As my students know, I have about a gazillion books on writing (great tool for procrastinating on writing -- buy and read another book about writing!). Here's a quote from one of them, Writing Your Way:

"...the human imagination contains a kind of wisdom, a vision of wholeness, which we ignore at our peril. Indeed, in these impoverished times when the indwelling of imagination is needed as never before, the concept of art as an integrating force, an entrance into the spiritual, and a path (rather than a distraction or entertainment) which anyone can tread, while not new, is pre-eminently valuable, even essential, to the process of becoming whole -- wholly human..." (Manjusvara, xi-xii)