Rules Are Made to be Broken

It may sound cliché, but it’s true: rules really are made to be broken.

Every aspiring writer has heard that classic bit of advice from professionals: write every day. Force yourself to sit down and spit out some words on a page. Doesn’t matter if they’re good or bad. Just make the time to write each and every day.

Like many writers, I too have tried this technique. I would sit at my laptop from 7:00 to 8:00 every night and write. For a while, it worked, and I loved the feeling of my fingers clacking rapidly across my keyboard during those sixty minutes. But within a few weeks, I woke up each day already dreading the approaching strike of the clock at 7:00 pm. I would open my laptop with a sigh and spend most of the hour staring at the blinking cursor on my screen and glancing at the clock every few minutes only to realize that what I thought had been ten minutes had really only been two.

And so, I gave up.

But believe me, this is not in my nature. I’ve been a “goody-two-shoes” for as long as I can remember, always completing homework assignments on time, keeping my hands to myself, sitting criss-cross-applesauce on the rug with perfect posture just like I’d been taught.

I loved following rules. I even made rules for myself that weren’t enforced by anyone except me, like how I made myself go to bed at 10:00 each night and turn off my electronics by 9:00 (and no, my mom did not enforce this since I was already 18 and therefore an independent adult). On top of that, I forced myself to exercise six times a week even on the days my limbs felt like lead as my body screamed for some much-needed rest. And I made myself write for one hour every day because that’s what all the professionals always said and that’s the only way to become a better writer. Right?

These rules were a way for me to add structure to a life I felt I had no control over, but life is very big, and every time something came up that prevented me from completing my carefully constructed plan, as is inevitable, I fell into a panic. I had absolutely no flexibility and no margin of error. I was a statistical mess.

And then I read “The Goody-Two-Shoes Nature” and realized my rules were unnecessary hurtles I had placed on the track, obstructing my path to the finish line.

In this article the author asks readers to “wait until you are hungry to say something” before writing instead of forcing yourself to write for an hour each day even when your heart simply isn’t into it. Especially when your heart isn’t into it.

What strikes me most is when they speak about all the people they’ve met who proudly boast about having had perfect attendance in public school. The author responds with the following line:

We have been taught to follow rules and never think about the value of the rules.

I really wish someone had told me this a little sooner. It would have saved me a lot of time. Like, a lot of time.

If going to bed at 10:00 each night and turning off your electronics by 9:00 has no value to you, that rule isn’t serving you. If exercising six times a week has no value to you, that rule isn’t serving you.

And if writing an hour a day makes you shrivel up with dread inside, that rule isn’t serving you.

My best writing was written after long periods of rest and doing other things outside of writing and during a time when my heart was really into it. Putting in time is not enough. Time will not make you improve. Effort will. Passion will. Once you have those, then write. Then practice. But only then. I promise it will be worth the wait.

Like the author says, life is very big, but life is also very short. It would be an awful shame to waste it in front of a blinking cursor or a dull pencil. You cannot force art.

If you give yourself over to honesty in your practice, it will permeate your life.