belated haiku on a spooky cloud

what is hovering

as a winter sun sets?

visitors unknown?

Morning Glory -daily Haiku

the morning is bright

and Spring is coming early;

the first narcissus

Peace is restored

Happy though it is to have a house full of family, young people, laughter, mess and chaos, there is something sweet about having my spaces returned to me.

So long to blog

I have neglected the blogs for nearly a month now. I think after the Nano I was written out. But had to forge on with two assignments for the Open University courses.
I was delighted to get 80 for my play writing assignment - I am finding writing in this discipline very appealing.
Also Costas (husband) had a 60th birthday and our closest family flew in from Greece and UK for a wonderful week.
Christmas is looming, course work is piling up and I've lost my course book which considering it is the size of a small house defies logic.
Hopefully when thinks calm down I will be more inspired.

I am a winner!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Officially as verified by the NaNo site 50687 words, but not yet finished.

Two gruelling days

After a Nano drought oover the weekend - life got in the way and I had not read Louisa Lemon's advice, I have 'written' nearly 10,000 words over the last two days.
Word count now:: 44224.

The oddest thing

I have been writing rubbish in desperation to make up wordage for over two weeks now. The last couple of days thought I am suddenly finding that my writing is improving, I am seeing a strange unforced structure forming, possible devices which have occurred naturally which I can tap into. I am actually beginning to quite like what I am writing. Not great literature. Yet.

Daily haiku word count

over half way now
thirty three thousand seven
hundred and seventy

33770 yay!!!!!

Today's target

Yesterday I reached 29,073 words. Why did I stop there? Probably because I had run out of my daily ration of crap. Today I will reach, maybe pass, the 30,000 words barrier. I will. I will. I will. I will take crap to new unimaginable heights.

On target

27259 words of pure unadulterated rubbish so far!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nano count

Nano count now: 20380!

I just liked this

Weekly Haiku

Cyprus is greening
after a week of rainfall;
I can breathe again

Nano progress

I was up just after five am today. It went like a dream. Count now up to 17918 of which 4545 written today. Time for a siesta, I think. Of course it is all pretty dire, but so what. When you really let yourself go, it is quite an enjoyable experience. haven't dared read back though.

nano progress

SMUG
It got off to a cracking start, stalled, but is now getting back into gear. I think I've figured it out. just write. No matter how inane, out of context, inconsistant just write. Stay in the thread but worry about crafting, tying up details, refining thoughts later, much later.

So now have the grand total of 12033 words, 2287 of which were written today, with interruptions.

Feeling better as I'd dropped to under 1000 yesterday and was feeling disheartened.

Problems

Laptop is in hospital so am using husband's which is all in Greek. Which does strange things to text sometimes. Anyway I am struggling with the Nano write - I didn't think it would be easy but do you know how hard it is to even write rubbish?

So my postings might be a little thin over the next few weeks.

Or maybe this?

Enough for today

Well it poured out in a massive free write. 6803 words. probably most of them rubbish, hackneyed and confusing. I'm a bit scared to read it over. Later perhaps. Doubt very much if it will go on at this rate. This is newbie enthusiasm coupled with a relatively free day of distractions. Tomorrow life gets in the way.

Somebody posted this picture of Tennessee Williams - dressing gown, cigarette holder, and thoughful expression.

Something to aspire to, methinks.

Nano has started

Waited up until midnight my time last night to set off on this crazy journey for November. Being in Cyprus, I was one of the first on the Nano forum at the OU to start. I wrote a 1000 plus words and then went to bed. Have been tapping away this morning and while it is all pretty bad I have notched up nearly three thousand words.
I didn't do any planning or character research (what is that?) but will find out about my characters as I go.
I had in mind to do one vague idea that has been knocking around in my almost empty brain but found myself writing something quite different. Will it work? Can I sustain it for 50,000 plus words? Who knows but it is fun to try. Of course this is day one, only 29 to go.
Last night on the forum peeps were suggesting chocolate and ice cream as support. Foolishly I treated myself to a big bowl of Praline & Cream ice cream with lashings of passion fruit syrup - all that talk sucked me in. Big mistake, still feel decidedly sick and have a sour stomach this morning, but I'm writing through it.
Watch this space.

Daily Haiku - Empty

there are no more words
left to say or to inspire;
the pen has run out

Daily Haiku - Summer has gone

the air is cooler
out come the long-sleeved t-shirts
socks call from the drawer

Daily Haiku - Jacarandas

blue on blue; breathless

beauty and perfect balance

on dark skeletons

Daily Haiku - rain, finally

yesterday rain came
drowning dust hanging heavy
in the atmosphere

Jacarandas & Pretoria

Armed response

Pretoria at this time of year is a sea of flowering jacarandas - have never seen anything like it. Streets are carpeted with the fallen leaves, sidestreets are tunnels of hazy blue. It was one of the most glorious things I have ever seen.

The pictures above say the rest.

Daily Haiku-Return from South Africa

to come home safely;

left behind jacarandas,

Spring and constant fear

Daily Haiku - driving home

short trees, long shadows
evening light speaks of autumn;
still summer lingers

Haiku in response to Clancy's comment on the snail haiku

Daily Haiku - A gift

wild mushrooms freshly

picked, mottled, alien presence

fried to perfection

Daily Haiku - early morning gift

intense breathtaking

cactus blooms in the morning

have died by nightfall

Daily Haiku - Patience

the snail waits for rain

locked on the wall all summer:

dormant, motionless

Daily Haiku -seasons

two Springs grace Cyprus:
before the searing summer,
after the heat dies

Daily Haiku - up with the birds

luminous full moon
wanes in the western night as
sun dawns in the east

Daily Haiku - garden maintenance

pruned, shorn, trimmed and tamed
autumn garden naked as
schoolboy's new haircut

Daily Haiku - not a happy bunny

today the O.U.
have mucked me about no end
I am not happy

Daily Haiku - 2

the pale grey-green leaves

of the olive trees shimmer

in the winter sun

Daily Haiku - summer wanes

long days, shorter nights
the earth turns on its axis
long nights, shorter days

Yesterday's Daily Haiku

I posted this on the wrong blog yesterday. Duh!

Daily Haiku - still no rain



bearing promises
autumn clouds thunder but leave
with their empty threats

No Haiku, merely thoughts

Thinking it over I’ve come to the realisation that I am missing the mark on the Haiku thing. While it is a very elegant exercise to pick a subject, create three lines, each with the correct syllable count, and relatively easy, in itself the result is not enough. If I understand the Haiku correctly, there should also be a pivotal shift or denouement by the end. That I am not achieving. Also, this posting of a photo taken of said subject shows an utter lack of faith in my words and their ability to conjure a valid image/idea. Therefore, I need to put more time and thought into them and decide whether to stop posting the pictures.
Yesterday I had arranged to meet Rhay and Sandra at noon for coffee to ‘celebrate’, in Rhay’s words, a week of writing. More specifically to celebrate her epiphany about a basic fault she has finally cracked in her novel after struggling with it over four drafts. I decided to get to Costa Coffee early, to sit and observe and work on description exercises in public. However, I did something else. On the OU forums there has been some buzz about a New Scientist competition/call for a piece of flash fiction set a 100 years in the future. I am not a SF or Fantasy fan but reading over a couple of pieces brave people had offered for critique, I was struck by how clichéd and predictable and bizarre they were. I know that sounds a contraindication but what I mean is this: I do not believe 100 years into the future will mean crazy societal changes, weird names and total loss of how we live our lives today. There will be radical shifts, yes, but only in a way that regulates how we live. I do not believe there will be a shift to an unrecognizable and almost alien way of living from that which we have now. These changes will have seeped into our lives, almost passively and we will not be so aware of how our world has changed. People will still be called John, Mary, Poppy etc. Not Zorda, Kreetor or Torphid. Anyway, I had a small idea running in the back corridors of my brain. I sat down to write it, not as a piece of flash fiction, as it needed more to flesh it out, as an exercise to realise my thoughts. An hour and a half later, I had a rough, almost ready, short story of maybe 1000-1500 words. I rather liked it and I like the effort of trying to imagine known or old concepts differently so that they are at once familiar but slightly menacing or at the least worrying.

Daily Haiku - summer is over

the swallows have left

their nest above the front door

empty and silent

Daily Haiku

hills are draped with gold
trees still black as dying night
light changes focus

shadow-scapes of trees

fade from black into green life

as the dawn creeps in

Daily Haiku - The Eternal Triangle

cats fighting at dawn
two ginger males stake their claim
on Rocky, baby girl

Daily Haiku - the paradox of the bumble bee

bumble bee hovers
in the flowers hard at work
unaware of heft

Daily Haiku - After the rain

fingers of ash streak
the sky falling towards night
clouds backlit with gold

Daily Haiku

a September storm
around mid-afternoon swept
through and soon was gone

DAILY HAIKU

DAILY HAIKU

Yes I've started the course, to get ahead and it says to do a daily haiku.

So I shall.

ceramic red-tailed

bird sits in the summer sun

awaiting winter

The BRB has arrived.

Finally, today, delivered to my door. The big, more hefty, red book. Also four audio CDs, a study guide, and the dreaded Tutor Marked Assessment (TMA) book. Five TMAs and one End of Course Assessment (ECA). All challenging and exciting. So from not having anything crying to me for attention I now have these and the Stephen Fry poetry book An Ode Less Travelled. His book has mixed opinions but if nothing else it is an entertaining read.

Am listening to a BBC book club podcast with John Irving, writer of The World According to Garp. The podcasts are terrific ranging from international writers to Annie Proulx, Alice Walker, Sebastian Faulks, derek walcott and so many more. Bliss.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/wbc/

Unexpected

a box of old thoughts

unearthed in my autumn years

bring flowering ideas

Waiting

I'm waiting somewhat impatiently for the arrival of the course book, a big red book apparently, affectionately known as the BRB. Everyone else in the world seems to have got theirs except me.
To while away the time usefully, I am in the process of trawling all my notebooks, travel diaries and itinerent scraps of paper for random ideas, snippets of phrases, half written stories & articles, and am transcribing them into one large hardbacked book.
It is surprising and amazing to rediscover ideas going back ten or more years. Ideas which I have never used but have faithfully carted around the world in the belief I would use them one day. As I read and write, new thoughts spring forth, but what perplexes me most are the cryptic phrases which have no immediate resonance and I am left wondering what was in my head. Happily the words themselves are suggesting new things which I am including in brackets in order to distinguish the original thoughts from the new. Even trying to decipher my writing is launching new ideas.
It is a task which is making me extraordinarily happy.

Posting debate

On the OU forum, there now seems to be a debate about whether to post work which might be used during the course, as it could mean accusations of plagarism (from oneself?) and get into trouble with copyright issues (I wish!). But it is useful to put pieces out, because it feels like a personal declaration of taking myself seriously. Instead of keeping my scribbles close to my chest, I am taking the big step of opening out to anyone (no matter how few, or how related) to read.
So I will keep posting but perhaps with a more considered choice.

Not a Haiku

a miscounted line
mars my haiku as summer
refuses to fade

Yesterday's previous paltry attempt has too many syllables. Oh well...
Maybe this is better?


still blue pool ruffles
in a hot September wind
and autumn slips in

David Hockney

Hi Anna,
David Hockney (whose work I love) typically paints these intense summer blue pools. I felt the DH tag would shortcut the description of such a summer pool.
Thanks for your comments. This is fun.

Is this a Haiku?

David Hockney pool
September afternoon autumn
gusts pleat the surface

Where to start?

I get the drift from the A215 Creative writing forum that having a blog is A GOOD THING. I don't know but am willing to try anything that makes me write. So I need to start producing current pieces, as I'm pretty tired of my old stuff which has been in the pipeline for so long. I think that I need a fresh outlook so this is my attempt. The intention is to post something every day, no matter how small or inconsequential. That is the intention. Whether I do is another matter. Any way here is a picture of the most magical bookshop I've ever been in. It's in Paris, near Notre Dame and is called Shakespeare & Co. Tumbling books, steep narrow staircases, tight aisles, battered comfy chairs to sit and browse, sunlight spilling into the upstairs reading room and a cute cupboard for would be writers to bang out their masterpieces on an old red typewriter (or tripewriter as my mother used to call it).