Last week, my boss walked into my office and handed me a writing tool. It is called Haikubes, and is made up of 61 cubes with which to create a haiku and 2 cubes to inform your haiku’s direction.
Here’s what I came up with on my first roll:
A Dream About My Future
Sleeping as one dead
A hero on a journey
I left me behind
Not bad, eh? Well, actually it could be quite bad. I don’t know enough about poetry to know what is good and what is not. But the beauty of Haikubes is that they are useful for more than just writing haiku.
If you are like me and enjoy the challenge of a story prompt, just roll a handful of the cubes and use the words that pop up. Maybe you don’t like the challenge of using specific words. That’s okay, just roll the directional cubes and write whatever comes to mind for that.
Unfortunately, if you want a set of Haikubes, you’ll no longer be able to get them at my bookstore. One of the cubes refers to a donkey by its more vulgar nomenclature, leading a customer to return the set as obscene. But, had they never returned it, my manager never would have handed it off to me, and we would all be in the dark as to the writing possibilities brought about by this little word game.
Haikubes is available from the publisher here.
