Getting "Hai"
As with most words, the Japanese word “hai” has more than one connotation. But, arguably the most common is simply: yes. However, one of its other intriguing uses can be to show interest. Think of the way you interject when someone else is telling a story to show you are engaged. You might say “yes!” or “go on” etc. Hai, as I understand it, can be used that way in Japanese.
When I heard about this use of hai, I immediately thought about improv.
Now, I haven’t extensively studied improv, but from the workshops I have intended, I have come to understand that an important tenet of improv is the concept of: “yes, and”. So when someone sets a scene, your duty, when you join, is to “yes, and” the situation. How can you extend the scenario?
You can take this tidbit and start thinking about the concept of “yes, and” in regards to what brought you here: place and/or setting (or some other aspect of what you are creatively working on) OR we can take it one more step and explore the “hai” as it has been used with several written forms and how these forms can have you thinking about how to “yes, and” with place.
Haiku
You’ve probably been asked at some point to write a haiku. Perhaps in elementary school you counted the pattern of syllables to make lines of 5 - 7 - 5, but how many of us were taught (or remember) much else about haiku? There are a lot of resources out there but here is one article from poets.org. For our purposes here, thinking about place, I want you to consider the idea of haiku referring to a specific time/season as an essential element. Now take the inspiration that brought you here and place it firmly within a specific bit of space-time. How does this affect what you want to write about or create? Does it change what kind of home your characters live in? Does it expand an essay you were considering about family holiday traditions? How can you “yes, and” your initial idea with this new focus on place and potential periods of time?
Haibun
Fewer of you have likely been asked to write a haibun. The haibun is a hybrid form which combines a prose poem (or more traditionally the first part is like a micro essay) with a haiku. These pieces often highlight nature, travel, and reflecting on the two. Just taking your potential setting or place and attempting a haibun or one of the other pieces (the haiku, prose poem, micro essay) is its own great adventure, but what could be the “yes, and” here? How about taking this into the realm of fiction or more social media type writing? What about all those long articles / posts you know people don’t read and the associated acronym TLDR (TL;DR)? Do you want to try something more traditional or move into something that challenges “norms”?
Haiga
For your next level of “yes, and” you could combine mediums and look into haiga which was sometimes created by traditional haiku poets to accompany their poems. The art piece of the haiga wasn’t necessarily meant to explain the haiku or vice versa. These two pieces were to complement each other rather than being direct replicas. So can you “yes, and” a piece of your writing with a visual component? Perhaps with a focus on the less literal and the more correlative state of creation?
What is your next “yes, and”?
17 - Like thinking about the connection between art and writing? Maybe this is your next stop.
18 - During my journey to revisit the haibun, the term "burning haibun" came across my path. You can visit this page to explore this form as well as other hybrid forms including the prose poem.
20 - Has your journey through space-time made you crave the movies?