My response to an author's description is usually limited to his degree of vividness; although it often happens that a theme or a situation, per se, so interests me that I leave the author's world and reproduce one of my own.
Shame on the pen-prostituting varlet who uses stock pictures for his scenes and characters! I would almost as lief see an author plagiarize. What imagination, what regard for the ethics of his craft must a man have who sells his wares over and over again? Can art be as lazy, as unscrupulous as that? To my mind, if a writer be not indefatigable in his distinctions, discriminations and demarcations, he is not sincere—if he be not sincere, he is not an artist. He reminds me of the barroom cripple who fares forth to his station on the street corner with half a dozen lead pencils to sell; who returns to the saloon with his pocket full of pennies, but his stock of pencils still intact. These may be harsh words, but—must the dollar taint everything in this world?
Writing and reading affect my imagination in two distinct ways.
When I begin reading, my faculties are relaxed and receptive; my muscular system is in repose. My eyes flash the printed symbols to my brain; my brain translates them and projects them kaleidoscopically upon the screen of my imagination. The pictures immediately generate enthusiasm or otherwise. If they generate enthusiasm my faculties prime themselves and become more acute; my muscular system acquires a certain tension. My brain is receiving food, stimulant—in other words I'm "being entertained." If the pictures generate no enthusiasm, however—if they evoke only a yawn—my faculties remain torpid. My brain is neither being fed nor entertained nor stimulated. In other words, I'm "being bored."
Thus the function, or behavior, of my reading imagination would seem to be largely passive—merely displaying the author's pictures and leaving their value to be passed upon by my reason.
The function, or behavior, of my writing imagination, is vastly different. Before I can start, it must initiate a fund of enthusiasm of its own. This enthusiasm must be sufficiently keen to tune up my faculties and make them aggressive and openly demonstrative. This enthusiasm must stiffen my backbone and give tension to my muscles. I must be thoroughly alert to capture and express every passing thought and idea. In other words, I must "feel in the humor to write."
My imagination must still take the initiative. It must proceed to throw picture after picture upon its screen—not merely drawing them according to well-defined descriptions as in the case of my reading self—but initiating them for my creative self, being guided in the task only by a hint, a haunting fancy, a lurking impression of the long ago. Reason—the critic—stands constantly beside imagination and ruthlessly picks flaws in its pictures, rejecting many as unnatural, uninteresting, overdrawn, etc. Such pictures as are passed by the critic are then translated by brain into words that rush out of my finger tips to the keyboard of the typewriter. That is about as near as I can get to it.
At any rate my writing imagination must be enthusiastic, stubborn, tireless, inventive and wholly active in its function.
I am just beginning to consider these matters as tools of my trade; hope to be able to use them more skilfully by and by.
Katharine Holland Brown: The keenest impressions, from reading stories, are gained from sight and touch and sense of smell. Sense of touch, perhaps strongest. No appeal to the senses in my case is as strong as that declared to exist by many people.