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…
Category: Another World Within
Gifted and Talented (Caturday Questions)
Teachers assigned us labels when we were younger, like “gifted” or “gifted and talented.” Or, in rare cases, “prodigy.” What do these labels mean? Do they help us or hurt us? Can we change them? Can we own them? Some people discover their labels as adults. And then there are those labels on your writing….
Autobiography
When I worked on my exams for high school,my grandmother died —And I thought that was hard. When I prepared for my college entrance,my teacher intoned, “Thy path to paradise begins in hell”.And I thought that was hard. When I started my first job,running around, feeling like a clown,thinking “this is damn hard.” Then in another…
Editor, Writer, Thrower of Wet Spaghetti
Throw a bunch of wet spaghetti at the wall. See what sticks. Who knew that the thing your parents told you not to do as a kid would be vital to your mental stability as an adult? And would be vital to my job as an editor. I have been editing this website for about…
Mental Health Month Starts with a Breakdown
What a way to start off mental health month…with a meltdown, right? But that’s exactly what happened. Although Adam and I have never formally defined our roles, there are certain things we just fell into doing–he has editorial skills and experience that I don’t, I can do things with web pages that he can’t, and…
Celebrate May with us! (Sunday Summary)
“I cannot tell you how it was,But this I know: it came to passUpon a bright and sunny dayWhen May was young; ah, pleasant May!” With only 30 days in April to celebrate poetry, there was no way to include all of the poems or poets we wanted to. And in order to include not…
Pride and Prejudice and Plagiarism (Caturday Questions)
Little Cat was reading his favorite book the other day (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), and couldn’t help but notice that it was a bit… derivative. It felt somehow as though Little Cat had read this book before. Which of course he had. You reread your favorites all the time, no? But that wasn’t it….
A Poem Fills a Pocket with Something
Instead of our usual Watch/Liste/Read today, we’re celebrating an extra special part of National Poetry Month with Poem in Your Pocket Day. We keep so many things there, literally and metaphorically. Today we’re asked to tuck a poem on a piece of paper into our own pockets. A poem on paper is small. It’s something…
Teaching the Titanic
My Obsession with the Titanic Earlier this month was the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Usually, around this time of year I sit down to watch Jack and Rose fall in love and die on screen, relishing in the music, the costumes, the exhilarating spectacle that is the James Cameron movie. I scour…
Paradise Lost: #EpicFail
I thought it might be fun to write about how to read a difficult book. I mean a book that’s literally difficult to understand. I’m going to take Paradise Lost for my example but I think these ideas apply to most difficult literature. Reading Outside your Comfort Zone The thing about reading as a hobby…