On Writing, The Collapse, And Haikus

 One of the things that bubbled to the surface as I was writing over December and thinking about "The Year That Was" was the fact that writing had come to seem like a bit of burden.

Burden is maybe not quite a fair word for something that is essentially a self chosen activity.  "Unfun" or "A chore" might be a more accurate sentiment.  And I needed to look at that because on the whole I tend to enjoy writing.  If something loses its joy, there is a reason for it.  What, I wondered, could it be?

Part of it seemed to be the idea of a heavily preprogrammed schedule - not all of it of course; having a course of writing over the week is a grand thing and prevents the "What shall I write about today?" panic.  And part of it was the fact that sometimes I have either over or under inflated expectations of what I do here. Pinging off something FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) STxAR said, comments do not always reflect impact and view numbers do not reflect value.

Perhaps, then, it is in what I was writing.

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The Collapse is, I think, done.

I tend to be a person that puts a great deal of stock into the intersection of beginnings, endings, dates, and circumstances:  had I lived 2,000 years ago, likely I would have been searching the skies for bird flock shapes and cloud appearances like any good soothsayer.  The fact that the last entry of The Collapse coincided with the end of the year did not escape my notice.

Writing it over the last few months has been increasingly stress-filled (if such a thing can be said of an activity like writing).  Part of that is simply the next "chapters" - were they to be written - were beyond my present day knowledge of things and research would need to be conducted with time I scarcely seem to have.  The other was that - of all the things I have written in the last 5 years or so - it was these posts that generated the most stress when they went out into the wilds of the InterWeb.  

And, I think, Seneca's story is told.  I suspect he was trying to tell me that in the last few letters, but I consciously refused to listen.

I remember a comment made by the author David Drake about the characters in his book The Forlorn Hope (one of my favourite science fiction books) about why he never wrote a sequel.  His response was something along the line of when he went back to them, he realized that he had no more story of theirs to tell.  And while on the one hand I deplore that - after all, I would love for a series of characters I love - it is far better as a reader to have a series end wanting more than to have one go on and realize that the author has overextended their welcome.

Too, I started that series (eight years ago, if you can believe it) when I was in a different space and the world was a different place.  It - and I - have moved on.

Ave atque Vale, Seneca.  May you find the peace you so much seem to desire.

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So what is the plan to fill in the gap?

Haikus are something I have played with off and on in my writing.  The 5-7-5 structure is an enjoyable exercise in minimalist writing, but they are so much richer as practiced in Japan than what I ever learned in writing them in school.  Also, they represent a challenge in paring down words to their essence, something that The Collapse forced me to do in part (as opposed to long narratives).

It also gives me a chance to pair things with pictures as inspiration, which means I both can use pictures I already have and look for new ones to use, enhancing my reason to take pictures.  And, I actually get to speak a bit on the whole nature of haikus, their history, and their most famous practitioners.

Plus, there is a Haiku Society of America and they have an annual contest.  Who knows, I might enter.

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There will still be a schedule of sorts.

Mondays and Saturdays will remain "open" writing days.  I find it helpful to have these sorts of free range time to put anything that comes into my mind about. While I like some structure, it is good to be able to just write.

Tuesdays and Wednesdays remain travel days.  We still have a lot of Cambodia and all of Vietnam to get through, as well as anything that comes up in Japan for training and my hike in August.  We have a full year there (I think).

Thursdays will (for now) be A Year of Haikus.  Surely I can do 50 or so in a year.

Sundays - as mentioned this past one - will be A Year of Kindness.

Fridays....I found the writing on Essentialism last year to be a valuable practice, yet found myself balking at writing on another book.  But realized that this could just as easily be rebranded as "Learning Fridays" and I could pick some topics of my own interest.  For example, another FOTB (Friend Of This Blog) Becki reminded me that that harp may not be as well known an instrument as others - it has a history as well as any other instrument.  Haikus (as above) are another.  And maybe another book, if it so happens.

I enjoy writing, and sharing in some ways my world with my readers.  Hopefully this "cures" whatever ailed me in my writing and I can come at it again with the same sense of anticipation I so often have enjoyed in the past.