It’s Sunday Summary time, for the week of 24 January 2022 to 29 January 2022. Sometimes the 2 Rules writers seem to converge around a theme, and some weeks they all go their separate ways. This week it’s been the latter, everyone in their own place, each bringing you their own story. That’s one of…
Month: January 2022
Caturday Questions: Books that Inspire
Some people read books for pleasure. Some for research. Some as a way of playing with children. Some a bit of all three. But many writers will read books that inspire them in their writing–whether they’re writing fanfic or not. Big Cat likes to read Shakespeare even when he’s writing short stories because those long…
Watch/Listen/Read: Banning Books and Other Concerns
Adam Writes: The Fragility of Mozart I’ve been playing that one Mozart piano sonata every young pianist learns when they take formal lessons (Sonata #16 in C major, K.545). Specifically the middle movement. I often have this problem with Mozart (more, I think, than other composers) where most of a piece is… fine. And then…
Managing Student Behavior: A Class Under Control
Learning vs. Classroom Management Teaching elementary school involves managing student behavior. In fact, managing the kids is most of the job. You can plan the best, most engaging lessons in the world, have all your materials ready, and then bomb the actual lesson if you can’t quiet the class down, and keep the class clownery…
Language Pet-Peeves
This won’t be one of my more structured pieces. Let’s call it language pet peeves, but instead of my language pet-peeves, it’ll be YOUR pet-peeves that I, in turn, am peeved by. If you need a minute to reread that sentence, I’ll wait. Let’s dive into it, because there are some fun ones. Peeve the…
Celebrating Rejection
A Rejection Letter of My Very Own It seems there’s a theme going on right now at 2 Rules of Writing. Adam wrote about rejection letters last week. Erik Cheung also wrote about rejection letters last week. And now it’s my turn. Last week I got a rejection letter. I was expecting it, although strangely…
Sunday Summary
Welcome to the Sunday Summary for the week of 17 January 2022 to 22 January 2022. This has been an interesting week–our writers have talked about some difficult things: writing about trauma, rejection, and the details that make a story pop. The stories themselves are hopeful ones, even if the topics are challenging. And of…
It’s Caturday and We Have Questions
Frob and Widget are enjoying the mild Florida weather. All the moreso because they know that people elsewhere in the northern hemisphere are freezing their tails off. It’s the little things, after all, that give spice to this thing we call life. Just like when they hunt birds. They don’t necessarily want to catch them…
Watch/Listen/Read
If you want to contribute to our Watch/Listen/Read, please do not hesitate to reach out! Adam Writes: I got to read children’s stories to my nephew this week. The author is a favorite from when I was a kid: James Stevenson’s Grandpa and Wainey series. I remember being delighted by these books some thirty years…
The Negativity of Reviewers Stops with Me
“Don’t let the words get to you”, I said to myself, reluctantly flipping open the reviewers’ comments one more time after letting them settle for months. It my first grant proposal as research staff at my university. What’s unpleasant always comes first, raising a big flag and waving it at you. You can feel the…