A word about the comma

Lately I’ve been thinking about grammar and spelling and commas and about breaking all of the rules. Because I can. And about how it’s freeing to write in fragments. To use commas too often and to not place them where they should be. About how I like to write run-on sentences to make a point, followed by short and slapping ones. About how there are five books about grammar on the shelves above my computer and only one of them has a chapter about breaking the rules. Because, usually, it’s not okay to break the rules. Not when writing for publications that adhere strictly to AP Style and to rules about comma placement and indirect clauses. And that have a strict, no exclamation point rule, which I stick to no matter what. And though during the day, I write for one of those publications and I stick to style and to my understanding of direct clauses and semicolons, at night, I write for myself. And for whomever else might find something about my thoughts interesting. And with thoughts, there are no rules. They come, fleeting from somewhere in the corner of my mind and then, I capture them, in my memory and on paper. I’ll break the rules for my thoughts, but it’s important that I understood the rules first. Because, you can’t break the rules if you don’t know what they are. And today, as I head outside after work under a sky that is wearing its finest blue jacket, I will continue to think and to write and to wax poetic about nothing and everything and the way the cardinal in my backyard made my heart sing...