Cheating?

On a test?  Don't remember a specific test, but I don't have the gall to think that I never did it at some point, so - yes.
On my husband?  Never.
On a boyfriend?  Yes.  (But it was "only" a kiss.)
At games?  Yes.  But not as an adult.
On my writing?  I think so, but I'm not sure.

Wow - I've cheated a lot.  And although I am not proud of any of my unethical ways, I am most bothered by the last question.  Is it cheating to call your writing creative if the details are largely taken from your life?  It seems logical that a character, scene, scenario, plot or dialogue would have its origin in the real world.  It is somehow born from people and places that have already been, and are.  Yet, do I deserve "credit" (if I can be so bold as to assume there would be any) if I haven't truly created something?  I've only transcribed it.  Re-iterated it.  Maybe re-worked it.  Have I cheated on the creative process?  Have I cheated my readers out of something new?

The blase response would be that it is all new to you.  The justification would be that art imitates life.  The cowardly answer would be to deny it.  Maybe it's a little of all 3.

But hopefully it's mostly that that's what writers do:  they write what they know.  Although I'm sure that Stephen King didn't have a half-dead cat stalking him at some point in his life, there are sure to be details in Pet Sematary that are taken directly from his life in Maine.  At least one character in Forks, Washington is reminiscent of a college or high school friend of Stephenie Meyer - even if those details don't include that he or she was a vampire or a werewolf.

I take my feelings, my experiences, and my dreams and I put them into a new thought process.  Much of what inspires me to write is finding myself saying, "I wonder what I would do if..."

     What would I do if my husband died or left me?
     What would I do if I found out I was adopted?
     What would I do if I discovered that I have breast cancer?
     What would I do if I won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay?
     What would I do if...

I ride the concerned fence between wanting to get the story in my head out there, and not wanting to let someone - anyone - see what I'm thinking.  "Will it be liked?" is honestly the least terrifying question.  It is much more scary to wonder what people will think of you for your creativity.  Are you sick?  Twisted? Morbid?  Unsympathetic to someone who has actually dealt with what I am storytelling about?  Sinking that scary feeling further into me is the assumption that what I write is somehow not just from me, but was a part of me.  Will I be revealing too much of me in developing a character or a story line?  And what if you don't like me?  We can't all be Sally Field.

My writing is from me, not just from my mind and hand, but it is from what I have lived every day of my life.  I only need look up near the top of this screen to be reminded that I gave myself this "out."  But it is not a cop-out:  it is what it is.  I will write what I know.  Sometimes the scenario will be actual and the details will be borrowed.  Other times the details are original and the theme a re-visited one.  In any case, they are all from me.  And since I know that not everyone can put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard and even re-tell a good joke, I hope that there is something in me that tells it like no one else can.  Regurgitated information or brand-new piece, if I tell it the best than that is creative.

The more I blog, the more I want to blog.  The more I write, the more I want to write.  The more I read, the more I want to read.  And the more I read and write, the more I want to truly create.

It's What I Know.