Few children aspire to be writers when they grow up. When one is young, authors seem as mysterious as phantoms and are just as invisible. In childhood, the imaginative and creative mind is given a bad rap. Children are told to stop daydreaming and do their homework. They quickly learn that lying is bad stuff. Yet, both exercise the imagination and are tools of the fiction writer's trade. Being a magician, a writer quickly notices the similarity in the structure of a magic trick and a mystery story. Both the magician and the writer keep the audience baffled. The real problem for the writer is not in finding an idea, but in figuring out what to do with the idea after it turns up. There is a generation now in school who will invent the future, paint the pictures, compose the songs and write the books. Let's hear it for the daydreamers. (MG)