I wrote this at a lovely Creative Writing workshop I attended this past weekend. The facilitator sang a series of haiku he had written years ago, accompanied on his acoustic guitar with something like a Spanish sound. I pictured a carousing and carefree pursuit during a fiesta through dusty, packed-earth streets in a Mexican town. He invited us to write our own haiku to show the variety of meanings and thoughts that could still fit the same rhythm and song.
I debated whether to go in the first place. My dance with my writing muse has been far from a cat-and-mouse, let alone something so intimate as a tango. More like “go sleep on the couch while I make an appointment with the divorce lawyer to draft the necessary paperwork.”
About a month’s worth of word count entries read ‘0’ and the status of my current projects remains unchanged. Scheduling a writers’ group has been problematic, and the pace of work only seems likely to increase.
But the Muse crooks that painted nail at me and flashes that smile, and like it or not, here I go again.
I’ve been listening to Brandon Sanderson’s recorded lectures on YouTube during down-time, and Stephen King’s On Writing audiobook in my car. Though the base library version is scratched up a bit–“theme is what unifies a novel into a plea- plea- plea- plea- pleasing whole”–there’s still so much down-to-earth insight that I can’t help but enjoy it.
He talks a lot about writer’s block while at the same time talking about–in his own life–putting his nose to the grindstone and pumping out several pages a day, every day, seven days a week, all year ’round, Christmas and the 4th of July included.
He and his muse must get along a lot better than mine. (Actually he also talks about that, and his muse sounds like quite a jerk.)
The end result of the weekend is my little group of three or four writers can connect with a larger community in the initial forming stages on island. And I wrote a snippet of dialogue for Fantasy Series Book 3 (when book 2 is barely started). And there’s that poem.
But the word count didn’t show zero that day, so I’ll take it.
No, not the Big Brother of George Orwell’s classic 1984, although that work does get referenced below. Nope, I’m talking about my big brother, Pete.
I wrote a poem for my parents’ 40th Anniversary some time ago, and it was well received.
My sister-in-law called a couple months ago and reminded me that my big brother’s 40th birthday was coming up. “If you want to write something for his birthday, I know he’ll love it,” she said.
“Uh… sure,” I replied. “I can write something.” But what?
For two months, this project has nagged at the back of my mind, with no clear direction of where to go.
Then, a few days before his birthday, I remembered time spent with my brother and my mom, writing various haiku.
We followed the 5-7-5 syllable format for our haiku. My mom and brother would try to write poignant and powerful things about summer, love, the future, spirituality.
I think I wrote about really important stuff: ramen, video games, and my favorite toys.
In the spirit of those fond memories, I started jotting down some haiku about my brother and my relationship with him.
40 of them would have been too many, but 14 seemed a good number.
Big Brother, forty?
I don’t know what I should say
Past “Happy birthday”
You only enjoyed
Two and a half years without
A little brother
My entire life I’ve
Had a big brother, and I
Wouldn’t change a thing
We’d play karate
My villain, you the hero
I’d want to be like
You put up with me
Chasing you and all your friends
You included me
You introduced me
To the wonder and magic
Hidden in pages
Kingdoms like Gondor
Worlds like Narnia, Bespin
Past and future times.
Sentient robots,
Dragons and dwarves and Wookiees
Doctors and hobbits
We spent hours and nights
Combing nuclear Wasteland
Swapping floppy disks
You challenged my faith
Encouraged me to stand firm
When others gave up
You opened the door
Of my first comic book store
And I was drawn in
To art and legend,
Heroes in tales of virtue,
Overcoming flaws
I unlike Winston
Need no O’Brien to make
Me love Big Brother
So much of my life
Was shaped to imitate you.
For that, I’ll say “Thanks.”
Sitting at the doctor’s office, and my wait is longer than usual.
I want to be creative but I can’t concentrate like I would to work on a novel.
I played around with haiku:
Words swarm and thrash their
Meanings jumbled wild yet I
Will still grasp at them
But then I remembered an app called Fridge Poems.
You get a standard pack free with the app, and there are several variant packs available for a small fee.
It’s a fun way to pass some time and spur some creativity. You can save your creations as photos too.
But the doctor is here now, so it’s time to go.
The home of David M. Williamson, writer of fantasy, sci-fi, short stories, and cultural rants.