Tag Archives: haiku a day

Haiku for Haters now available in Kindle format

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It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for:

HAIKU FOR HATERS has gone digital.

That’s right, my 24 painless pages are now available at Amazon.com in Kindle format! And at a mere $2.99 a pop, it won’t break your bank account.

Unfortunately the sample pages don’t actually sample any of the poems (this is not my fault, BTW, as Amazon picks the length of the sample they include, and they just took the title pages), so I will share one with you here in a show of good faith:

can’t sleep: snow falls, an
endless tapping, my novel
still won’t write itself

Dig this? Want more? Hit up Amazon.com and go nuts. You can even share a copy with a friend! Pretty sweet, right?

If you do purchase a copy, I also encourage you to write a review. Hopefully a nice one, but if you really hate it, then I guess you should say so.

Here’s hoping you don’t really hate my poetry.

From slump to score

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Lately I’ve been noticing that my writing has been in a bit of a slump. I only write a blog when I’m riled up about something, and then usually feel like it’s just a rant that isn’t worth posting after the emotions are spent. I’ve been writing really brief blogs about the books I’ve been reading, over at Crack Books, which is fun… but it’s not exactly the stuff of genius. I’ve been writing cover letters and endlessly tweaking my résumé, which is duller work than anything in the world. And then there’s just the sea of words that I feel like I’ve been drowning in, with all the print and web material I’ve got in my “to read” pile.

So I’ve decided to kick it up a notch and put myself on a strict writing regimen, to get things moving in the right direction and change my personal scoreboard from “zero” to “hero.” (Wow, that was cheezy! But somehow true.) Here’s what I’ve got lined up, so you can play along at home if you like:

  1. Just try and tell me you don’t want to run right out and get one of these New Leaf Paper composition notebooks for yourself! (image via New Leaf Paper)

    7 haiku per day, with coffee. I’ll bust some poetic moves as I drink my morning beverage of choice, getting the creative juices flowing and a feeling of accomplishment at seeing those 5–7-5s line up on the page. I’m doing 7 a day because that’s how many fit on a college-ruled page in my composition book. (Mad props to the New Leaf Paper company, who’ve really sexed up the standard composition-style notebook, all with 100% recycled paper. HOT!) I figure if I keep up this rate, by this time next year I’ll have a book of haiku to publish.

  2. Sending out work for publication. Every day I’ll try to find at least one new publication where I can send some of my finished work. I know I tend to procrastinate on this, or just let the stuff sit there, wondering what to do with it. No more! It’ll be out there, circulating, so that even if it’s getting rejected, at least it’s being read. Like they say about the lottery: you’ve gotta be in it to win it.
  3. Writing new stories. This is another point: while I do have some finished work I’d like to get out there, I’ve also got to keep updating the files with new work. So, I’d better get on to writing some stories! Every day I’ll work on either starting, editing, or finishing some new bit of work. When I hit a wall with one, start another. Keep ‘em in rotation and see what comes out of it.
  4. Finish that novel. I’ve been plugging away on my novel, on and off for a few years. It’s time to get serious, write the stuff that needs to get written, edit the stuff that needs to get edited, and get that sucker done. Just like the short fiction, just keep things moving and keep coming back to those pages. My biggest issue seems to be procrastination, so let’s put it on the To Do list and move it up towards the top, rather than letting it slide daily to the bottom.

That’s the four-pronged approach. I’ll probably still have to keep sending out résumés and cover letters on a daily basis, but I’ve decided to limit it to a manageable amount and do that type of admin work only until noon. After noon, it’s time to write. After all, I’m not an administrator, I’m a writer. Sometimes you have to remind yourself, y’know?

Anyway, that’s my approach. Do any of you have a specific writing routine or regimen that you like to use? Tell me all about it; I’m always curious to know how the rest of the world writes!

P.S. Here’s one of the 7 haiku I wrote today, reflecting on the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Olympic Games:

Hipsters reading pomes,
A friend asks: “Is this what your
country’s all aboot?”

Winter haiku

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I haven’t written any of my haiku-a-day in a while, and since I’ve got a few Basho books out of the library right now, I thought I’d give it a go. It’s the end of January, and I’m feeling a bit unmoored. I’m used to ice and snow at this time of the year, and while it’s certainly cold here in Texas (apparently it’s 34 degrees outside right now) and rather a desolate landscape (as evidenced by my recent visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center), the lack of a standard Winter Wonderland is making me feel kind of spooked.

Add on top of that the fact that I just read The Road by Cormac McCarthy (which I wrote up briefly on CrackBooks), where the two protagonists are shivering with cold virtually all of the time and the post-apocalyptic landscape is described as “cold enough to split rocks,” and you’ve got a bit of a paranoid writer on your hands. Am I dying, or is it just cold in here? (To paraphrase a Sarah Silverman song lyric.)

So, here are three of my winter haiku:

“texas winter landscape (with poodles)” by Flickr user greg westfall

Silent winter snow
missing from Texas landscape
Strange chill without ice
–

“texas in winter #4″ by Flickr user greg westfall

Do I miss freezing?
Strapping boots to venture forth?
Not at all! (a bit)
–

“Real winter in Texas” by Flickr user CameliaTWU

Montréal Winter

Icicles question,
breath hanging in air shatters.
Cold, clean fear of death.

I should note that I wrote all of those haiku in a great (free!) Zen-style writing program called OmmWriter. If you’ve got a Mac, you should definitely check it out (it’s not currently available for you [suckafool] PCs), as it’s quite a neat way to approach your creative writing. It takes you out of the clutter of your desktop and allows you to choose your background, a repeating pattern of music that resembles my husband’s Buddha Machine (another great little gizmo if you want to clear your mind), and another ambient noise associated with tapping the buttons of your keyboard. You’re focused on the words on the page, and the repeating musical patterns are meant to keep your thoughts flowing, rather than snagging on the words to a familiar tune or even the hook to some classical music. I really like it, especially for things like my haiku writing project—and did I mention it’s free?

Seriously, try it. You’ll convert.

Finally, I am announcing a crazy (but attainable) goal, inspired by my recent reading of Jeremy Mercer’s Time Was Soft There. Apparently George Whitman, the owner of the illustrious Shakespeare and Company bookstore in Paris, allows writers to stay at the bookstore so long as they read one book per day to earn their keep, so to speak. This is an amazing idea, both because it will help any writer improve his or her craft, but also because it immerses you in the world of literature and ideas. It allows you to see the connections, to see yourself as one in a long line of writers, to broaden your horizons and deepen your interests. It sounds time-consuming in our rush-rush world of corporate consumption and pointless motion, but really, what have you got to lose when you sit down and read a book?

I always have a book or two on hand anyway, and regularly read about a book a week. I’m already the type of person that puts library books on hold so I can have good books delivered (almost) to my doorstep, and since the Austin library nearest my house has a drive-thru, well, I’ve been going a bit nuts with my holds (despite their threat that you’ll have to pay $1 per book if you don’t pick them up within 10 days of your request being fulfilled). I am, in a word, voracious. Always have been. I was the kid who checked out stacks of books, and once a little girl saw me with my pile and whispered to her mother, “Look at all the books she has, mommy!” The mother whispered back, “She’s not going to read them all.” I turned to face them and said, “Yes I am!”

That child was undoubtedly scarred for life, but you get my point. I’m an unstoppable reading machine. So now it’s time to step it up a notch and really get serious. Thus, I pledge to join the ranks of the Shakespeare and Company writers, from afar. Tonight I’ve got a few hours left to kill Under the Tuscan Sun. Let’s do this thing!

Who’s with me?