I’m going on a Full Moon Hike tonight, sponsored by the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary. Although I know nothing more about this than the words “hike” and “night,” I can hardly wait until dark.

I figure I must be half-cat since I mostly prefer natural light to, say, flashlights. When an electrical light is on out of doors, my eyes adjust only to that one small area where the light shines. How creepy is that? What lies beyond that lit circle? If I were a cartoonist, there would probably be lots of eyes watching me. I prefer my eyes adjusted to the darkness, where I can see shadows moving and identify shapes.

Yet, we are talking full moon here. I have been around on full moon nights before, sometimes the light is so bright I can read by it. Unfortunately, there’s not much snow on the ground right now, so we won’t get that tripled-brightness which a full moon on white snow gives. Still, it will be enough light for bumbling humans to trampse around in.

Maybe I’ll slip away from the group… after dropping a hint here and there about snipes and snipehunts. I’ll trail behind behind the ones who depend on flashlights to light their way… and then take a silent shortcut through the woods… and then…

Wait one minute. Am I creating a story scene here, or remembering snipe hunts of my past, or what they might have been like?

One of the coolest things about writing fiction is that you can play the “what if” game, and it doesn’t even have to stay in your head. You can get it onto paper (or flashdrive or iphone). Plus, you constantly have conversations with people who don’t even exist. In the normal world, this would be a crazy person posting such thoughts. But in the writing world, this IS normal.

Never let go of your imaginative ways.