Hope
Words like pearls,
Tucked into a story,
Found in a bottle.
I started a haiku-a-day practice while I was in my master’s
program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. It was an activity bent on keeping
me writing every day, creating something, even if it was a small something. I
loved the activity, finding subjects, searching for the right words, the
feeling when all the words were at last in the right place and the picture came
together with a sigh of contentment.
I did that for several weeks, forgot for a few more weeks,
moved into my final semester, graduated and released the practice with receipt
of diploma.
Recently, I’ve been working on reviving the practice along
with, or in addendum to, my practice of calm and stillness. There is something
about the simplicity of a haiku, its simple structure and rhythm; that soothes
my soul and enters into the stillness like a small flower blooming quietly on a
table.
I missed it. I didn’t know I had, but when I took up my
pencil a few days ago and a tiny word picture emerged it felt like a minor
miracle. I wrote another one today and again, had the sense of accomplishment
in a few square inches of white paper space.
It’s easy to get bogged down with the writing of an ENTIRE
novel. It’s easy to forget the heart of your story amidst the commas and
semi-colons, the rising action and falling action, the denouement and three-act
structure. During the Mobius strip editing process, a novel can feel like
nothing but wreckage. Amidst the wreckage and detritus, I lose the basic feeling
of accomplishment and instead of a creator I feel like a destroyer. It takes a toll and in order to keep going I
have to refresh my mind and soul and creative spirit.
So, I started writing my haiku a day and added “while on a
walk” to it. The weather is only just beginning to show Spring in it, shaking
off its winter layers and blooming with color and birdsong. It’s lovely to be
outside again, stretching my body and mind and letting go of the Mobius strip
for a while, letting my mind play with words, pictures and sounds. It’s remembering
all over again why I like writing as much as I do.
It’s as though I’ve been hibernating over the winter along
with my creativity and my stories. After weeks of not writing, I gave myself
permission to NOT WRITE then somehow revoked the permission and had a small
meltdown about NOT WRITING (how lazy are you? Seemed to be my internal running
commentary) from which emerged a blog post about letting go of the noise of the
world, read: *publishing process,* negative self-talk and fears, and letting
your story live and breathe. (For that post check out the link to my guest post
on http://ellaroutloud.wordpress.com/)
After the meltdown and subsequent blog post I started to
slowly uncurl my fists, the ones I curled up and pounded on the wall in front
of me crying out “I WILL finish this edit!” and which did no good at all…I
started to uncurl my heart, which I had been protecting, and look for my
characters again, look for their hearts and their struggles and I started to
care again for them, deeply and passionately care about what happens to them.
Armed with my haiku and walks and (deep calming breathing) I’m
ready now, ready to get back to the earnest work of being a writer. I’m ready
for my “daily haiku mind stretches” and settling back down into the novel edit.
I’m ready.
Join me!
Post a haiku in the comments section if you
feel like sharing. I’d love to see them!
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