nothing in the rulebook
A collective of creatives bound by a single motto: There's nothing in the rulebook that says a giraffe can't play football!
Category: Essays & Opinion
Our members provide insights into the world of writing; comedy; art; culture.
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One of the biggest changes I’ve noticed in myself after a year of regularly performing comedy is a broadening of my comedic tastes. If you’d asked me a year ago what comedy I thought was good I would have replied with very strict and narrow parameters. “Stewart Lee is good.” I would have said, “I…
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Frenzied penises, bulbous salutations, bulging trousers, howling, groans, sighs, minty-flavoured tongues, awkward positions and spasming muscles: these all things you would expect to find in some of the winning entries of the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Since its debut in 1993, the #BadSex award has been a somewhat light-hearted – with quasi…
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Few books will capture your attention from the first page as Russ Litten’s Kingdom. Indeed, the quasi-surrealist opening scene in an unknown prison library is perhaps the most interesting and unique introduction to a novel that we here at Nothing in the Rulebook have read all year. Of course, many novels start extremely well…
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It’s an undeniable fact – comics have never saturated culture more. From the endless plethora of superhero blockbusters, to TV hits like Daredevil and Jessica Jones, to the slew of related videogames and cartoon series, it feels like the vast bulk of modern entertainment is either superhero-dominated, or at least superhero-inflected. But within this…
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“Creative writing is not just concerned with competence in replicating a practice, its students are not just learning craft, but flexing their muscles as entrepreneurs within our cultural future […] We defer inventive thinking at our peril.” (Munden, 2013, p1). Ever since the University of East Anglia established the first MA in creative writing…
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Disappear Here is a project that aims to bring together nine writers and nine film-makers to make a series of films about the Coventry ringroad. We are currently crowdfunding start-up support to get the project off the ground and, to-date, we are almost half-way to our target figure of £1000. The challenge of Disappear Here…
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An artistic movement is forming. One that is open to spontaneity, artistic risk, emotional urgency and one which flies against traditional models. Will Eaves’s latest book, The Inevitable Gift Shop, is an example of this movement displayed in written form. We may call it a book at first mention, rather than a novel or a…
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I view ‘advice for writers’ articles with suspicion. Strange opening for what looks like yet another example of the form, I know, but bear with me. I’ve read many that contain good tips and sage wisdom. I’ve adopted strategies other writers have used and found them effective. Still, whenever I see click-bait headlines like ‘10…
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We’ve looked before at the reasons great writers choose to sit down and begin writing. These reasons include wanting to discover the answer to some mystery, simple fun, the pursuit of happiness, personal discovery and self-exploration, and because the thought of not writing simply hurt too much. But why are we, as a species, so…
nothing in the rulebook 