I’ve been itching to get a bit creative for quite a while. Specifically, I’ve wanted to craft poetry about Japan, but kept talking myself out of it. Poetry and I work well together in private, in scribbles on notebooks on the way to work, with a few selective moments here and there to share with friends. Putting poetry out there for the world to see scares me more than a little bit.
But I want to attempt something small to work my way up to something big. See, I have wanted to be a novelist since I was eleven years old. Hell, I even wrote a massively terrible romance novella when I was in seventh grade. After all these years, it’s finally time to get the finished things published and out there.
Still, I keep getting these haunting voices from past English teachers that I need “more” all the time. More editing, better vocabulary, more humor! In middle school and high school, I never really felt supported by my teachers with my creative endeavors. I was actually accused of not taking my work seriously, which hurt and once again made me really not want to show my work. I was never an English class darling, even though I adored all my English classes.
Funny thing is, I can’t NOT write. I just keep doing it anyway, all the time. I have hundreds of notebooks just sitting around with half-formed ideas and plot lines. In university, I met a lot of like minded people, other English majors who were similar in their drive for writing. I managed to publish some poetry and get my work recognized, but then I moved to Japan.
Even here, I still write all the time! I just get so nervous about sharing it. I’m a terrible critic of my own works. However, I know if I want to achieve my goal I can’t just keep waffling. This series is basically a compromise on my nerves and on trying to achieve my long term goals.
For now, I’m limiting myself to a poem a day for only seven days. I might make poetry a regular occurrence maybe on a specific day if I find I enjoy it, but if not then I’ll just have this one series. Also, if you all enjoy it then I might be more inclined to keep going. If it’s not well received, then I suppose lesson learned.
The first work will follow shortly after this post. I hope you enjoy it and my work!
From Kentucky to Tokyo 