ON ANTIHISTAMINES AND HAIKUS.



         In the two months I’ve been blogging (and I still consider myself a newbie) I’ve kept to my  schedule of posting twice a week,  except this week when I’m only managing it the once. Strangely enough I feel as if I’ve let myself down, but when I’m in doubt I do my best to take the advice I give to others, which is – don’t ever give up. You absolutely have to keep trying, because even if you don’t accomplish everything you aim for, by making an effort you’re closer to your goal than you were, and, most important – if you don’t try, then for sure you’ll never achieve that goal. 

            My posts are usually about writing but today I’m deviating which reflects what’s been happening to some extent with me this week. 

As antihistamine is first in the title, I’ll start there.

I didn’t develop any hay fever symptoms until I was an adult when one year, while in France, I found my eyelids swollen to the size of small melons and my nose had become a permanently leaking tap that experienced volcanic eruptions at unbelievable frequencies. Apparently the culprits were the marigolds from the garden where we were staying, which I’d picked and put in cute little vases everywhere. A homeopathic remedy sorted me out and I was free from hay-fever until three years ago when it started up again – and not a marigold in sight.

            So last week I bought some allopathic medicine, which apart from treating the hay fever also induced a coma like trance that left me without the ability to think. So after a couple of days of drug induced dementia I changed brands and am beginning to feel like myself again. 

Last weekend, having completed four chapters of the second edit of my novel, I took a break to work on my haiku. Feedback had been good but I was getting jittery about putting Haiku Galore out there. I went online and found a wonderful site about writing haiku which, while educational, left me more confused about the rules than before. For example: rule 49. All words in lower case; rule 50. All words in upper case. But let me clarify, this list is called ‘Haiku Rules That Have Come And Gone. Take Your Pick.’ Deciding which rules I’m going to adopt – or throw out - knotted me up and I'm now bewildered as well as despondent. But for the moment I’ve left this issue stewing away on the back boiler.

             I also found two lovely books of modern haiku by Scottish poet Alan Spence and my enthusiasm for the form bounced back. Alan doesn’t follow any one particular syllabic pattern and focuses on the content.  So while the novel editing is slow at the moment - it has taken me three days to finish one chapter so there’ll be no quickies with poetry this Sunday - my peripheral thinking is taken up with haiku. Part of my brain (maybe the section not clear of chemicals) is still in a space that’s engaged with creating images and the combination/juxtaposition of those images. I'm fascinated by the transformation of visual images into a form that while exercising my powers of minimalism results in opening up and expanding the imagination.

This week's senryu 
THE SUPERMARKET
Savings! Three for two -
smorgasbord of edible
delights - but I'm broke.

I want to thank all the bloggers who’ve posted recently. You've kept my enthusiasm going during this week's brain vacation and I’m getting a lot out of them – there was even one about haikus! Yeah!

I’ve been featuring ROADS TAKEN by M. Joaquim sold as an ebook at the Amazon Kindle Store. This is now available for a free download from Saturday April 13th to Wednesday April 17th.  It’s a great first collection of short stories – my advice – download it and give it a read. What have you got to lose? Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/
 

And the link to the course in writing haikus:

The two books of haiku poems by Alan Spence which I’m reading are Seasons of the Heart and Clear Light, but he has published others as well as several longer pieces of work. Here’s a link to his site:
www.alanspence.co.uk/

For all book lovers out there, I wish you good reading and for those of you who write, good writing.
 

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