Rule follower

Is it because I am a middle child, or I'm Irish, or ...well, I really don't know why, but I'm a rule follower.  Take tonight for instance.  It is Tuesday.  Ruth's rule says I need to post an entry.  But, I forgot until Ruth called and reminded me.  Oops, busted!  Now, here I am, typing away.

Is it a bad thing to follow the rules?  Nope.  It keeps my life pretty ordered - or as ordered as it can be - and helps me feel like I have some control.  I am, though, also learning to be a rule-breaker.  Isn't that what writers are: rule breakers? It's all well and good to have rules for format, grammar, and even content, but only if you can play with them, try different things, become someone different.

My students started their multigenre projects this week.  And so did I.  I didn't do one last year.  Not fair.  Not following the rules. I'm trying to push myself to step outside my comfort zone and write a few new genres. Today I struggled with a recipe for breadmaking.  I thought and thought. Edited and revised.  And I'm still not happy.  But, I've got the beginning of the recipe and while I was making foccacia bread for dinner (yep, did that...and followed the rules to make it happen!), I got an idea for how to work "yeast" into my recipe - anticipation is the "yeast" of breadmaking.  Now I wish I'd brought my writer's notebook home so I could revise.

I followed the rules - I wrote my entry.  But I also broke them.  I wrote it the way I wanted to.  I started sentences with conjunctions and I even ended sentences with prepositions.  That's me - rebel rule breaker!