Keeping a journal doesn’t mean writing 300 perfect words a day. Instead, keep a journal to track what’s going on in your life. In this case, I took a walk in the early evening and discovered
the late winter moon with Venus directly below. It looked like Venus had slipped out of the tiny moon cup.
A haiku seemed to be the best way to describe this seasonal vignette. I’d forgotten the format of a haiku, but remembered it had a kigo, or seasonal word within the three lines. There are three lines, of 5, 7, 5 syllables. I scribbled that down.
Then I played with watercolor on paper and discovered that if you just wet one side, the paint runs. You can see the darker paint on the left side. Answer? Wet both side of the paper.
I tried out several different pen thicknesses and colors, painted some silver paint on the card for the cut-out moon, added a dot of gold paint for Venus, and wrote the haiku on the card.
It’s a good way to remember the evening, but also a nice exercise in writing a structured poem.
The pencil writing on the right describes the steps, so I’ll remember the process to compare to other writing experiments. Is the card perfect? No. Does that matter? No, again. But I learned a good deal from the exercise. The haiku reads:
“The winter sun sinks–
New moon’s cup of light can’t hold
Venus, she spills into night.”
–(c)2007 Quinn McDonald. All rights reserved. Quinn is a writer, artist and creativity coach. See her work at QuinnCreative.com
