My credential for writing this is that I have written the manuscript for one novel and it has not been published. You don’t necessarily want to hear from someone who has written (and published) half a dozen or more books and is now summarizing their craft. Leastwise I don’t. When famous authors say some version…
Tag: fiction
Soul-Dancer (An Archaic Concept of Me, 11)
Where we left it in Delivery 10 I could not quite fully trust that she was as committed to our relationship as I was. I was afraid I did not quite meet her expectations. Sometimes at night, next to her, I had bad dreams, often involving being abandoned in a desert, or searching for family in…
Shortcuts for NaNoWriMo
So. You’ve decided to write a novel in thirty days. First of all, you’re an idiot. But a good idiot. The kind that doesn’t know their own limitations and so sets out to find them. The kind that inspires people. You’ve probably gotten that look:“So what are you up to these days?”“Oh, you know. Work….
NaNoWriMo! (Caturday)
Middle Cat, the Executive Producer of the hit series Big Cat, Little Cat, is excited to announce that 2 Rules of Writing is hosting a writing workshop for NaNoWriMo. The workshop will be this Sunday (Nov 6, 2022) at noon. Big Cat is probably going to show up an hour late because he always forgets…
Blood
Unfinished Tales I decided to do something I haven’t done since my first offering on this website (which was little shy of a year ago). To print a story that is very much in process. Part of the reason is: I think it makes for good reading (or if it doesn’t, it makes, at any…
Souls Need a Gentle Touch (An Archaic Concept of Me)
Where we left it at end of previous delivery:Our married life had begun. Summer turned into Autumn. I continued with my freelance work at home, Aleena commuted to her office most days, the leaves fell down around our little front garden, and slowly winter returned. Souls Need a Very, Very Gentle Touch Now that we…
“Reunion” by John Cheever
I remember listening to “Reunion” (a very short story by John Cheever) on the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. That was actually the first time I ever heard the story. It might be the first time I was introduced to John Cheever. The reader was Richard Ford, and he noted that the story begins with 2…
The Wedding (An Archaic Concept of Me, Delivery 9)
We began in Delivery 1 with a vignette. A vignette of lingering kisses, stillness and soft murmurings, bountiful cushions on a big, round mahogany bed, privilege taken for granted, and lithe young minds congratulating each other on their own manifestations of abundance. A vignette delivered to us by a much older version of a young man…
Not Just a Phase?
I’ve written about the first time I kissed a girl. I’ve written about how much it would have meant to me to have queer role models. And I’ve written about why it was really important for me to have access to queer books as a teenager. I’ve never really talked about the “not just a…
An Archaic Concept of Me: Mutual Proposal
We are moving into Delivery 8, where we discover more about the early adult life of the fictional characters, Aleena and Stuart. If you prefer to read contiguously from the opening sentence forward, here are links to the previous 7 deliveries onto 2 Rules of Writing. https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/an-archaic-concept-of-me/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/an-archaic-concept-of-me-2/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/to-the-future-where-we-know-ourselves/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/archaic-concept-of-me-keep-going-son/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/mindfulness-archaic-concept-5/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/archaic-concept-of-me-shoulder-energy/ https://2rulesofwriting.com/another-world-within/forget-it-an-archaic-concept-of-me-delivery-7/ Where we began,…