Haiku progresses

Jonathon's girlfriend Eri has agreed to translate my haiku book, which is sugoi. We will be meeting up in the next few weeks to talk about it. In the meantime I am planning the book itself- it will be written in romanji with kanji inserted as an object. I am not sure about the actual construction of the book itself, but have faith I can make it happen. The overriding issue now of course is what to name my self-publishing press.

Dubious pickles

The pickles are shriveling up in their jar. Perhaps there is a reason the recipe called for white vinegar and actual measurements of the ingredients. I have not yet given up hope however.

Booklust

My Independent Bookseller Wishlist
Snow by Orham Pamuk
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
Pearls in Vinegar by Heather Mallick
Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland
Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford
A Natural Curiousity by Margaret Drabble
The Gates of Ivory by Margaret Drabble
Out of the Girls Room and Into the Night by Thisbe Nissen
Osprey Island by Thisbe Nissen
Travelling Mercies by Lorna Goodison
Brick Lane by Monica Ali
Whylah Falls by George Elliott Clarke

Pickle Me This

I may have a translator for my haiku project! Will get a definite response in the next few days but it looks positive. And so am fretting madly with the technical problems of book building. In novel news, Business Kevin hit 40,000 words this week but I am suffering from a realistic fear that it's rubbish.

Are pickles supposed to float?

The humble beginning of the Pickle Me This corporation (soon to be taking over a world near you!)

Hobby Update

I spent the weekend with my friend Becky, who is an enthusiastic hobbiest. We got to talking and it was productive conversation. I have decided to take up pickling. Also to add pockets to my scarf, for hands or things I am not yet sure.

Now Reading

Now Reading was originally going to be mine and Bronwyn's World Famous Webzine, but Bronwyn suffers from that oft-inhibiting perfectionism and so it's been a solo effort for the most part. Just reviews of various print-of-note I have come across.

Business Kevin

Business Kevin is the novel I have been writing for a year now. Kevin is a character concocted from the collective mind of Stuart and I when we once took the train to Lancashire and sat across from a pimply kid in a suit. He was sitting with an older man in a suit who we assumed to be a boss of some kind, and they proceed to analyse graphs and numbers on a laptop computer for two hours. What a desparate way to spend an afternoon, and we vowed to never become him and Stuart named him Business Kevin. This character morphed with a similarly aged boy in a suit who took the Yellow Bus line with me in Nottingham from Sherwood Rise into town. He was the best dressed boy in town, but we realised wore his suit into town on a Saturday which meant he probably worked at Car Phone Warehouse and that was terrible. Anyway, Kevin developed a host of imaginary associates including his paraplegic porn star father Frankie, his mother Delores who is the lesbian owner of a garden centre and his girlfriend, the Diana Princess of Wales devotee Amanda Almond. Kevin grows slowly. He is just about 40 000 words long and had a long hiatus while I went through a summertime non-fiction obsession. However he has just lost his virginity, Princess Diana is just about to die, and so things are really really getting good.

The Haiku Project

I became interested in haiku when I moved to Japan and began to write my own. This infuriated the Japanese, who didn't believe haiku could be English and they were sort of right. I concede that they aren't real haiku but that haiku are a really interesting and important form of poetry.
Haiku are traditionally 17 Japanese syllables, with a seasonal reference as an anchor. English, having broken all the rules from the get-go, are more flexible and often have fewer than 17 syllables, as English takes less to say the same as Japanese. Haiku are very concrete, do not personify, are about nature and capture an action in its instant. Haiku are the snapshots of poetry, and are an interesting challenge to the more verbose among us.
My haiku project is to self-publish a small book of my haiku with their Japanese translations. The challenge of finding an appropriately bilingual translator lies ahead, and the challenge of printing Japanese letters and working with quite limited resources (the photocopier at the local 7-11 mainly). However I am looking forward to the result!

The beginning of my garish scarf- or muffler as they say in these parts. The wool is cheap, but the needles are bamboo! 

Here is my poncho, minus the badly-sewn shoulder seams. Not being a perfectionist can seriously flaw one's knitting results.  

Blogging what you are now doing is the best way to avoid doing anything!

Stay tuned for an on-line gallery featuring my various hobbies, projects, and obsessions.