Kintsugi, translated as “golden joinery” is a Japanese art of fixing broken pottery with special lacquer dusted with powdered gold. It gives a piece of broken pottery a unique appearance and emphasizes the fractures and breaks instead of hiding them, making the once broken pottery more beautiful than when it was whole.
This art is heavily influenced by the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi which sees beauty in the flawed or imperfect. It is born of a feeling of regret when something is wasted, but with an acceptance of change.
I am broken.
On June 8th, 2019, my latest blog was due. I had ideas for the subject. What I didn’t have was time. The past month has been the heaviest writing month of my writing career. There was a short story that I had to finish that was already in its third draft. There was another short story in need of revisions for an editor. There were two short story contests that I was helping to judge. There was a presentation I had to make at my local writers’ group that I did not wish to postpone. And of course, there were family obligations, recitals to attend, and a day job to do. Needless to say, I was swamped, but not burnt out. All of this got done. All except the blog post. And for that, I regret it.
I considered rushing my post for June out a few days late, but continued deadlines prevented even that. So here I am, during my personal blog letting you know my situation.
Will it happen again? I hope not. I can’t guarantee it won’t. It depends on my writing. My goal is to finish my last story revision by the end of the month and then take a short break after which I will begin one of two novel ideas I have. That will likely take to the end of the year to finish a first draft. Revisions could take a couple of months after that and then I intend to start shopping it around. By WWC in 2020 I hope to have it sold or agented at the very least. I’ll keep you all apprised of my progress.
I am broken like the Japanese pottery of old.
Repairing it won’t come with gold, or silver, or platinum. But it will come with work: blog posts that post on time, writing goals that are met.
In time, maybe the flaws and imperfections of my writing will look as beautiful as the one pictured above.
Short Story Announcement
I want to take this time to announce that one of the short stories announced above, “I Travelled the World Between,” has been accepted into the anthology Enigma Front: the Stories We Hide. This is the latest in the Enigma Front Anthology Series and it will launch this August at the When Words Collide Festival. I want to thank Chris Carolan and his crew of tireless editors and designers for launching this anthology. Congratulations on another job well done.