Cassandra Vieten studies something all of us use constantly but rarely stop to examine: imagination. A clinical psychologist and director of research at UC San Diego’s Arthur C. Clarke Center for Human Imagination, she investigates how imagination shapes the way we think, feel, create, and change.

Her new book, Imagine That, brings that original research into everyday life. Vieten argues that imagination isn’t a special faculty reserved for artists or dreamers, but a fundamental human capacity, and one we can learn to use more deliberately.

21 Questions with Cassandra Vieten

1. I couldn’t have written my last book without…

My body doubling Zoom support on Caveday—people get together online for one or three hour sessions to complete tasks together whether writing, doing their taxes, cleaning their house. Not sure why it works, but it does for me!

2. What’s the thing most people get wrong about being a writer?

I always think it’s going to be me, writing away, with a cup of tea and sun shining in the windows. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s me without a shower in pajamas at night slowly pounding away on my keyboard.

3. What’s your most common form of procrastination?

Definitely running errands. I’ll start as soon as I go out and get a backup tube of toothpaste!

4. Do you read your reviews?

Yes, with one eye open and my head turned to the side, just in case.

5. What’s the first thing you do after you finish a draft?

Watch a silly movie or read a silly novel.

6. What’s a writing habit you’re embarrassingly superstitious about?

I want to know that someone else is writing too, at the same time.

7. Where do you find new ideas, and how do you keep track of them?

Everywhere! And I either write them or record them into my phone. Now remembering to get them back out of the phone, that’s another thing.

8. What’s the best piece of professional advice you’ve ever received?

Do your own original work, and no one can ever take that from you.

9. And the worst?

Lean in. In other words, just keep doing more.

10. Whose career do you most admire and why?

I had a teacher once who did not take meetings before noon. She worked from noon to six and had an incredible impact on so many people. In part because of how she showed up, because she spent every morning becoming that person.

11. What’s on your nightstand right now?

Imagination: A Manifesto by Ruha Benjamin.

12. How did you find your agent?

A colleague I love recommended me (thank you!)

13. What’s a writing rule you’ve happily broken?

I often start sentences with “And” or “But” and it works for me!

14. What tech tools (AI included) do you actually use—and which ones do you actively ignore?

I use AI to ask me clarifying questions. I ignore bibliographic software (but often to my detriment).

15. What’s the best non-writing skill that’s helped your writing career?

Meditation.

16. How many drafts before you show your editor?

So many. So, so many.

17. Can you describe your ideal workday?

Wake up, move my body, breakfast, slow start, and then power time from about 11 am – 4 pm.

18. How does that compare to your actual workday?

Hahahaha. Ha.

19. If you could write one book in a totally different genre than you usually do, which would it be?

Science fiction!

20. What’s something about the writing life that still surprises you?

The randomness with which an inspired streak can hit. There seems to be no rhyme or reason.

21. What is your new book about?

The crucial importance of imagination in our everyday lives, and how to find it, and use it more frequently and skillfully

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Until next time,
Panio

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The Strange Science of Imagination