Monthly Archives: January 2021

Writing Haibun – Warning – May Cause Drowsiness

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Saturday 2nd January has proved to be a quiet day. After writing my first post of the day I edited some of my notebooks, browsed some on-line shops and washed up. I moved on to editing my notebooks – typing out three haibun and twelve haiku. They started off as seven haibun and twenty two haiku but some of them were rubbish. I think I must have written one of the haibun while I was asleep as it made no sense at all, and one of the others was so tedious it was probably the one that had sent me to sleep. Several of the haiku were just alternative versions, so one of them had to go.

And, I confess, two of the haiku were unreadable. I think I’ve covered this before. My writing is so bad I( cannot always read it shortly after I write it. Some of these were weeks old and I didn’t have a clue what they had originally been about. I came close to abandoning a haibun too, but there were enough legible/guessable words for me to reconstitute that one.

My Orange Parker Pen

That was all the useful work I did. I made lunch after that, using a pack of four small avocadoes. One, which I had tested, was ripe. The other four turned out to be a bit less than ripe, so needed dicing more than mashing. Julia wanted hers with a poached egg so I boiled the water, swirled it round and gently tipped an egg into it. I think the egg may have been a bit old, and the water may have been swirling a bit too fast as the whole thing seemed to explode in the minute I was away from the pan. I just had a pan of highly dilute scrambled egg. The second, was better, but I cooked it in the bowl of a metal ladle just to be on the safe side.

Fried eggs would have been better but a poached egg seems de rigueur in smashed avo circles so who am I to disagree. I had prawns in mine with a dressing made from ketchup, mayonnaise, lemon juice and black pepper, because I am firmly rooted in the 1970s.

Back to the writing for a moment – for the benefit of new readers, I write using a fountain pen whenever I can, because the words flow better. Even a cheap biro is better than typing. I can rarely type haibun and haiku when I am composing. Magazine articles and essays are fine, but poetry seems to demand a proper writing implement. That’s why I have to accept losing a percentage to illegibility. Better to lose  a few that way than to sit staring at a computer screen writing nothing, or writing things which I then edit into nothingness. It may seem inefficient at first, and I have tried to streamline the process, but it just doesn’t work any other way.

For the rest of the day I watched TV, chatted to Julia and dreamed of pizza. Then I woke up, cooked tea (we had steak as a New Year treat) and started writing this.

Failed Haiku Number 61 is out. Mine are about 40% of the way down under “Simon Wilson”. I’ve got so used to my accidental penname on WP that I feel very dull having an ordinary name. I could make it easy for you by just printing them here, but that doesn’t seem fair to the editor and the other writers. Scroll down until, you see the red feather – I’m a few pages under that. Or you can wait for a month and remind me – I will copy them and paste them in the blog once the new issue is out.

I’m now in what I find to be the toughest bit of the process. Writing is simple. Editing it into something readable isn’t too bad as long as you remember not everything is useful and allow yourself to throw stuff away. Editing for submission – the honing and perfecting, is a bit tricky, as I’m not a great judge of quality. Editing after submitting is quite easy – the editor suggests things and I do them. It’s about publication. I will agonise about my artistic integrity later – there are plenty of words and nothing to prevent me writing another version of the poem I want to write. This one is an example – it’s half the poem I originally submitted and misses out what I thought was an important point. However, it is also good like this and the cut down version is more elegant, so I’m happy to make the cuts.I have, however, rewritten another version of the longer poem, which will be submitted to a magazine this month. Even coping with rejection isn’t the worst bit. It’s an inevitable part of writing for publication, so there’s no point taking it personally.

A Tranquil Pond I once wrote about.

No, the most difficult bit for me is submission. I was sure I’d written about this in the last few days but I can’t find it so I may merely have thought about it, or I may have edited it. Sorry if I’m repeating myself.

Once I have things written and (in theory) edited to near perfection, I have to send them out. There are nearly always more places to send poems than I have poems to send. I have seven places for submissions in january. This means I need 16 haibun and twenty haiku.

In theory I have around 40 haibun ready to go, but in reality some of them aren’t good enough to go. A few of them have been returned by one or more editors, so it’s not just me who thinks that. I have, sensibly, about twenty, but then I have to decide which one suits which magazine. The best ones could go almost anywhere, the les good ones need to be placed where they will be most appreciated. At that point I start to ask myself if I should send anything apart from the very best. It’s like a massive circle. Eventually it all sorts itself out (a looming deadline tends to help concentration) and I start on the next lot.

I’ve now one over a thousand words, which I always think is too many, so I will leave it there.

 

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The Porridge from Porlock

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As I sat on the edge of the bed to put my socks on (yes, old age is catching up on me) I ran a scene from my imaginary life through my head. It was the one where I appear on BBC Breakfast after winning a major poetry award and impress a watching TV executive so much that I am offered a chance to have my own TV show, wandering round the countryside talking and eating in tearooms.

There would, inevitably, be a string of offers to appear in other TV work, followed by a celebrity lifestyle and a book contract. Obviously, a man who has to sit down to put his socks on isn’t going to be doing Strictly Come Dancing or I’m a Celebrity… but I’d be happy to do Celebrity Gogglebox.  When it comes to sitting round watching TV and talking rubbish, I flatter myself that I have few equals.

I was sitting in a studio, putting forward the idea that I was the Jackson Pollock of poetry, just throwing words at pieces of paper, when a sudden (and unusual) profound thought came into my mind.

“As soon as I get downstairs,” I thought, “I will write that down. There is the basis for a scholarly essay in there and it will establish me as a leading light in the poetry establishment.”

Well, that’s what it would have sounded like if I thought that way. What I actually thought was “Oooo!” That’s pretty much the reality of my thinking. If you add the word “shiny” that covers 90% of my thoughts these days. I know I’m supposed to think about sex every seven seconds according to the research, but frankly, I can’t fit it in. (Yes, I’ve been watching too many Carry On films over Christmas…)

Talking of thinking, I found this article very interesting. Before you read it, think of a white bear, and don’t click the link until you’ve finished thinking about it. When you stop thinking about the white bear and read the article, all will become clear.

Anyway, I got downstairs (another thing that I used to take for granted but which takes a bit of thought these days) and Julia was making porridge. She put sliced banana and blueberries in it because she thinks I should eat more fruit. And, as I ate the delicious fruity porridge, I realised that I had forgotten the rare and precious thought.

And that, so far, is the story of 2021. I had, as you can probably guess, no picture of porridge with fruit in it, so I offer a picture of plums instead.

 

1st January 2021

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So, how do you start the first blog post of the New Year? I thought I’d try an irritating speech habit and a few surplus capitals.

I’ve noticed on quiz programmes that many people, when asked to say a few words about themselves, seem to be starting with the word “So…”. It’s taken the place of “Well…’ and, my personal favourite “Er…”.

At least “Er…” is an understandable reaction. The other two are just irritating. And, to be honest, as you should be expecting to be asked about yourself, you should be ready. Keen-eyed readers will have noticed “To be honest”, which I admit is an irritating habit of mine. I’ve tried to stamp it out, but so far I haven’t managed to eradicate it. Maybe 2021 is the year I will sucvceed.

As for the Unnecessary Capitalisation, this is likely to get worse as I am going to read more Dickens this year and I suspect that my prose will become more Victorian. I have read very little Dickens and have decided to address this lack. I’m also going to re-read Evelyn Waugh, as I’ve mot read any for 15 or 20 years and I feel that my supplies of waspishness need refilling.

I am currently thinking of how to arrange my writing in 2021, and what I’m going to do on the blog. The first thing I’m going to do is wish everyone a Happy New Year, because I’m feeling cheerful. The second thing I’m going to do is panic as it’s 11.55 and I need to get a photo and some tags loaded.

See you tomorrow!