I challenge you to…
The Hemingway Challenge!

He came. He conquered. She survived.- shamash

Writing with ruthless economy is an art that few master. Is it any wonder that MacBeth is one of the Englishman’s most powerful plays? Or that Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hydge is one of Stevenson’s most famous works?

Although, I don’t know if I would call it ‘Thinking smaller,’ especially with you as the author. Writing clear, crisp prose is difficult. That is why writing a 5 page paper on any subject is twice as difficult as a ten page paper.

Conveying a thought or idea in a clear, concise manner is more powerful and more beautful than a dozen lines of gaudy metaphore and simile.

Sometimes eyes are just blue, not “deep, azure, like the Adriatic on a tempestuous day.”

Well, you know what I mean. I’m sure one idea in your capable hands is no small thought.

Lazy Ichi,

lmao! Oh that’s hysterical.

The Hemingway Challenge huh? Hmmmm, let’s see what I can come up with.

She posted. They commented. She replied. - aoki

HA!

nina

On Edit: Hmmm, I think I like this one better…

That has a stronger ending!

poetry is good discipline for thinking “smaller.”

I can imagine a time when geishaland
evolves into a haiku-a-day.

in the meantime, here’s an offering, a little longer
on the eve of the sox’ home opener:

“Assignment #1: Write a poem about Baseball and God”

And on the ninth day, God
In His infinite playfulness
Grass green grass, sky blue sky,
Separated the infield from the outfield,
Formed a skin of clay,
Assigned bases of safety
On cardinal points of the compass
Circling the mountain of deliverance,
Fashioned a wandering moon
From a horse, a string and a gum tree,
Tempered weapons of ash,
Made gloves from the golden skin of sacrificial bulls,
Set stars alight in the Milky Way,
Divided the descendants of Cain and Abel into contenders,
Declared time out, time in, stepped back,
And thundered over all of creation:
“Play ball!”

by Philip E. Burnham, Jr. from Housekeeping: Poems Out of the Ordinary.
© Ibbetson Street Press, 2005.

p.s.
speaking of “smaller,” does geek girl know about this: http://twitter.com/redsoxcast ?

Piper,

Oh I would agree with you on the ideas of the ‘ruthless economy’ of words, tho I’ve never been much good at mastering that, but then again, I’ve never really tried to either, and that’s more to the point of what I’m talking about here — the idea of imposing a personal discipline on my work here in keeping my ideas tighter, not so much on trying to redefine my writing style, which is probably a losing proposition to begin with!

I would also agree with you in that sometimes eyes are just blue - and that ‘metaphor’ can be grossly overused. Tho, to use a metaphor — I myself have love affair with the art of metaphor, and use it liberally.

Perhaps thinking different is the wrong way to term it? What I’m striving for is to write my posts in such a way that I stick with one idea, and write that one idea in the best way that “I” can, in my own voice and in my own way — rather than having posts with multiple ideas scattered all over the place which run on forever and ever. So perhaps it’s the economy of posting that I’m really going for here.

And yes, I do know what you mean and I thank you for such lovely thoughts and ideas you’ve been so kind to share with me.

nina

larokkaku,

Oh yes, I’d agree with that — and I love the ‘form’ of haiku too! Tho, I have to work at it, and I think the reason why I’ve never really written a lot of poetry, especially haiku, is because I tend to let my ideas flow all over the place when I write. Tho I doubt that geishaland will ever go all haiku!

Yes, I have a lot of water in me.

I think the best analogy I have for my writing is that it’s very much like the little girl sitting with her coloring book and crayons who simply refuses to color within the lines on the page because she’s having too much fun drawing pictures everywhere else!

Oh wow! Thanks for the poem! I love it! Yes, Opening Day at Fenway Park! Always a very deep and religious day in the City of Boston!

Thanks for the twitter link - no, I did not know about it. Tho twitter has been one of those things that I filed away in the back of my mind that I’ve always meant to get back to but haven’t yet. But thank you, I’ve bookmarked it and will put it in my ‘to look at’ queue! It looks pretty cool.

I’ve been playing with a few different plugins to try and add some more functionality to my site. I was playing with a GoogleTalk plugin over the weekend, and I can get it to work, but because I have three columns here and my sidebars are narrow, the widget just doesn’t want to fit properly, and I’m pretty militant with my minimalist Japanese aesthetic discipline sort of way that if it isn’t perfect, or doesn’t fit perfectly, it doesn’t show up here!

nina

home opener moon
baseball poems across the bed
dreams are sliding in.

http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/bat_ball_poetry/

larokkaku,

Very nice! Hmmm, okay — let’s see here.

Haiku: Three lines; first line 5 syllables, second line seven syllables, last line five syllables.

Let me get back to you… it’s early and I need to do some real work first!

nina

love the picture of the little girl with her crayons.

also like your devotion to metaphor, especially elemental ones. “full of water,” eh? try deepa mehta’s sorely underrated film of the same name, “water.” or one of my all-time favorite documentaries, “rivers & tides, andy goldsworthy working with time,” about the ravishingly beautiful work of this scottish elemental sculptor.

and let’s give manchester punk poet john cooper clarke the last word on haiku, shall we:

to express oneself
in seventeen syllables
is very diffic

larokkaku,

Well, it’s an apt metaphor for me and how I work! My use and love of metaphor is very much the root of my writing — and yes, those elemental things are powerful descriptors of personality. Water, Fire, Earth, Air… human beings can very often be understood in these terms. Me? I’m water. Born under the star sign of Cancer and very much influenced by the water elemental.

lmao! That’s a funny take on haiku. 17 syllables would never be enough!

nina

that’s the thing about haiku.
it can drive you crazy.
for example, if I had written
“dreams come sliding in,”
it would have been sooo much better.
trouble is, it took me hours
to figure that out.

when you only have seventeen,
each one is essential.
hence, the beauty…
…and the torment.

I’m “water,” too
(maybe that explains the attraction).
I’ve learned I must live near water,
especially rivers, or I become spiritually bereft.

flow on…

larokkaku,

Oh wow! Interesting! Yes, I’ve always had a profound connection to water as well. Love the beach, love running rivers, or even still reflecting pools. They all ’speak’ to me, kwim?

Could be the Cancer thing, or maybe because my Father was a career US Naval officer and we always lived near the ocean, or maybe that’s just the way it is!

I understand about the haiku. I’m sure I’ll find some time to write one soon!

nina

[...] of course rules to this internet meme, tho not like the rules of Haiku as discussed with larokkaku here, nor like The Hemingway Challenge thrown down before me by my International Man of Mystery Lazy [...]

[...] by nature is an interactive endeavor – most simply defined as I responded to Lazy Ichi here with his Hemingway Challenge: She posted. They commented. She [...]

It’s not the writing of course that’s difficult, but the editing. And I am going to take the cranky and unpopular position that no one seems able to intelligently edit him- or herself as a result of our system of education having moved from the stance of learning to the stance of “enhancing self-esteem.”

The better one feels about one’s self the more difficult it is to kill off even a single precious word, especially when those words are expressing one’s emotions.

While the emphasis on self-esteem has had some positive effects, it has also installed a lazy thought process in many of us.

Hi Lenora!

These are actually really great points. As a mother of a teenage son - I often have to deal with a sub-standard school system and an ideology that “everyone is special” - not only do they not learn how to edit, or write, or even use critical thinking skills - they don’t understand failure. I wrote here that failure is often essential to learning.

I mean, some of us learned how to read by learning phonics! Phonics aren’t even taught in public schools anymore.

Perhaps too, this culture of ours where “everyone” has a blog, or a MySpace page or some personal place of affirmation where they can revel in their own uniqueness, is encouraging this emphasis on self esteem. Not that we shouldn’t feel good about ourselves, but I think we’ve drifted too far into a world of manufactured happiness and are a bunch of Paxil-ized feel good zombies — we’ve simply erased the idea that sometimes our every little “feeling” just doesn’t matter in the big picture.

Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts with me too. It’s always appreciated.

nina

[...] way of looking at this; the ideas I raised here about Thinking Smaller have also allowed me to maintain the discipline of my thoughts and ideas – [...]

[...] change for me here in geishaland sometime around the end of March.  It was then when I decided to Think Smaller, and it was also when I cast off all the psychological baggage which I’d been hauling around [...]