A filmmaker told me about this concept that some parts of directing are like math - there are formulas and rules. But there’s an artistic element that defies rule breaking. The confusion comes when you think you’re an artist but you’re really just following an advanced rule, like using callbacks at the end of an article. Or giving a list of three bullets and on of them is just silly, to make it funny. Or how the letter K is the funniest letter. Then there’s commas and capitalization and how to use quotes, all the addition/subtraction type math. And then once you’ve got that down, time for some art! Of course you can go straight to the art, but the great writers, the greatest writers — they know the math too. I recall you’re not formally trained as a writer Barbara, and some of the most amazing mathematicians in history developed entirely new branches of math with no formal training! Hope that answered your question.