What constitutes “real” writing? Is it dependent on what others think? Or is dependent only on the satisfaction it brings to the writer? Or is it real when it is published? What, in the context of prose, makes it “real”?
This summer I read a “real” book, a classic in literature, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, for the first time. Surprising, particularly since I earned a degree with a concentration on literature. I was daunted, at first, by the novel’s reputation: difficult, Victorian, stuffy, cumbersome. And then I began to read. Once adjusted to the setting and all its trappings – language, conventions – I was completely entranced. First by the story itself, then by all of its symbolic implications.
Would that someday, my stories will so entrance readers. This is the first step in the journey to write something “real.”
Your haiku do that to me, and apparently also do that to your son!
Welcome to "real" writing.