The Aquarium Photo, Pre-Haiga
Image taken 7 May 2017
Copyright Cara Hartley/Ornery Owl
text
if I never stop
how can I appreciate
these blue memories
notes
You are welcome to use both the original image and the Haiga, but please credit Cara Hartley/Ornery Owl and provide a link back to this blog.
For the snippet-sharing blogs, you can consider the poem to be the snippet. It is part of a WIP, so there is no buy link yet. You can read the forthcoming blather if you wish, or not. Whatever.
I don't always explain my poetry. But when I do...well, I do.
I selected the image and wrote the Senryu at 1:30 in the morning. I had been going and going and going all day the day before. I posted the Haiga for yesterday and the day before. Yes, despite my assertion in the entry for the 2nd, I did that.
After creating and posting the Haiga, I did a lot of writing on the story I will submit for the Reign of Fire anthology from Dragon Soul Press.
Here, don't say I never gave you anything. If you have a story with dragons or you want to write a dragon story between 3000 and 15,000 words by September 30, you too can submit your story. The details are here.
Along with those accomplishments, I also made meals and earned a $5 Amazon gift card by playing games on Just Play. If you want to know more about that, read this tawdry tweet.
When I was younger, I used to get scolded for being "lazy" and "flaky" because I had trouble focusing. Now I have this terrible drive to always be doing, doing, doing. It is very hard for me to stop. Relaxation is a difficult concept. There is asleep and there is awake, and when awake, I must do.
If something of the personality survives the death of the body, I will be an extremely restless spirit. Even in death, I will not stop. I will have places to go, and people to haunt.
No, ProWritingAid, it would not enhance the previous sentence's readability to change it to "I will have places to people to haunt." That doesn't make any damn sense at all.
As a child, I loved finding the beauty in the world. I loved to daydream. Both qualities were shamed out of me. I learned that being a daydreamer was a bad thing and that if I wasn't always doing; I was lazy.
Grammarly, I'm not even going to go there with why "if I wasn't always doing it" sounds really bad.
Anyway, that is my Haiga for today plus a whole bunch of blather. I hope you enjoyed some or all of it.
I have big plans for this year's Haiga collection. I am considering releasing the resulting book in print form and an e-book. I'm going to see how hard it would be to turn the images into coloring pages. My intention is to give teachers, including parents homeschooling their kids, permission to make as many copies as they need, however often they need.
I'm not even sure it's possible to print from a Kindle e-book other than to take a screenshot. I scoured my Kindle for PC app's commands and couldn't find anything. Maybe someone out there knows more than I do.
~Ornery Owl Has Spoken~
Free use image from Open Clipart Vectors
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Interesting glimpse into your process and approach to life!
ReplyDeleteThank you. :-)
DeleteYou have a kind heart--wanting to make your book printable for use with schoolchildren. And thanks for the heads-up about the dragon stories.
ReplyDeleteYour Haiga is, at first glance, simple enough...yet profound.
Thank you. I love doing brief poems. They force me to condense everything down to the most critical images and emotions.
DeleteThank you. For both the image, the words and for joining Sunday Selections again.
ReplyDeleteThank you. :-)
DeleteI enjoyed your post. Thanks for the words of explanation.
ReplyDeleteThanks for visiting. :-)
DeleteNice post, Cara. Relaxing and reflective. From what I recall, one of my critique partners' sister was thinking of doing a childrens book and found it's quite expensive to self-pub. I don't know anything about the genre so I can't give any advice there.
ReplyDeleteI'll either go through Amazon or sell it as a PDF on Payhip and/or Odysee. I've never done a paperback through Amazon, so I'll have to see how that shakes out.
DeleteI am like my character Robert in my book - I don't get poetry. I love the way poets make the words flow but the underlying meaning often eludes me. And I do agree with you on Grammarly and ProWriting Aid - often their suggestions are way off base. But they really weren't created for artistic writing.
ReplyDeleteI write poetry and I often don't feel like I get the meaning in other people's poems. I feel leery about saying anything other than I enjoyed the work because I don't want to risk pissing anyone off!
DeleteIsn't it odd that daydreaming is seen as a bad thing? I wonder why that started. And yet it seems to be one of the saddest losses in an adult. I love the 'I'll have people to haunt' line. HA!
ReplyDeleteWhile the practical is essential, life loses its beauty without imagination. I was always taught that the practical was more important.
DeleteI believe blue memories are worth revisiting. We can learn from the things that once caused us pain and discomfort.
ReplyDelete