I started writing haiku during a very busy year when I was teaching and all my children were still in diapers. For some reason, a member in the writer's group I belonged to hated haiku. Thus, in self-defense I began studying the form. Ironically, the group member who hated haiku got her Byline Magazine the day before I did the month one of my haiku won an honorable mention in the haiku contest. Writing group happened to be the same night, and the group member brought in her copy of the magazine to show me while emphatically proclaiming that she still hated haiku!