In literary limbo? Find your footing with a haiku hike
Walk with nature, 17 syllables can awaken writer’s senses
As the sun’s rays penetrate the chilly fog of late winter and begin to warm the earth, now may be the time to reinvigorate your creative zest and resume your writing.
Now 13 months into the first draft of my first novel, I’d recently found myself at an impasse. The dreaded writer’s block mirrored the gray sky from which cold rains fell in mid-February here in the Carolinas. Gloom. No color in my prose. The white blank page a carbon copy of the snow that lingered in the Appalachian highlands.
On the final Tuesday of the month, the sun finally broke through the thick cloud cover, its tangerine rays reflecting off the sill of the window in my home office. I’d sat down to take part in the weekly Pen to Paper Live writing prompts conducted by the Charlotte Center for Literary Arts. The non-profit group’s mission is to celebrate the literary arts by educating and engaging writers and readers through classes, conversations and community.
Kathie Collins, a co-founder of the 5-year-old organization, led the morning class and her topic was a Haiku walk. Each of us 13 writers present via Zoom were encouraged to go spend 20 minutes outside and then come back and write an image-based poem.
