At 7:01 PM -0800 12/12/04, Hans Schweitzer wrote: >Forgive me for something extremely off topic but Steveís web log got me thinking. > >I am a high school senior and as the fate of all such people I am stuck with the perilous question of where to go to college. I finished my applications on Friday. As I completed the application process, it occurred to me that Iíve been thinking far too much, about what is practical than what I will enjoy. I stumbled across Brust in 3rd grade and since then have had a deep love for reading and later writing fantasy. I however, donít have the guts to write professionally. I figure that many people on this list have taken creative writing courses. Were these courses worthwhile? Where are the best creative writing programs? If I was confident that I would get something out of these classes except for enjoyment, I might be able to think more about doing something I love rather than doing something for financial motives. Hi-- Melissa Gay here, longtime lurker. I must weigh in on this topic, because the short story is that I spent about ten years on a career path which I loathed before finally giving in and doing what I love. While I don't feel that time was utterly wasted, it does make me want to kick myself whenever think how much more advanced my skill level would be if I had concentrated that energy on doing what I truly love during all that time! The longer tale is that my former career path was leading me to a PhD in plant biology with a promising teaching career-- stability? Sure! The only problem was that what I was doing was making me miserable. It wasn't until I was 27 years old that I embraced the crazy notion that what I really wanted in life was to be a fantasy illustrator and do freelance work for roleplaying game companies. *Completely* unstable, un-lucrative in the extreme! I baffled all my professors and fellow GTA's when I told them I was leaving grad school to go paint fairies-- few of them even knew I drew; that's how compartmentalized I had let my life become. If my husband had not been so supportive of my dreams, I literally don't know if I'd be alive today, so miserable was I before my change of path. To top it all off, now that I've finally got a fledgeling freelance career started (7 months ago, to be exact!), I've got a small child, whom I spend the days taking care of, and I spend my nights working to meet my deadlines. Yet I've **never in my life been happier!!!** I believe that we can suppress that which we most need to make us happy for only so long before it rises up and stages a mutiny. Like Langston Hughes's "Dream Deferred," a person's need to create art doesn't "dry up like a raisin in the sun," but rather tends to explode. It has been my experience that one can achieve amazing goals through simply never giving up, never going away, and keeping on creating! Er, I believe I've wandered off the topic, so about the creative writing classes-- a thing to keep in mind is that college is busy, and you may find yourself with little or no time to practice your craft. One thing these classes will do is force you to practice. IMHO, YMMV. Melissa -- http://www.melissagay.com