"I have always found it difficult to start [writing] with a definite idea about a character, or even a definite emotion. . . . But if I start with a pond that is being drained because of a diesel fuel leak, and a cow named Hortense, and some blackbirds flying over, and a woman in the distance waving, then I might get somewhere." - Bobbie Ann Mason
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I like that quotation because I usually start work on a play, story or poem after a striking image has popped into my head.