Lady Fisher's "Conjuring"
Deanna, RW here,
Your article this week struck a particular cord with me. I often do the same thing you describe in your column. My wife just calls it "day dreaming", but as writers, we both know it is something more, and maybe a little easier for those of us who are story tellers or pass along our feelings and thoughts with the written word.
We have been married now for 48 years and she usually leaves me alone when she catches me staring out the patio window, or looking up from a book staring blankly at the wall. Daydreaming...maybe. But I call it working.
Early on she used to say, "What in heavens name do you keep staring at out there?" I say, "Nothing", if I say anything at all. "I'm working", I tell her.
I think it's an easier thing for writers to do....to see past the reality of the moment and get a good story idea, or maybe even the whole story. Sometimes it comes from your own experience, a picture or story in the newspaper, or just something you've had bouncing around in your head for awhile and then it finally comes to fruition.
She never bothers me anymore when she sees me doing that because she knows that I'm "working."
You and I were born the same year Deanna, and yes, age does play funny little tricks on you, like walking into a room to get something and then forgetting what it was when you get there.
The same thing can happen with a story idea, so she just leaves me alone when I'm "working". Used to be that I could conjur up a story idea and get it on paper in a New York minute. Now those ideas are becoming more fleeting. Now sometimes I just start slow and gradually taper off. Maybe that's the way it goes at my age and 1400 published articles later. Used to be that conjuring was easier than reality. Now it's the other way around. I can "lose" a story idea faster than a trout can spit a dry fly, like coming out of a good dream that you can't remember 5 seconds after you wake up.
Anyway, it was a "great" article that hit close to home for me. I'll just close with what I used to tell her.."God Bless the day- dreamers or you wouldn't have anything good to read".
Later, RW
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"We fish for pleasure; I for mine, you for yours." -James Leisenring on fishing the wet fly-
[This message has been edited by Royal Wulff (edited 23 May 2005).]
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