What constitutes a Spoiler: A Philosophical Dialogue It’s Caturday, and Big Cat and Little Cat have been discussing spoilers while they’re waiting for Middle Cat to get back from that spa with the new hair-barfing cleanse. And what they’re discussing, of course, is spoilers. It all started when Little Cat spoiled a scene in The…
Erika Writes February is here already? I don’t know how that happened. I don’t know where this week has gone either. New Bells and Whistles on the Website With the weather fluctuating between “it’s cold enough to warn you about raining iguanas” and “It’s not anywhere near April so why does it feel that way,”…
Conversations we Can’t Avoid There are a lot of conversations we have to have about things that are uncomfortable or difficult to talk about. We try and avoid things like sex, politics or religion–we label them as “out of bounds” and find less controversial things to talk about with people, but there are always going…
Foreword Recently, I have been thinking about my role as a teacher. Inside and outside the classroom, I sometimes have doubts about what I should do and what I should not do. Well, I have always wanted to be a good teacher. I have had so many good teachers that I feel it would be…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…