The Hardy Imagination: Smack Dab in the Imagination by Dia Calhoun

When I consider the quality of hardiness, I usually think of the strength and resilience of plants that can survive frost or drought, or of creatures and people who are survivors. But to complete a work of art, every artist needs not only a hardy determination and discipline, but also a hardy imagination. 

I speak from experience. I’ve just completed the first polished draft of a new book I’ve been writing for five years. Four of those years I worked on the book for six months of the year. Last March, I knew it was time for a full-time final plunge to completion. Over those years, in the face of covid, deaths, illness, political anxiety, a blight in the garden, my imagination kept delving, kept flowering. It neither froze nor dried up. 

Of course, this begs the question—how do you create a hardy imagination? For me, there are two ways. First, sheer fun. I provide good toys for my imagination to play with—reading, researching, reflection. Creative distraction! Second, I trust my imagination’s generative capacity. Over my creative lifetime, I've learned to try various ideas, characters, or descriptions without clinging to them in fear or in belief in their preciousness. I've learned to kiss many ideas goodbye and send them away. I trusted that my imagination would keep playing. 

 As I write this now, each time I write hardy, my writer’s ear hears the echo of the word “hearty.” Those words do resonate with each other, don’t they? Something else to play with. 

May your imagination always be hardy.