Yes. Only the masters of literature can absorb my mind with their characters, create a world which takes the place of the actual one for the time being; but when I am writing (with most pleasure and most of the feeling of creation, I mean—most successfully) I can be absorbed in my characters and can live in their world without for a moment believing that I am a master of literature. I mean by this that I know from my own experience how much real creation is involved in the production of that which is not great or fiction.
No.
Grant Overton: I often see the people, the action and above all the setting. I do not know that I hear the sounds or taste the flavors or smell the smells or feel any impacts. I do feel what the people of the story feel, at least in the more emotional moments. I have suffered exquisite pangs along with my characters, have been thrilled with them, have despaired with them. To me fiction is merely a form of communicating feeling.
I do not see things with my eyes shut but with them open. I seldom notice details. What I see I can not describe, except as an effect. That is why I can not write descriptions full of physical detail.
Plane geometry is the only mathematical subject that gave me trouble. I don't think I ever studied solid geometry, but I undoubtedly passed an examination in it.
My response is wholly determined by the emotional content of the narrative and the emotional activity of the characters though conditioned by the skill of the author in verbal presentation.
I should probably image the village church from one I had seen. I should have no picture of the cowboy unless emotionally I found myself akin to him.
I do not mind how many images are formed for me but I resent nothing but images. I want, above all, to feel something.
Yes, my imagination when writing and when reading is totally different, but I do not know whether I can say how. In writing my imagination labors often painfully. In reading—but I suppose it is the difference between listening to music and playing some instrument yourself.
I can not answer as to tools. The five senses mean little to me when it comes to writing or reading. I should say that the appeal was to my intellectual senses if there is such a thing.