me, I suspect that the dragon is faster, too. After all?
Just write, okay?
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