Mental health has always been a priority at 2 Rules of Writing. When we were starting out, we made plans for a website and a community. What we would offer. How we would work with people. How we would build that community. From the beginning, we placed a high priority on awareness of, and caring for, mental health. And now it’s Mental Health Awareness Month. And we’re starting off right with an entire week of posts about mental health. One theme that keeps coming up is how living up to people’s expectations can give anxiety. How imposing your own expectations on your life can make you despondent. Or it can give you a framework within which to grow.
Give the pieces a browse and make sure you didn’t miss anything.
Monday
“There’s a lot to be said about wanting to help when things are feeling dark. But it needs to be real help, not buttering the cat.”
Erika has written about living with physical disabilities before. She’s written about living with some of her mental health challenges, too. This weeks she talks about the intersection of the two as she speaks frankly about some of the ways that living with chronic illness and chronic pain affects her mental health. Everyone puts expectations on you when you’re disabled, and nobody more than the disabled person themselves. But there is no “right” way to be disabled, and Erika reminds us about that as she promises us she’ll look for one more sunrise.
Tuesday
“It is an unfortunate and cruel truth that the people who make it as writers are not necessarily the ones who write the best plots or construct the best characters or weave the best arguments. They’re the ones who have confidence in the process. Enough to make mistakes. Enough to keep going.”
As the editor-in-chief at 2 Rules of Writing Adam has a lot of things to balance. What does it really mean to be an editor? Adam talks about how he works with writers. About his growth as an editor and a writer. About the role of caretaker that that is inherent in the way he works with writers.
What expectations does Adam put on his writers? What expectations do the writers put on Adam? Or on themselves?
Wednesday
“we were chained by assembly-line tedium,
our students manacled on their stairway to heaven.
Needless to say, I thought that was hard.”
Wednesday brought us another poem from Huiwen Shi about the feeling of being divided between the different roles and responsibilities we have and the expectations placed upon us. As we read the poem, we can feel both the determination to live up to these standards and the strain of being pulled in so many directions. It’s quite beautiful.
Saturday
“A life may contain a lot of hours. Or it may not. But in no circumstance does a life contain enough hours to study everything. So we do what mortals must do. We choose.”
The cats have been thinking about how we talk about ourselves this week. While they have names for each other (“Fur for brains” anyone?) they really want to know about the labels you use for yourself. Find out more about what they’re thinking about by visiting our Caturday post.
Looking Ahead
We had a lovely ending to our 30 Days, 30 Poems celebration for National Poetry Month. You can see the entire collection of poems and commentary here. We’re looking forward to next year already, but in the meantime we’re thinking of other things we might celebrate in a similar fashion.
We’ve got some changes coming up–we’re hoping to expand the ways we reach out to writers and share the contribution of all of the 2 Rules community. We’re exploring things like TikTok and YouTube as ways to share all of what we have to offer. In order to do that, our Friday postings may change a little. Watch/Listen/Read will still be around, but it may become a more occasional feature, in rotation with other things. Keep reading to find out.
We’ve also made it possible for you to help us keep the lights on. Buy us a Coffee. Thank you for helping us to do what we love most.
This coming week you can look forward to new posts from Erika and Adam and Erik Piece. And a new chapter from J.D. Saward. And of course, the cats will be back next week with another Caturday question.
As always, take care of yourself. You matter. We’re glad you’re here.
Make sure you‘re all caught up with your favorite 2 Rules writers and features by checking out all of our Sunday Summary posts.