What Are the Writing Rules?

This month’s task is about grammar and how you choose to use it. To begin, start a free-write on the topic of your choosing – but write even more loosely than usual – free associate, switch between multiple viewpoints, play with form and language.

Now you are going to edit two versions of the same piece. In the first, use the rules of grammar to make sense of your freewheeling prose. In the second, corrupt the conventions even further – imagine grammar as a cage from which you are trying to escape. Then compare your pieces and the feelings you evoked. Which would you most like to keep writing?