In which an author gets down to it

Don’t know about you, but my weekend rocked the house. I worked on revisions, I did not touch the pile of research I was supposed to, BH and I ran 13.3 miles on Saturday morning, and I was both mom and daughter yesterday. Spent most of it in the garden, a most Demeter-like day.

(ETA – You should read my daughter’s blog on what she learned from her various moms about books.)

I will be signing books on Thursday! Come see me at river’s end bookstore in Oswego, NY from 6 – 8pm. The store is celebrating its 10th anniversary and it is time to party. We’ll have TWISTED in paperback and INDEPENDENT DAMES (thank you Uncle Simon and Uncle Schuster for making it available a little early).

The next 6 weeks are going to scream by, so be patient if my posts are a little sporadic and shorter than usual. I am going to be posing questions in preparation for my July Writing Challenge; things designed to get you thinking and maybe open up some ideas for your writing during that month.

Today is Katherine Hepburn’s birthday. Ms. Hepburn famously said: “If you obey all the rules you miss all the fun.”

So here is today’s question: Which rules are worth breaking?

12 Replies to “In which an author gets down to it”

  1. My favorite Katherine Hepburn quote:

    “As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your
    own canoe, you don’t move. “

  2. “Which rules are worth breaking?”

    Specifically, rules about placing commas when following the rules means changing the rhythm of a character’s voice or making a sentence harder to understand.

    Generally, the rules that contain fallacies, such as, “You shouldn’t try to write a novel until you’ve mastered the short form.”

  3. I caught the tail end of a news segment the other day where a woman saved a baby seal from a sure death. Apparently this is breaking the rules as they are considered endangered and nature should be allowed to “take its course”. I think this was definitely a case when it was okay to break the rules. The baby seal was just fine, thank you very much!

    More to follow……………

  4. The ones that allow you thereby to enact grace as my wife defines it, which is “any moment of surprising and completely undeserved forgiveness.”

  5. Gah! I’ve got my last final on Thursday & won’t be back home in Oswego until a bit after 8… wish I could goooo. =[

    But have fun!

  6. Art is all about breaking rules.

    So while I don’t necessarily believe in breaking the rules of writing so much that the story is unreadable, hey, as thunderchikin wrote…the character’s voice is most important, right?

    Artists strengthen art by pushing the limits of “what is allowed” and “what is not”.

  7. Rules

    In my world, change is inevitable. The rule I have to break everyday is: “That is not the way we used to do it!”

    The concept of change offers opportunities for improvement, for a different perspective, and and well, new opportunities.

    While “Tradition, tradition!” is a real toe tapper, it should not let you or your organization’s motto become “One hundred years of history unimpeded by progress”

  8. The rules that deny you the freedom that as humans equally created by God deserve.

  9. Unintentional rules we get from parents, whether voiced like “Don’t climb that tree” (meant for the apt-to-sue neighbors’ son, but heeded by me ) or silent, like “your job should be practical” (I’m learning to live with the guilt of breaking that one and doing what I love).

  10. Oh yeah, and the rules of html–except I haven’t figured out how to do that yet….

  11. Which rules are worth breaking?

    For me, the rule most worth breaking when I was younger was “Lights off at …”
    Whatever time that was, it was never late enough for me to finish the book I wanted to finish. Once I discovered the “flashlight under the cover” technique of avoiding detection, I broke the “lights out” rule ALL THE TIME! It was so much fun to wake up the next day dead tired, but so satisfied because I knew how the book ended!

    Even now, as an adult, I often read into the early hours of the next day although I know I’ll pay for it at work the next day!

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