While few in the New York Times would admit it, one of the great joys of blogging has been how many non-professional writers its given voice to. For those who wish to bone-up on their chops however, John Scalzi's "Whatever: Writing Tips for Non-Writers Who Don't Want to Work at Writing" is really well-worth reading (just to keep the alliteration flowing).

Like Scalzi himself, I have a tendency to violate rule #2 all the time--when I'm just letting it flow somewhat subconsciously, my writing frequently seems to follow the rule, the more nested parentheticals in a single sentence, the better.

But as with music, the better you know what the rules are, the better you can break them--if you know what you're doing in the first place.