Will you wear white after Labor Day? 

     It used to be a big deal. At least when I was growing up, back east, wearing white after Labor Day was a no-no. It's funny if you think about it? Right? A rule about what color you should or shouldn't wear and when? 
    I don't know the origin of this rule, and I don't know if it still stands. At least not in SoCal where temperatures will hit upwards of 108 in some cities today.  So, if you want to wear white. Wear white. And wear white with confidence. Wear it well.  
   But, wearing white isn't what I want to explore today, writing is. I want to let you know that you can break the rules in writing. You can break the rules in writing when you know what the rules are. You can break the rules in writing when you begin to master the rules.  You can experiment. Go hog wild on the page if you want. Really, have it.  Even if it's not what you're supposed to do. 
    But first, you have to know what you're doing and you have to be confident about trying something outside of your comfort zone. You might make a mistake. You might fail. Then you'll fix it, or you'll fail again. It's okay. (Hey, that's what editing is for, right?)

     Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Beckett

    In Moby Dick, Melville breaks out into a play, more like a musical, in the middle of the book.  Ellison ends The Invisible Man with an amazing example of surrealism.  Zadie Smith uses a voice we call Absence of Field, or what Joyce Carol Oats calls polyphonic Density. 
   Here's something for you:  poems don't have to rhyme. Poems can be four lines or four hundred and four lines. Poems can be in prose form. Poems can rhyme. But they don't have to. Newsflash: you get to decide. 
    You practice your craft,  you experiment, stretch and continue to learn. You fail. You fail better. You wear the white jeans after labor day. You look in the mirror.
     "Damned I look good in these white jeans," you say to your reflection, "I'm wearing them." You pair them with brown booties, a brown belt, and a t. You're out the door, stylish, breaking the age-old rule, and it's a-okay. You know what you're doing. 
    Same thing goes for your writing. 
    Try something new. Different. Play. Read a writer you've never read. Proust. Joyce. Faulkner. Try and write like they write. Do what they're doing. You won't write like them. But you'll write like you trying to write as they do, and you'll write something you wouldn't have otherwise written.
    Last week my teacher said, "People who know what they're doing do it." 
    I invite you to do it!

   And if you want to learn more and know more, reach out to me. Let's write together. Classes start the week of September 12th. (See below)