It is well-understood that a disciplined imagination serves as an essential facet in creating the lucid manuscript. Writers work in combination with both intuition and the intellect, these aspects interweave to generate, record, then carefully revise all the many sentences which cohere to guide a reader through narrative structure. Yet is imagination finished once a book is released during the final stages of publication? Is there need for a fresh application of imaginative prowess once the marketing phase begins?

Perhaps the role of “writer” in larger society comes with different expectations than for those individuals involved in performing arts? Actors and other live entertainers must spend years of their training developing the more visible aspects of a craft, as the expertise is often delivered though a present medium. An audience of these venues is left to interpret what is unfolding before their eyes — the witnessing is a component to the alchemy of an exchange.

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Stay tuned for "Showtime" in its entirety later today on The Official Prose. Blog at: blog.theprose.com/blog.

Sparrows and sycamores, familiar;

bugs buzzing cicada-like in what are maybe elms, seem more intense in this arid heat, but are of different timbre and temperament

than in Texas.

I love a linear parkway that stretches alongside a stream. Home's is twisty and ephemeral, the Salado finding its way over new world limestone through scrub mesquite and cedar elms; live-oak branches reaching toward each other over the path, ghostly persimmons staining the ground with more berries than the jays consume.

The Arno seems sedate, arched by graceful bridges and girded by stone-work (though some high-watermarks from past deluges can be seen), strolling downstream accompanied by this tunnel of green shade, il Parco.

But my stride along this Sunday corridor feels the same, if measured in meters, not feet; kinks in knee and hip still need to find release in distance, old rituals kept with awkward reverence, like stepping into the church of another faith, watching the locals for cues.