“You must have a great imagination.”

“That’s so creative!”

Do I? I don’t know, at least not when it comes to writing. My mind creates doomsday scenarios out of the smallest radar return or new spot on my skin*, but does that count?

I’m not sure. I need building blocks for my writing, either an inspiration that has a known world attached to it, or real-world technology and culture. I can’t conjure things out of nothingness. My mind doesn’t work that way. That’s why research books make a knee-wall beside my writing desk, and page after page of notes (with Chicago-style citations) sit in a stack on top of my printer. The muse demands facts, numbers, historical or scientific references, and other materials before the story works itself into proper form. Nothing has ever sprung, ex nihilo, into being.

There are authors who can create worlds and people from nothing. I’ve listened to them talk about how to do it, or rather, about how they do it, and why I should be able to do the same. I’ve tried the exercises they recommended, and … ended up with a blank page and a well-rotated cat, clean floors, dusted book shelves, and no story. Like an oyster, the muse demands a grain of sand to produce, if not a pearl, at least a semi-decent story.

My imagination doesn’t work without a solid factual foundation. I’d like to blame my training as a professional historian in a field that insisted no part of the story be told without documentation and proof. To create a scene from whole cloth is forbidden, lest Clio (or the department chair) arise and smite thee.

And yet … And yet, when I am writing, I see a different world, place, and people. The seasons and time outside the scene fade away, and I am in that place, not the world of here and now. When I finish something and look up for a moment to see a spring afternoon instead of a cold autumn night, I startle. This is one reason I try not to let my story-imagination wander when I drive. That gets dangerous very quickly. I truly see the world inside my head as I write the story, and the real world around me fades away. So in that sense at least, my imagination is very, very strong.

Whatever works for you, however it works, is great. We are all different, with different minds and story generators. If taking apart fairy tales and folk tales for material leads to stories, great! If you lean on pictures and music to kick-start your creativity, go for it. I gobble up history and start wondering “What if …” “Can I do a character, say a middle-aged business man in a world of magic, but he has no magic at all, and is completely mundane aside from that terrible secret, what is the world like … The Hansa was full of middle aged business men, yes, so …” And a blue-collar fantasy series was born.

Whatever works for you, is your imagination. I’m not a “creative” as the British describe it. I tell stories, some of which have more obvious footnotes than do others.

*I’m a natural red head. I have more spots than Carters has liver pills, even after two decades of nearly nocturnal behavior.