Creative Writing

I remember taking advanced math courses in high school such as trigonometry, pre-calculus, and calculus in addition to the core curriculum algebra courses.  And in all of those courses, I remember teachers stressing the importance of showing your work.  For when a student encounters a math problem, there might be several methods of arriving at the right answer.  As the teacher grades, he or she looks for that one right answer and marks all others wrong.

I enjoyed math courses and excelled in them.  Yet, I knew that math wasn't something I wanted to pursue as a career.  I felt stifled and "imprisoned" by the fact that there was only one right answer to any given problem.  Yes, you might get partial credit for executing some process of the figuring correctly.  But where was creativity? Imagination? Individual expression?

For all of those reasons, I like creative writing.  I like the fact that a scene written on, let's say, a Monday would be different than the same scene written the following Thursday, the following week, or next month.  When I write, I know that any number of influences--whether I'm conscious of them or not--will contribute to the finished product.  I like the freedom that creative writing offers, knowing that the end result doesn't have to fit some prescribed mold, that it won't be marked "wrong" in red ink. Because I will be pleased and satisfied with my own work even when (perhaps) a publisher is not.

I've thought about what it would be like to lose all of my files, all of my precious works in progress.  I could try to recreate the documents with the same plot and characters in mind, but I would never be able to recapture the exact phrasing of the original manuscripts. Creative work can't be duplicated or replicated in the exact same way like an answer to a math problem can. Who knows? If I had to start from scratch, with only my ideas, a rewrite might turn out better.  Or it might turn out worse.  In either case, it all depends on me, the writer.  I'm responsible for my own successes and my own failures.  And most importantly, I alone decide what's right or wrong when it comes to my work.