Meryl's Notes Blog

Writer Mama provided a great discussion topic in asking readers if they are rule breakers or rule followers in terms of working as writers. Plus, my family ran into an issue where someone who may have broken rules that affected an entire team. Breaking a rule can be a minor thing that only affects the rule breaker (cheating on a diet) or it can be huge and hurt many (Enron).

Of course, the kind of rule matters in whether you even think about breaking it. A rule could be:

• a law (no stealing)
• moral/ethical (disrespecting a parent)
• organizational (must work at least eight hours a day)
• non-spoken (don’t bombard an editor with e-mails)
• self-imposed (no eating meat)

Most of us (I would hope) abide by laws. Breaking them means punishment. Moral and ethical — depends on person’s influences that could include religion, family, friends, and environment.

Organizational rules — many people break some of the less harmful rules (no personal e-mails from work computers), but follow the standard of working the required hours. Non-spoken rules prove tricky as some of us learn them the hard way by breaking them and getting called on it, learn about it from someone else, or don’t know about it and haven’t broken it.

Self-imposed are rules of our choosing. If we break them, we only affect ourselves. Following them, however, can help us become a better person (depending on the rule) such as reading for one hour daily, exercise four times a week, and sleeping at least seven hours every night. Well, of course, the latter rule comes from medical recommendations. But that’s just it — it’s recommendations not a rule.

The Writer Mama question had me thinking about rules on a broad scale and how it affects our lives. In the discussion about breaking rules, they’re not hard and fast rules, but more self-imposed or non-spoken. In this case, we’re talking about rules that are OK to break.

For example, I tried to write a news release using a different approach from the standard release. The final version of the release turned out to be a standard one. Many articles for writer suggest doing something unconventional and grabbing the reader. But some people won’t like it while others will love it. What rules did you break that worked and didn’t work?