The Sound of Music was my introduction to Nazis. I can remember watching that scene as a small child, and feeling frightened. I can remember asking about what the flag meant and my mother explaining it. Even without seeing the clip I can recall how chilling the anger is in the scene. The only thing…
Tag: self-care
Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” Law: Outlawing Openness
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…
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…
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…
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…
Writer’s Notebook
Defeating Writer’s Block by Writing about it I’d been thinking a lot about what I wanted to write for today. I’d made a few attempts at things to write, but as I’ve faced many times in the last few months, and written about a few times, I’ve had trouble coming up with ideas. And trouble…
New Year’s Writing Resolutions: Avoiding Burnout
I managed to convince myself to take a week off from posting to the website, as a means of avoiding burnout. It wasn’t easy, but it was necessary. As much as I want to post every week, every day, even, to keep up consistent site traffic, I recognized that my energy is not unlimited. I…
Unlaced
i learned how to tie my shoes when i was five and i washuddled in my best friend’s bedroom, two houses down and across the street from my house,each of us knew how to do half the job.we didn’t plan it that way, it just happened when they were trying to teach us the whole…
Banned Books Redux?
New Book Bannings A couple of months ago, during Banned Books Week, I wrote that banning books is really about protecting fragile adults, not children. Since then, it seems like there’s been an explosion of efforts to restrict access to books, especially books about queer topics. My own school district in Florida has dealt with…