Plane geometry was as far as I ever traveled along that trail.
A good concept or connotation starts my imagination hitting on all eight.
Usually, the stock picture, formed in early life, pops up and has to be modified. When somebody says "soldier," I see a clean-shaven young man in Civil War blue, with the little forage-cap that our army wore until 1898. Then I have to shift his costume and make-up to suit the story, but I can't get away from the impression made on my infant mind back in the eighteen-nineties.
The difference between work and play. Have to force the darned thing when I'm writing, but she rambles gay and care-free when I'm reading.
Consider these things "tools of my trade"? I do and I've tried herein to explain how I try to use them.
Algernon Blackwood: The visualization of a story I read depends entirely on its degree of actuality according to the evocative power of the writer. I prefer a suggestion that enables me to form my own pictures of scenes and characters described, rather than to have these formed for me in detail by the author. A description of house or room or garden I invariably skip. With his first vital adjective the scene flashes into my mind. His subsequent detail bores me.
Max Bonter: An author can make me see his story-world with a vividness strictly in proportion to the degree of his skill. My senses register sound, smell, flavor, touch, etc.,—although less acutely than in the world of actuality.
As an example of vividness, let me cite Henry Leverage's The Shell-back. I could almost swear that I got a whiff of "Old Marlin's" unwashed hide; I saw the slime in his eyes and the kinks in his matted old beard. I would not consider these allusions disgusting. The author dispassionately sketches a piece of humanity—that's all. It's truth—and my heart rather warms to "Old Marlin" on account of it.
I can see plenty of color with my eyes shut, although the details of the pictures are not perfectly distinct.
When I studied mathematics my brain was not sufficiently mature or systematic to grasp all the fundamentals of any branch. I had not much success with geometry.