My Writer's AHA Moment II

Last time I wrote about my writer's AHA moment. I simplified the process quite a bit. In truth, it takes more steps to revise my haiku and tanka. In addition to dissecting the poems into two parts, I look at more things, such as the word choice, the rhythm, the sentence structure, the word order, the connection of the two parts. Because I take these steps, I continue to enjoy the AHA moment. Not long ago, I got five tanka rejected. I dissected them one at a time and examined each poem for all the things I mentioned above and revised them accordingly. Aha, they got accepted by the other journals. The joy of discovery!

Here is a tanka of mine published in red lights, Vol. 9, No. 1, January 2013 with my own Chinese translation:

new citizenship . . .
a day of joy and sadness
wrapping myself
in the outfit of a cowgirl
do I look authentic?

新公民身份 . . .
一個悲喜交集的日子
穿上
一套牛女裝
我看來有真實感嗎?

Here is the link of Jane Reichhold's haiku book in English and Chinese American Haiku in Four Seasons, 1993 by Yilin Press, Nanjing, China.

American Haiku in Four Seasons

My Writer's AHA Moment

When we write, we like to talk about the reader's AHA moment. What about a writer's AHA moment? Here it is my writer's AHA moment. For writers, rejection is one side of the coin. No one will feel happy about it, but what can I do? Since writing plays, I have developed a "survivor's mechanism." Sending the manuscript out to other places right away? Well, yes and no. For my plays, yes. However, I don't do that for my haiku, haibun, and tanka unless I am sure they are really good. What do I do? First, I dissect the poems. For haiku, I first separate the fragment and the phrase and look at each part, checking the juxtaposition. Doing so, it comes my AHA moment--I see why the poem doesn't work. The same goes to tanka. Since a tanka has the upper verse and the lower verse, I separate them into two parts. "Aha," I say to myself. "I see why it got rejected." The process of dissecting is not joyful; the discovery is. Such is my writer's AHA moment.

Here is a tanka of mine published in Lynx XXXVII: 2 June, 2012, with my own Chinese translation.

autumn approaching
yellow leaves begin to fall--
back home
what fruits are in season now?
it's been so long since I left

秋即將來臨
黃葉開始凋落--
在故鄉
甚麼是現在當令的水果呢?
我離家巳這麼久了

Writing for a Prompt

There are two kinds of writers: those who can write for a prompt; those who have a hard time to do so. I belong to the latter. I write when an idea, an emotion, an event, an observation, or a piece of news hits me. Back in 2011, when I participated in the National Haiku Writing Month activity on Facebook, every day, I posted a haiku unprompted. I seldom followed the prompt given by an established haiku poet. However, I did write for themes for a couple of times, such as "the unspeakable body", a special feature of Atlas Poetica, a tanka journal. I did that because the themes had a very broad base and also I could take my time to ponder and better yet I could write up to ten poems. Happily, one of my tanka was accepted for publication for this special feature. Imagine how many parts and organs a body has that I can writer about! I think I can write for prompts only when I can take time to write and feel strongly about. That's right, when I feel strongly about something, I can write for a prompt for that thing.

Here is my first published haiku in English and in its Chinese translation done by myself. It appeared in Notes from the Gean 3:1 June, 2011. At the time Lorin Ford was the haiku editor of the journal. The publication gave me huge encouragement.

my childhood dreams--
steam from the wok
evaporating


我的童年夢--
水蒸氣從鑊裏
消失了

Here is my haibun entitled "Another Era" in Haibun Today, Volume 7, Number 1, March 2013:

Haibun Today

Writing from the Soul

Last time I wrote about writing from the heart. Afterwards, I ran into a short article in a writing magazine about writing from the soul and found it interesting. We writers all write from something, don't we? From our experiences, from research, from observation, from imagination, from inspiration, from what we know, from what we feel strongly about, from the heart, and from the soul. The list goes on. No matter from what we write, we need to write with emotion. Emotion is what draws the reader into your writing. Emotion is what resonates with the reader who may or may not share your experience. That said, I would like to claify what I mean emotion. It is certainly not sentimentality. Writing with emotion rids our writing from objective reporting like a camera. Certain degree of objectivity is fine but not for the whole piece. I have learned it the hard way.

With more and more publications of my haiku, haibun, and tanka, I will update my blog at least twice a month to showcase my current status of a haiku poet, tanka poet, and haibun poet. Since I got my first haiku published in June, 2011, I have had more than a hundred (100) of haiku, haibun, and tanka appeared in twenty-two (22) international online and print journals and three anthologies, one is forthcoming. I am grateful to all the editors for having selected my work for their journals. Some of them are willing to work with me to polish my poems for publication. I am blessed.

Beginning this month, I will post one published haiku or tanka of mine with Chinese translation done by myself. This is one of my ways to say "Thank You" to my mother.

Mother's Day
my haiku tribute
to the one
who changed
the color of my sky

(A Hundred Gourds 1:3, June, 2012)

母親節
我的俳句禮物
給一個人
她改變了
我天空的顏色

(traditional Chinese)

Writing from the Heart

We writers want to see our work published either in online or print journals. Before we get there, we need to write good poems, stories, essays. And, the joy of publication does not end in being read by people but in how it will take us: One thing leads to another. It happens to me with my poems. Four of my tanka have been selected for publication in Robert Epstein's new anthology Now This: Contemporary Poems of Beinnings, Renewals, and Firsts which will come out soon. How did I get the invitation from the editor? He liked one of my tanka published in Bottle Rockets #28 and contacted me. One thing leads to another.

Another bit of good news excites me further. I am one of the two winners of the 2012 Jerry Kilbride Memorial English-Language Haibun Contest. Yvonne Cabalona the Contest Coordinator is generous with her kind words. In the notificaion she wrote: " . . . In our very mobile society, there is always that longing for home, isn't there? That emotion resonates with all of us. . . ." My haibun that has won the second place touches on a universal theme that people of different cultures and backgrounds can relate to.

We don't have to strive to write to win. If we write from the heart, the writing itself will resonate with the reader. Our writing will shine.

Reflection, Reflection

How was your 2012? Mine was quite good for me as a writer. My Japanese short poetry was doing much better than I had expected. I even had enough published poems--haiku, haibun, tanka--altogether seventy-seven of them (dated from June, 2011 to October, 2012)--to be compiled into a Christmas gift book for friends. Something that I had never thought about at the beginning of this year.

As I am feeling stronger, in spite of the fact that I still don't feel one hundred percent back, I can plan ahead as I normally did in the past before my hospitalization. For two years, 2010-2012, I simply did whatever I felt up to doing when it came to writing. Now I can at least have a vision for my writing career.

Looking back, I am grateful that some editors are willing to work with me on my work to make my poems better; meanwhile, I have learned some things to improve my own writing. Help from editors is as important as the support from people who like my writing. When I come across such editors, I count my blessings.

Interestingly, my first published haibun Gifts in A Hundred Gourds (December, 2011) was about my mother to whom I am tremendously indebted. And my first published tanka also in A Hundred Gourds (December, 2011) was about my first day in America. It is as follows:

the first day
in my sponsor's backyard
I sought a four-leaf clover
but instead
I picked the dandlelion

It's been over two decades, I still remember that morning!

Stagnant Dialogue

Why do I use "stagnant" for dialogue, but not "dull," or "inactive," or "liveless"?  Because as you can imagine what happens to a pool of stagnant water--it does not flow, and worse, it stinks. As you can see, stagnant dialogue is dull, inactive, and liveless, and worse, it stifles the scene, not to mention moving the whole story forward.

Dialogue frustrated me the most when I was at graduate school learning how to write plays. as you know, dialogue is the essence, the most important building block, of a play. It took me lots of time and energy to read well-established playwrights' work, especially those who were praised for their snappy dialogue. At the time I didn't quite get what it meant. Now I fully understand what it is.

In novels, dialogue plays an important part, too. If the dialogue is stagnant, the scene will become dull and eventually will drag the story down; and you know what the reader will do when this happens--she will close the book and never return to it. Well, you will probably say, wait a minute, there are various factors that make the reader stop reading the book. True. Here is my point: every element in a novel has to be heeded. If you read a page full of talking heads whose speeches do not go anywhere, will you continue to read the novel? I won't.