My Imagination

When I was little, I lived way out in the country, and there were no nearby kids to play with. Our home was hidden, surrounded by tall trees, like giant wooden soldiers, that hugged our home, on three sides. My only companions were pet dogs, chickens that clucked and eecked out small meals on the hard dirt's surface, and a lonely hoot owl, that occasionally called for it's mate, on nights dark as the blackest ink.

So, it's probably no surprise, my imagination, was oftentimes, a companion on rainy days, or days when mom or my brother were otherwise occupied.  On those days my imagination then kicked in. In the basement, where my child's imagination lived, my secret-other eight year old-boyfriend and I were cool spies. Or I raced my trusted steed, with a long flowing mane, up our long backyard and back down to the house again.

I would have thought, all these years later, that my imagination would have ceased to exist, but I realized, awhile back, when story ideas started coming to me, that it was not on hiatus, but alive and well.Complicated stories, where a regular life with a white house and picket fence weren't good enough.   My stories had to be long drawn out affairs.  In this way, I lived through my characters. In this way I dreamed.

Last year, I started this blog, with the urging of a good friend of mine.  I had been part of an online writing group, but just was not sure where I was going to go from there.  After the death of my mom, last year, and a feeling of total blankness, and uncaring for my writing or my imagination, I considered giving up my writing, right then and there.

This was a hard decision for me because I come from a family, where reading and the written word, mean a lot.  My dad, mom, brother, daughter and I all, for years, have had a love for reading.  But it went further than this-for my family and I-, it transcended into the written word.  My mom, when alive, loved to write poetry.  My dad writes articles for the local newspaper.  And I, well the active imagination I'd always had, was just my story characters, before they ever saw the light of day. They're now fictional characters, that are alive through the power of pen and paper, or my trusty computer.

I really don't believe my writing would have gone any further than it did, if it weren't for the encouragement of some wonderful people in my life.  So I want to mention them and thank them now.  Due to respecting their rights and privacy, I will only mention a first name or a link.  I thank, first off, always, God.  For without him, I would be nothing.

I thank my mom, always, for the support she gave me, all my life, up until she died.  I thank my daughter, who though, only nine, has praised my stories and asked me to read them, again and again.  I thank my friends, Kathryn, Jackie, Dana, and Sarah.

And in the writing world, any writer, such as myself, would not get very far without the wonderful editors out there that see the potential in a writer, and nurture it.  I want to thank two wonderful editors, in particular, who have been supportive and encouraged my writing.  Again, due to privacy, I will just give the link.  I thank the wonderful editor at http://www.inthepowderroom.com/ for her wonderful support, via email.

And I so thank the wonderful editor at http://pinkfoxpublications.net/.  He knows who he is. :-)  Thank you, for accepting my story, for believing in me, and for giving me that chance. And for all your great advice.

So my imagination has brought me full circle, like in the Lion King. http://www.lionking.com/   I had to find out who I was as a writer, which started long ago, in my imagination, as a child.  I had to take that first chance, that first step as a writer, and I had to believe in myself and sprout wings and fly.  It's not easy, but my imagination will just have to see me through.