Fairies and Adventure: Is our Imagination in Hiding?

by Trina Read

During our issue launch for Desire, I posed the question to our attendees: can you remember the first story you wrote as a child? There were a lot of answers which involved some kind of plagiarism of our favourite childhood stories but still lots of answers, including my own, which got me thinking about our imagination and how it evolves as we get older.

As children, we seem fascinated by the fantastical and our minds are active in this imaginary space which I feel, at least for myself, becomes more embedded in realism and the ordinary as we get older. Alongside this, my reading tastes have also changed and where I used to read a lot of fantasy, I now find myself reading more fiction about lives that could be my own. Does this shift suggest a loss of imagination, or is it simply a shift in taste? Perhaps we like to read and write what we know, and this is always subject to change. 

Adventurous Grannies

One of the first things I remember writing, and have evidence of writing, is a series of very short stories called ‘The Series of Adventurous Grannies.’ Although the title was clearly inspired by A Series of Unfortunate Events, the plot of this was entirely original and inspired by a game. Me and my sister used to grab two of the long twigs we could find in the garden and pretend we were a pair of grannies who loved to go on adventures. We would come up with some sort of plotline and enact the scene before writing down the tale. Within our imagination, the small hill we were walking up as children became a mountain we were hiking as grannies. So, when I was writing these stories down, it was what I knew; I was just recounting the tales that mine and my sister’s imaginations had provided.

When we are young, we live in play, so I suppose this is only natural. But looking back on these stories now, as a 24-year-old, I can’t help but think I have lost my imagination and could never come up with something like that now. Perhaps this is extreme, but I feel as though my imagination is in hiding or has been watered down. 

Imagination, Where did you Go?

So, I now pose the question: where did my imagination go? When was it that my mind decided to stop creating fantasies about adventure and fun and instead inspire me to write about the things in life that bring me down. As an adult, I have evolved into song writing rather than fiction, drawn to the darker human emotions. I take us back to what I said before about writing what we know. Perhaps there is a certain comfort in it; I write songs to process my emotions, whereas when I was a child, writing was purely for play. Maybe the key to finding the imagination that got lost along the way is to let the mind play again. I practiced this once when undertaking my MA in Songwriting. One of my tutors introduced us to a practice which involved doing something to fill up our creative well before writing to invigorate our creative selves. I decided to go for a run and discover an outdoor space I had not been to before, something I enjoy doing but do not do often. I ended up in a forest-like path near my house and I was suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. It made me sad and content at the same time. I felt like I had found a piece of that inner child, and it made me emotional to think I had maybe lost that part of me. I went on to write a song (which I will attach the lyrics to) about this feeling and trying to reconnect with this part of myself. Being in a forest-like-place reminded me so vividly of those childhood adventures, which is what provoked such an intense response.

Welcome to the Real World

What I mean to convey here, is that our relationship with our imagination is complex and ever evolving. Although it may not seem that way from what I have written, I am optimistic that there is still a vivid imagination within me and any of you reading this who feel the same way as I do. I think that we all still have that imaginative child within us, and there are so many writers I know that use this imagination so well. The problem is that as we get older and responsibilities increase, it can become harder to switch off from the ‘real world,’ which then makes it harder to imagine different worlds from our own. I am also in no way discrediting the value of fiction that is based in the real world or writing about our own lives; this is the genre that I adore as an adult. When I speak of imagination here, I mean in term of dreaming up something completely new, letting ourselves play without interference from the outside world. 

Writing this blog, I realise I have some complex thoughts on the matter and would love to hear some different viewpoints about this. Do comment and let us know what you think.

Away With The Fairies – Lyrics

When I was just a little girl

Green grass it filled up my whole world

The branches on the trees could be anything I wanted them to be 

Now, though I’m only 23

She’s gone a long long way from me

So I step outside to try and find her

Let the forest lead me back in time

And there she is

Beautiful girl with a head full of stories 

There she is 

Lives in her mind she’s away with the fairies

I wish she could see me

So I am standing in the woods 

I fall to my knees when I’m alone 

Feel the mud beneath my fingers, reconnect and find the magic here

She is my favourite part of me

Reaching she’s trying to break free

So i open up and try to find her

Let the forest lead me back in time 

And there she is

Beautiful girl with a head full of stories 

There she is 

Lives in her mind she’s away with the fairies 

I think she can see me

So we run, hand in hand

But I always seem to lose her in the city

I retrace my steps

But there’s so many people to get through to reach her 

So I run, and I run

And I run to the trees

And there she is

Beautiful girl with a head full of stories 

There she is 

Lives in her mind she’s away with the fairies 

Wish she could stay with me