eLiterature or iLiterature?

As you all know, I am a devotee of haiku. Maybe you didn't know that, actually, but you do now. I am attracted to haiku mainly for it's economy; it's ability to convey a sentiment or idea or universal truth in a very concise way. But, like most westerners who are not tenured staff members of Asian Literature departments at major universities, I don't really understand the intricacies of true Japanese haiku. I do know that there is a lot more to the form than the three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each rule that is routinely taught to elementary school children in this country. I know that traditional haiku are nature inspired and have a seasonal component, that the 5-7-5 thing is product of spoken and written Japanese that doesn't translate to English very directly, that there are conventions in the traditional form that probably make the scratchings of typical American haiku laughable to Japanese poets. I suspect that cultural differences between the Japanese and myself make the likelihood of my actually being able to write real haiku in English pretty small. Still, as I said, I'm intrigued by the form.

Another form of writing I've been interested in for a while is called flash fiction. There are no clear cut rules for flash fiction other than it has to be short. Perhaps the best known example of the form is Ernest Hemingway's famous six word story: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." A complete work of fiction in six words, how is that for efficiency? Still, Hemingway is reputed to have considered it his best work. But again, there don't seem to be any clear cut rules for the length of flash fiction. Six words is nice, but we can't all be Hemingway. Personally, I'd probably need more. Fortunately, social networking (or social notworking as most employers call it) has given us the answer. The twitterpoem (prose and verse) twitterstory, and twitternovel. The rules, or rule actually, are simple: 140 characters or less. Now anyone can publish, right from their cell phone, even if they are hobbled by archaic non 4G service (like myself.) It's very democratic, don't you think? And who doesn't have time to string together 140 characters? Judging by the constant onslaught of inane tweets fired across my bow, everyone in the world has time to string together that many words. Now get busy writing and send your resulting works to me for publication right here on NFOT. You can even tweet them to me @youngdavevt. Just do me a favor and try not to write your twitternovel while driving. I don't want any cyclists or pedestrians maimed in pursuit of literary greatness.