The prompt words really attracted me to Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge this week…. (It’s a long time since I’ve joined in as I have been so busy!) as they relate beautifully to my manuscript – The Curse of Time, which I am close to finishing! I’m doing what I hope are the final edits – you never know if it is truly completed until you send it to your betas/editors!
I’ve written two haiku and used Canva to make them visually pleasing. The second one is using my own photograph of a nasty looking shadow!
To understand a little of what the following haiku is about I urge you to read a piece of writing that I enjoyed doing some time ago, when my bubble bath took on a bit of an extraordinary form that grew and grew into a swirling mass of monster imagination….
My theme for the following haiku….. is to continue this preposterous fun.
Thereafter, I will be writing a piece of flash fiction about the Bubbly Snowman for Solveig Werner’s Advent Calendar on the 24th of December so keep a look out for that on Solveig Werner blog. I’m hoping that the snowman might just melt your heart…
As well as this I am joining in with Ronovan’s suggestion to add photos to this post. This is in conjunction with the 52 day Photo Challenge – Extra – The Aran Artisan Photo Challenge– I’ve been baking my Christmas cake – which I’ll be adding extra sherry to!!! and lots of nuts, fruit, glace cherries,….. yum! The recipe is via Natalie at There She Goes. Thanks Natalie for the awesome recipe, it looks like it’s turned out well…
The mix …
The cake… turned out heavenly, in fact I could still smell the wonderful Christmassy aroma well into the evening.
So on to those 1st of December promised haiku Snowman kisses…
Ha ha!!! Yes I did say it was going to be preposterous and I wasn’t joking. Well why not? Life is too short to be too serious!
Hope you enjoyed my silly haiku. I enjoyed writing it.
Stay tuned…… Kyrosmagica is planning on inviting you all to my Christmas party on this blog on Sunday 18th of December when you can pop by for a bit of virtual ice skating, and to share your news and your lovely links.
This week Ronovan’s prompt words are Vast and Clear let’s see, what can I come up with…. tricky… I’m feeling melancholy today, not a usual state for me, but one that often follows the aftermath of all the Christmas festivities. I tend to be prone to a large dollop of the New Year blues!
Instead of fighting against this like I usually do I thought it might be interesting to try to focus on this sense of sadness and despair because like an actor, an author has to get into role and use feelings to good effect!
I intend to utilise this in some of my New Year writing so please do forgive the less humorous approach! Kyrosmagica blog is all about the lightness and darkness in life, in my experience both go hand in hand, and the interplay between the two fascinate me.
I’ve called my miserable haiku Nothing New, Kills Me.
I made a mistake when writing this I thought the prompt words were vast and new instead of vast and clear so apologies Ronovan, I’ve edited most of the haikus with the word clear!!
Hope you liked the angst laden haiku! I feel a lot better, writing sad haiku is so therapeutic… enough melodrama for one day, now it’s time to do the washing…
This week for Ronovan Writes Haiku Prompt Challenge I’m going to share with you some photos of myself and my family that I took on the 1st of January just before the fireworks were scheduled to be set off the award winning pier at Cromer. If you managed to see my previous post you will have seen that we are taking a short New Year’s break in Cromer. https://mjmallon.com/2015/12/31/happy-new-year-2/
The photo above is of one of the finale fireworks, isn’t it absolutely wonderful?
Here we are huddled together trying to keep warm, we stopped for a quick hot chocolate, just before the display.
The fireworks were spectacular, and my only regret is that I didn’t have a good enough camera to do justice to their beauty but nevertheless here they are in all their wonderment:
I just loved how this one turned out, to me it looks like a pretty present with a sparkling lid, and the one immediately after it resembles some kind of beautiful sea creature.
And this particular fellow is an explosion of flowers.
And this the biggest fizzing lollipop you are ever going to see!
As to this one, it looks like a giant creepy crawly to me!! What do you reckon?
They were all so amazing that they inspired me to write a haiku with them in mind:
A New Year Divine
A New Year divine,
So sublime the heavens smile!
Fireworks in motion.
Followed by a Tanka:
A pretty present
All wrapped in shimmering light
Perhaps it is real?
A momentary delight
Sending our senses reeling.
A tanka consists of 5 lines and 31 syllables.
Each line has a set number of syllables see below:
Ah, Ronovan you have me well and truly stumped this week. Whatever can I write about using the prompt words cake and wolf? A difficult combination, this calls for a bit of wolfish humour and gluttony methinks……
Somehow I can see a wolf turning up at a fancy dress party in a cake costume…. Could be a shocker.. A party with a creamy strawberry, mousse, santa bite! Look at those eyes, it’s a dead giveaway. Okay, that’s totally daft, a cake wolf a la mousse, but that’s alright because it’s cute and cute works for me… especially combined with contrasting nasty Mr. Wolf.
For this week’s Haiku Challenge Ronovan has suggested two words beginning with the letter C that kind of sound like each other….. the letter C sounds like Sea, so, let me tell you all about my long love affair with the sea!!
From a very young age I have always loved the sea, always will, there is something about the sea that makes me very contented and joyful, so this haiku is to celebrate the sea, in all its strength and vitality. Of course sometimes the sea has a dark side too and can be a destructive, violent force, claiming lives in great tragedies but it is also a source of great joy, perhaps that is why I love the sea so much, you never can begin to imagine what the sea is thinking, and you must always, always respect its power and majesty. So this haiku is my post for Ronovan’s #BeWoW, which sets out to: (“Be Writing on Wednesday to Be Wonderful on Wednesday and make the world a better place to visit.”) For this #BeWoW I’d like to celebrate the world around us, and the beauty that lives in the deep oceans of our world: https://ronovanwrites.wordpress.com/category/bewow-2/
I’d like to shout out about this fabulous quote about the sea:
(The above photo was taken in Portugal, on a family holiday.)
“There was a magic about the sea. People were drawn to it. People wanted to love by it, swim in it, play in it, look at it. It was a living thing that was as unpredictable as a great stage actor: it could be calm and welcoming, opening its arms to embrace it’s audience one moment, but then could explode with its stormy tempers, flinging people around, wanting them out, attacking coastlines, breaking down islands. It had a playful side too, as it enjoyed the crowd, tossed the children about, knocked lilos over, tipped over windsurfers, occasionally gave sailors helping hands; all done with a secret little chuckle”
― Cecelia Ahern, The Gift
Cecelia Ahern was born on September 30, 1981 in Dublin, Ireland. She is the daughter of the former Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. On 14th December 2009 it was announced that Cecelia had given birth to her first child with partner David Keoghan, a girl named Robin. She was secretly married on 11 June 2010 in County Kildare, Ireland. Her older sister, Georgina Ahern is married to Nicky Byrne of Irish pop group Westlife. Cecelia was a member of the Irish pop group Shimma who finished third in the Irish national for the Eurovision Song Contest in 2000. She attended Griffith College Dublin and obtained a degree in Journalism and Media Communications.
Cecelia Ahern wrote her first novel, PS. I Love You when she was twenty-one. It was published in 2004, the number 1 bestseller in Ireland for 19 weeks and sold in over forty countries. The book was adapted as a motion picture directed by Richard LaGravenese and starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler and released in 2007 in the United States.
Her second book, Where Rainbows End (US title: Love, Rosie or Rosie Dunne) won the German CORINE Award in 2005. She contributed with short stories to charity books and is also the co-creator and producer of the ABC comedy Samantha Who?.
Her other works include If You Could See Me Now (US title: A Silver Lining), A Place Called Here (US title: There’s No Place Like Here) Thanks for the Memories (US title: Desire Lines) The Gift The Book of Tomorrow.
Hope you enjoyed my post, celebrating the sea in all its wonder, bye for now,
Isn’t this pretty? Really like this prompt photo Ron, very nice indeed. Love the orange leaves against the grey – very striking.
This week’s prompt words for Ron’s Weekly Haiku Challenge are Start and Hot, and boy did these two words give me trouble, I just wasn’t feeling it. My haiku engine wasn’t starting, it was at a dead stand still believe me. In fact it protested like an old uncharged car battery on a freezing cold snowy day. I was stumped and practically gave up. You nearly had me throwing in the towel Ron, but I kept on at it, played with words, and fiddled about until I came up with these two haikus: Hot Rave Drug Murder and Tsunami of Tears. Not particularly cheerful haiku this week, I’m sorry to say, but at least I get full marks for being determined!!
Hot Rave Drug Murder
A cliff hanger start
The final chapter shocker
Hot Rave Drug Murder
It reads as:
A cliffhanger start the final chapter shocker.
The final chapter shocker hot rave drug murder
Then after muddling through that first haiku I came up with this:
Tsunami of Tears
Start running, death calls
Hot, still sand surrenders souls
Tsunami of tears
It reads as:
Start running death calls hot still sand surrenders souls.
So what’s Ronovan got tucked up his sleeve this week? The prompt words Five and Thrive are a rhyming pair these two words suggest youthfulness, and doing well – all in all a very positive way to go.
Maya Angelou’s wonderful quote and Ron’s prompt words bring to mind thoughts about a daughter of a family friend of mine who has been through multiple operations dating back to when she was just a baby. She’s such a brave girl, in all the time I’ve known her she has never complained about what she has had to go through. Sophie is now sweet sixteen, and an inspiration to us all, her positivity is truly a credit to her and her family. This first haiku is a special get well wish for this lovely lass who is currently in hospital after undergoing surgery. We wish her the very best, a speedy recovery and much fun and laughter in her life, she truly deserves it. xx
For Sophie
You’re five times braver
This haiku is for you
Thrive reach that summit
I’m certain you’ll thrive
Your five special qualities
Will always shine through
Positivity,
Braveness, strength of character,
Your love of life too.
(The final three lines aren’t using the prompt words
but they just seemed to fit so well……………)
So, with this positivity in mind let’s find five fun things to do:
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