The Rules

"The rules are: there ain't no rules."

Which is a quote from a movie I watched a long, long time ago and I can only vaguely remember that it was in reference to a race. Was it from Grease, maybe? Anyway, it's a true statement, regardless of context.

The context I'm using it in today is writing. Specifically, how you get your writing done.

Unless I'm doing something that requires my full attention, I'm writing. It doesn't necessarily mean I'm dragging a pen over a sheet of paper. Sometimes writing involves imagining a scene or how a character feels when they receive some bad news. It's very amorphous and sometimes I don't remember what I've thought of and it ends up on the paper later looking very different than I originally imagined it, but I'm still always writing.

I don't make rules about how many words I need to finish in a day or how many chapters my stories have to have. The only rule I have is that it is perfectly acceptable to write anywhere and everywhere and all of the time. Sometimes it's in my head. Sometimes I put it on paper. Sometimes I act out a scene to see how it plays out and what it feels like when it's happening. (Yes, when I'm alone. It probably would be a bad idea to hold a knife to my throat when other people are around.)

I've tried making more rules about writing. Know what happens? I stop writing because I get tangled up in the rules. "Oh, I'm not going to get to write today, so I may as well wait until next week to start." And pretty soon I'm not writing at all and this makes for a very unhappy Tracy.

Make rules if you have to, but make rules that work for you rather than against you. There's my gift to you. Don't say I never gave you nothing.

Loyalty and the Lack Thereof

I've been trying to sort this out in my head for a few days and it just keeps getting more jumbled, so I guess I'll just write it and if it turns out like a pile of stupid, well, no one will notice but me.

I've been playing with similes and I think the closest I can come is that a loyal being (person or otherwise) is a lighthouse. They just kind of hang out, lighting the desolate ocean and occasionally sounding their foghorn in case someone is around to hear it. If you happen to be sailing by, you feel comforted by the sight and sound of them. You use them for what they're good for and then you sail on to the next place, knowing that whenever you come back, they'll be there to illuminate and resonate for you.

Do you have someone like that? You're lucky if you do. There are fewer and fewer lighthouses out there. It would be nice if we could say that they're obsolete, but they're not. We all need that person or thing that we can go back to. That light and sound that comfort us and keep us out of trouble and remind us of who we really are.

Even though everyone needs a lighthouse or two, they don't always use them. Sometimes being a lighthouse is lonely and boring and you wish you could just turn yourself into a ship and float around with everyone else instead of waiting around until someone sails by, thankful that you're there for them; grateful that you're keeping them off the shoals. Except that they'd be run aground and so would you without a light to travel by. So, lighthouses keep being lighthouses and don't turn into ships.

Sometimes, you think you've found a lighthouse, but it turns out it's only a ship with a big, fancy light and a fake horn. Sadly, you don't figure this out until they sail away and leave you floundering. It's hard to tell, especially on a foggy night, if you have the real thing in your sights or not.

The world needs both lighthouses and ships. What we don't need is ships that pretend to be lighthouses. If you're a ship, be a ship and let those who can withstand the wind and weather light the shallow waters and sing in the fog because that's what they do best.