Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The beauty of western governments is that they’ve known this for a long time.

Countries like America and Canada reacted to this idea because they had to live under monarchies and they saw first hand the corruption of such systems.

 As a result, what they tried to do in their establishment is spread the power between different entities so that no one person would have all the say.

This is why in Canada there is the house of parliament, the Senate and the supreme court of Canada. Similarly in the States they have three houses of parliament and their president is only aspect. (Forgive me if I got any of this stuff wrong, it’s been a while since I studied the details of government.)

By distributing the power like that, each entity can correct the other. (At least that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work. The current trend is to go back to concentrating the power into the hands of the 1%)

I think individuals need to have these kinds of safeguards in place as well.

No parent should create such an atmosphere of total control that their children and others can’t question their decisions or even authority.

At the same time parents have to be the parents. Families are not a democracy where the majority can change rules. Parents need to have the courage to set rules (within reason) and expect the children to comply with them.

For the past six days, I’ve been dealing the conviction of this Afghan family, the Shafias in the horrendous murder of the first wife and three of the daughters. I think that an atmosphere of total and unquestioning control is precisely what the father created in his household.

How else could he have convinced his son and his second wife to go along with his scheme to murder the four women?

The father was a millionaire.

He was used to a certain amount of prestige in his home country.

He comes here and he’s just another immigrant. And as in the case of many immigrant families, his children became more comfortable in their new home and language than he was. He probably depended on them in certain ways and it undermined his feelings of, I don’t know, power and mastery.

When I was growing up I always saw my father in his Canadian setting.

I remember a certain incident in particular that was really jarring. It was during grade eight graduation and I was introducing him to one of my teachers a really odd woman that none of the students liked. I’ll call her Ms. Jones.

Ms. Jones had extremely short hair. She was tall and gangly except for her chest and she spoke with extreme awkwardness. On the night of the graduation she wore a very inappropriate v-neck halter dress and had stuck a blonde pouf of hair on top of her head. It looked as ridiculous as a man’s toupee.

But I was excited about my graduation and I was eager to introduce my parents to my teachers, and so I introduced my father to Ms. Jones and an odd thing happened.

She was taller than him, and perhaps that added to the effect of her bending down and shaking his hand.

She was condescending towards my father.

My father did not look more grand than silly Ms. Jones!

And yet he should have!

He was ten times better than her, and yet the way he was behaving was…yes…subservient.

It really bothered me!

And in some ways it made me think a little less of him.

Until seventeen years later when I went to Pakistan!

It was precisely twenty years ago, in the December and January of 1991-92.

There was a moment in Lahore, when we were at some sort of outdoor venue, my father had bought some sugar cane juice from a vendor and we were all sitting back sipping the sweetness, and it occurred to me what was different.

Our roles were reversed. Here I was the ‘immigrant’. I was the one almost cowering, thinking of what to say in my hesitant Urdu while the words came flowing easily out of his mouth.

He was in his element.

And I was fully dependent on his knowledge of the surroundings to stay safe.

Didn’t he stand a little taller? Didn’t he walk with a lighter more buoyant step?

And only then did I realize what kind of sacrifices he had made to bring us to this land of opportunity, Canada.

Growing up, my father was very strict! But he tempered it with love, and he did his very best to take care of us.

But the difference was that my father’s faith put limitations on him. Because he took his faith seriously, it curbed his behaviour, not condoned any injustice.

He knew his responsibilities as a parent and he fulfilled them completely. When some of his children did things he did not approve of, he had the presence of mind to accept that, as their choice.

Which brings me back to Mr. Shafia.

I bet you anything that he saw control of the family slipping away from him and the way he’d set things up there was no one there to reason with him. To talk him out of his murderous course of action.

Kind of like when Bush wanted to invade Iraq and there was no one to warn him because he’d hand-picked his cronies so they didn’t include anyone who disagreed with him.

All the years when my children were growing up I constantly told them that it was not my job to make them Muslim.

It was only my job to show them what I believed, and ultimately it was their choice whether or not to follow or not.

It’s kind of the way my dad handled us. He would say that the only reason he’d read Quran to us after working sixteen hours that day was because it was his obligation to teach us the faith so that on the day of judgment we couldn’t grab him by the neck and say, “Why didn’t you teach me?” Many times he’d say that when we grew up and went on our own he would never ask us again whether we prayed or not, fasted or not. It would be completely up to us.

With my children, my husband and I went a step further. We wanted God’s authority to be the head of the family (not ours). It was a pretty safe thing to do because it’s very clear that in Islam after obedience to God comes respect to parents.

We challenged our children to show us if we were violating any of God’s principles, and if we were, they were free to correct us.

I have learned to cherish this relationship with my children!

So many times when I slip up, when I say or do something dumb, I have my children there waiting in the wings to gently correct me.

The vast majority of people don’t intend to go bad. They do so in tiny increments.

Like Boxer in Animal Farm when he didn’t challenge the pigs when they started to change the rules.

Checks and balances.

A couple of posts ago I talked about taking on bullies, and I talked about a strategy wherein I was going to deal with a relative who’d been disrespectful to my father by disrespecting hers.

One of my daughters was kind enough to call me up and challenge that. She provided a saying of the Prophet (peace be upon him) that showed this was not necessarily the right approach, and I’m really grateful.

That might sound like an odd thing to say but think of the alternative!

My biggest fear has always been deluding myself.

I have seen umpteen people in my life, people whom I thought were way smarter than me, delude themselves into doing very wrong things.

Not as heinous as the Shafias, but still pretty bad.

And I always prayed that would never happen to me.

There’s a reason I’m talking about all this.

Believe it or not it has to do with writing.

Not only is no man an island, but I’d say people are more like the white ball in a game of billiards (pool).

The white ball bounces off all the others. Some balls it sends to the pockets, others ricochet off the edges of the pool table and effect changes in the configuration afterwards.

In any story, the characters are like that too!

In your story you want your character to start out straight. To be likeable, to be good. Something hits it, some inciting incident, and it will deviate off course. Hopefully by the end of the story, it will return to the ‘straight and narrow’.

The white ball protagonist’s character will change with every move it makes, every ball it hits and every ball’s tajectory that it changes.  Just like our character changes with every person we interact with, and who influences our own trajectories.

If life were perfect we’d all shoot straight from the pool cue and our paths would never ever deviate. They’d follow the ‘straight and narrow’.

But life is not perfect (nor is it meant to be).

We will hit yellow balls, and bounce off of eight balls, and red balls and blue balls.

We can only pray that each subsequent ball that hits us, brings us back in line, in a fairly straight line, because they don’t call it the straight and narrow for nothing!

 

is that you start getting emails from people asking for help in getting published.

Every week now I’m starting to receive requests from people who’ve written a lovely book their best friend read and enjoyed and they want me to tell them which publishers to send it to and how to get it published.

A while back I used to be on an internet forum of published authors and so many of the authors would complain about these emails and I thought they were making a big deal about it.

I thought, ‘What’s the harm? There’s room for everyone’.

Um…I don’t feel like that any more.

It’s like what happens is that instead of people discovering the joy of reading some of my books, they discover that, hey, they’re brown, they’re Pakistani, if I can do it maybe they can too. And it’s got nothing to do with loving books and writing and everything to do with just trying to make a mark for themselves.

For years my attitude has been ‘nothing wrong with that, the more the merrier’, but the only problem is that these are people who haven’t done one iota of research.

They haven’t even checked out my website where I’ve gone to the trouble of writing an article called ‘How to get published’!  http://www.rukhsanakhan.com/articles/howtogetpublished.html

The information’s right there!

I even have links on my website to the same websites, the EXACT same websites, I used to research my foray into children’s literature here: http://www.rukhsanakhan.com/links/writingrelated.html

The best links on there for children’s writers are the Write4Kids site, the Children’s Book Council site and of course the SCBWI site!

Don’t get me wrong.

I have ALWAYS felt that we need a LOT more Muslim authors out there! We need more stories if we’re to humanize ourselves as a demographic.

And I have even gone as far as encouraging certain young writers I know to pursue a career.

But darn if I have time to hold someone’s hand and research which publishers would be the best fit for their manuscript!

How do I know which writers to encourage?

Simple.

They’re writers who don’t look to me for things they can find themselves.

They research publishers. They research agents. They research writing!!!

They take initiative.

They’ve even told me a few things they’ve learned.

And the biggest quality I see in them is that they have the drive, the perseverance to make it in this ‘bunny eat bunny’ world of children’s publishing.

And ironically they are often the ones who have felt too shy to take me up on my offers to read their work and mentor them.

(I really don’t make that offer lightly! I have SUCH limited time! Between the writing, the editing, the blogging and all the business correspondence–PLUS my husband, kids and six grandchildren–I really don’t have the time to make idle offers to mentor people!)

These are people who seem to understand that as an author myself, I have a very limited amount of clout with publishers! Heck, they still reject my stories!

In this business it really isn’t who you know, it’s how good your writing is. (Who you know can get your work looked at but if the work doesn’t stand on its own merit–if it isn’t a piece of highly marketable drop dead gorgeous writing–then it won’t matter!)

The problem is everyone and their aunt thinks they can write a children’s book!

They are short and deceptively simple.

For anyone who is reading this, hoping to get their work published, I tell you I know EXACTLY how you feel!

It took eight years to get my first acceptance letter!

Eight long years of rejection after rejection and even getting kicked out of a writer’s workshop where the teacher thought I was ‘hopeless’.

And that was just to get my first book published!

Now after 23 years of working at this, I have eleven books published.

It’s been a long hard slog, and it’s only getting harder!

If I knew then what I know now, I’m not sure I would have continued, but I’ve invested way too much now to turn back.

And I always say, “If it never gets any better than this…this is pretty darn good, alhamdu lillah!”

I write these blog posts to shed light on the creative process!

I DO want people to learn from the mistakes I’ve made.

And I support the work of many many Muslim authors and artists especially with my Muslim Booklist.

In fact I’m currently reading some novels in the hopes of adding to it, and there are certain Muslim writers whose work I admire immensely! I’m planning on writing a blog post about that.

But I really am sick of emails asking me for information that is readily available on my site.

Do your own homework!

Then write your heart out!

Write something that ADDS to the collective wisdom out there–not just something that will take up space and clutter an already cluttered marketplace with drivel that makes your ego feel good.

And I hope insha Allah, to read your work in print!

I have heard of some authors composing standard replies to such queries.

These are authors who started out by being nice to the people inquiring.

I think the funniest request I received was from this lady who couldn’t spell and used terrible grammar. She said that she had this fantastic idea for a novel series. It would be a bestseller and be sold in Chapters! I could write it and we’d split the money 50-50.

I told her, “Why don’t you write it yourself? That way you can keep all the money for yourself!”

She replied, “My spelling and grammar isn’t so good.”

Oh boy.

 Uh huh. Never heard from her again! Thankfully.

 

 

As soon as I finished my treatise yesterday I felt like I hadn’t even addressed family confrontational issues and thought that should be the next post.

I usually take a break for a few days between posts to give myself and my readers a rest, but hey, I’ll just put this up here while it’s fresh in my mind.

I guess the topic of confrontations is uppermost in my mind because of a few conversations I’ve been having with my son.

He’s at that formative age and he keeps asking me how to be assertive, and I think the way people handle confrontations is definitely the key to being assertive.

I was having lunch with a good friend a few days ago and she said, “Oh I always avoid confrontations.”

The funny thing is I immediately thought to myself, that I don’t. And yet having written the previous blog posts, that’s not true.

More and more I am learning to avoid confrontations too.

I mean I didn’t confront my doctor when she insulted me, and I’ve learned to avoid bullies on their dung heaps too.

But I think that’s because the doctor is someone I see, what? A few times a year?

As you get older you realize that you can get along with anyone a few times a year.

And the bully on the dung heap–well I just stopped going to that particular dung heap.

But when it comes to family, learning to deal with confrontations is even more important.

Growing up I never imagined you’d have to defend yourself against family members.

It just didn’t occur to me.

But family members are people, and like Dr. Phil says, “You teach people how to treat you.”

Even the best people can start taking advantage of you, if you don’t speak up.

Within my family I am pretty much at peace.

At least I feel at peace, and that’s taken a LONG time to achieve!

And it’s only happened, ironically, when I learned to restrain myself.

I have been blessed with three son in laws from three different cultures, and in the process I have had to get along with in-laws from three different cultures.

Needless to say there have been challenges.

My philosophy in dealing with them is simple.

Give them as much of whatever they want as I possibly can.

Any request they make, if I can easily or even not so easily accommodate it, I say, “Yes.” I have even at times inconvenienced myself in order to do this.

And I do it without reservation or reluctance and definitely without expecting anything in return.

But then…when I have to say no, I do so, again without reservation or reluctance. Simply by saying, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

No explanations. No further apologies. Just a simple statement of fact.

The first time I did that with one of my daughters’ inlaws the expression on their face was surprise. Then it quickly dissipated. What could they say? And then later, again if they asked me for something, and I could do it, I did.

Voila. No hard feelings.

I do this with my daughters. I do this with their spouses and I do this with my in laws.

I also do this with my parents. But with my parents there’s one exception. I very seldom, if ever, say no. I find a way to accommodate their request if I possibly can.

With other people, I don’t hesitate to say no.

It’s actually pretty simple. And it’s worked quite well.

Same thing with confrontations with family members.

If you approach it with a sense of calm, it’s actually not that hard.

It takes a little bit of deconstructing some of the elaborate societal dances we do with each other, but it’s more than possible.

In Pakistan we have a term for when a guest keeps refusing food out of politeness. It’s called ‘takkalaf’.

And it’s considered the hallmark of manners.

The first time someone offers you refreshment you always have to decline. I think it’s because the person might not actually have enough of the food or drink and they might just be offering it out of politeness.

Only when they keep insisting, do you actually accept the refreshment.

The funny thing is that people in other cultures automatically do this takkalaf when they deal with each other as well.

In business situations, I’ve had editors or people say things they didn’t expect me to call them on.

If they’re late for a meeting, they’ll say, “Oh dear, I’m so late.”

And the other person is supposed to be ‘polite’ and say, “That’s okay.” Without any hint of annoyance.

But if I’m genuinely annoyed, I’ll answer. “Maybe next time you can be more prompt.”

That’s it. No more. Just a gentle rebuke. And then get down to business without holding any grudges.

The person has been informed that they’ve committed a breach in protocol, it was noticed, but that you’re willing to move on from it.

That’s a pretty basic example. In reality it doesn’t usually bother me that much if a person is late unless it’s a really long time. I know that no one has a perfect record of being on time, we all err sometimes, so that’s not a problem. It’s only if being late becomes a habit.

Basically my philosophy is not to participate in takkalaf (except when it comes to food and drink).

So if an editor shows me an illustration sample that doesn’t work, I don’t smile and nod and pretend that it does. Or if there’s back copy that’s simply inappropriate I find a gentle way to express my displeasure.

No takkalaf.

And sometimes the best way to do that is just by pausing. Taking my time to answer.

It’s not for effect. I really am formulating my response, but doing so, silently, provides a bit of squirm factor.

They’re guaging my expression (or my silence on the phone) and they can do nothing but wait for the verdict.

It’s a powerful position.

And it should be used SPARINGLY! And only when necessary! Or it will completely lose its effectiveness.

In fact most of the time that I do it, I don’t even realize I’m doing it till it’s over. It really is that genuine.

How often have I used this tactic?

About two or three times a year. That’s it.

Before I come off sounding like a complete ogre, the one thing I am most proud of is that publishers consistently tell me that I am a ‘pleasure to work with’. Those are their exact words. I turn in work promptly, I don’t make a fuss over inconsequential details and I try to be reasonable.

The great thing is that these tactics can also be used on relatives.

If a relative is imposing something on me I don’t pretend it’s okay.

Recently a relative of mine indirectly insulted my father.

This happened completely out of left field. And this was a person I liked and had even defended at times.

I just stood there numb, not believing what I had just heard.

And my first instinct was to take it slow. Don’t act. Do nothing. Think about it.

You can’t un-ring a bell.

No need to go off on someone half-cocked.

It’s ALWAYS better to err on the side of mercy.

But afterwards, the more I thought about the situation, the more I realized the dynamics and that this relative of mine had confused my past mercy towards her, for stupidity.

Now I don’t care if she thinks I’m stupid.

(Actually having people think you’re stupid can be very convenient. They underestimate you and leave you alone.)

But I did care about her insulting my father.

And the problem was she wasn’t on some obscure dung heap somewhere that I could avoid.

She was in my extended family and I was bound to run in to her on a regular basis.

In such a situation you have to change tactics. You have to confront the problem.

Dr. Phil always says too, when dealing with your children, try to avoid confrontations but darn it, if you have to have one, you better win!

I feel the same way towards family members.

The lucky thing is I have Islam on my side. Being the oldest, my father is the elder, and we are taught in Islam to respect our elders.

That was the basis of what I was going to confront her with, not whether or not she thought I was stupid. (Who the heck cares about that???)

But darn if I’m going to let any relative put down my father like that.

And knowing what I know about her background, I have more than enough amunition to put her in her place.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Not because I particularly care that I can attack her father, but because if I don’t, people like her will think that they can run around bad-mouthing other people’s fathers without it coming back on themselves.

It’s the old ‘people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones’.

What I’ve learned is that in such a case, it is actually BETTER for family dynamics to confront such a person.

It shows them their limits. It delineates the boundaries of what’s acceptable.

I will bide my time. Wait for the right opportunity.

She’s been avoiding me, but that’s okay. I can wait.

And when the time is right, I will strike her back, exactly as she struck me, with a dig at her father. No more, no less.

The secret is to restrain myself. Have a set of principles and stick to them ethically and rigidly. Do not allow myself to become the aggressor!

This might sound a bit conceited but the intention has to be to teach the person a lesson–not to destroy them–but to make them behave.

And definitely not to go beyond the injury that they gave me.

To show them, hey, you want to play that game? I can play it too, and you’re not going to like it.

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

There is a lot of wisdom in that.

And who knows, by nipping this type of behaviour in the bud (because I really can’t see her insulting my father in my presence ever again) it can lead to longer lasting peace within the family as a whole.

And that’s the only reason to bother confronting her at all.

 

 

 

It’s funny how you can look back at your thirteen year old self and see all the mistakes you made.

The old: ‘if I knew then what I know now…’ kind of thing.

And yet when a kid once asked me what would I change about my upbringing, I looked at him blankly, thought to myself  ‘What an excellent question!’ and answered, truthfully, “Nothing.”

In particular the grade seven and eight years were the toughest and to be perfectly frank there were reasons why I was so targetted and bullied.

I often spoke my mind!

If I had a thought or an opinion, I didn’t have the sense to check and see if it was the popular opinion, I’d just say it right out loud so everyone could hear.

One of the reasons I did this was because in all those Newbery books I read, the heroes and heroines were strong enough to stand up for themselves. I guess I used them as role models.

Big mistake at least socially speaking!

I was dumb enough that when I saw an injustice I opened my mouth and confronted it.

Why on earth would that make me popular with the grade seven and eight crowd?

Maybe I thought naively, that speaking out against such injustice would endear the victims I was defending to me.

Nuh uh. They looked at me puzzled, and then sided with the bullies and thought I was just plain weird.

The only kids who can get away with that kind of behaviour are the trend-setters, the ‘cool’ kids, and even I knew I wasn’t one of those! But foolishly, or not so foolishly, I believed my opinion was just as valuable.

If I had kept quiet, checked the waters before stating an opinion, kept my head down, then I probably would have saved myself a lot of grief.

But do I have any regrets?

Um, actually, no.

I have been humiliated often. I have had a whole class laugh out loud at me.

I have had kids literally chase me and hurl insults at me.

I have been constantly ridiculed for my beliefs and religion.

And what did I learn from all that?

No matter how bad the humiliation gets it doesn’t have to faze me.

So many times I have told myself (and believed it) that I am not defined by the colour of my skin, the wealth I have and what other people think of me.

What defines me are my actions and my character.

And if I had to do it all over again I would stand up for myself differently, more intelligently, but yup, I would still confront the bullies and speak against injustice.

As I’ve grown, I’ve learned so much about dealing with other people.

For a while social scientists were really espousing ways to avoid confrontation.

Confrontation–even the word sounds combative!

In your face! Up in arms.

And yet I’ve been in LOTS of situation where a bit of confrontation would have done a heap of good!

And it occurs to me that the bullying that I put up with as a kid really hasn’t totally vanished. In adult venues people still try to dominate others, but mostly they just use other tactics.

When I first arrived on the internet scene, I was about 33. I got onto a writers forum to get some contact with other writers.

Writing is such a solitary profession!

On this board there was one person in particular who was an absolute bully. Oh how she hounded people, and it was all the worse because it was so anonymous and behind the safety of a keyboard.

It would have been so much smarter NOT to confront her. It would have been SO much smarter NOT to stumble into her crosshairs.

There were days when my heart would palpitate as I got up to read her most recent attacks on me.

The way she could twist your words!

She was very very clever–in a diabolical way.

Reminds me completely of Sarah Palin.

The kind of person without book smarts but with a whole lot of street smarts–and very loose ethics.

Sarah Palin is just the same as that other bully–but with more power.

And then when I was on another internet forum, I came across another bully.

But somehow I found this woman hilarious. She was so uptight and insecure I almost felt sorry for her.

At one point she actually emailed me offlist and hinted that EVERYONE thought I was CRAZY, but were too POLITE to say so.

When I read her poison email message I laughed out loud. Even typing this now, I’m having a good chuckle.

How pathetic!

I told her I hadn’t been aware that EVERYONE had made her their spokesperson and I thought most people gave up on these kinds of popularity games when they were in high school.

My thirteen year old indignant self came out and for a short bit of time I actually tried to help the victims of this lady again. Then I realized something.

This was a turf war.

It’s what I like to call the old ‘king of the dung heap syndrome’ in action, only this time it was with non Muslims.

For those of you who might not be familiar with the term, ‘king of the dung heap syndrome’ is a set of behaviours I’ve noticed among Muslim immigrant professionals.

When mostly doctors and lawyers and other ‘educated’ people can’t seem to make a mark in mainstream society, they impose themselves on their Muslim communities. They go into the mosques and try to infiltrate the administration, becoming president of this Islamic society or that Islamic organization. They don’t want to do any work for the community. They don’t give a hang about their congregations, they just want the titles! To beat their chests like silverback gorillas proclaiming that this is my turf, I am king here, so BACK off!

And if they don’t get the recognition they believe they deserve, they’ll splinter off into their own little dung heap–I mean organization– and plant a flag there and beat their chests there.

But do you know what this really means?

It means they think that this lesser venue is really the best they can do. That they can only ‘dominate’ or get noticed on this smaller scale.

They can’t really ‘make it’ in the mainstream.

It would be sad if it weren’t so pathetic!

Basically this lady/bully had carved out this internet forum as her dung heap and she was going to plant her flag darn it, even if it meant pushing out the people who’d first founded that particular internet forum!

And the sad thing was that most of the forumites wouldn’t take her on.

It felt like the ‘victims’ looked at me non-plussed.

Finally I asked myself, “Does it really matter?”

And I thought do I really want to spend my creative energy on this nonsense?

So I left.

I let her have her dung heap all to herself. She could beat her chest and patrol her domain to her heart’s content.

(Months after I had left the forum, this guy emailed me out of the blue. Apparently this bully was in a knock-down drag out fight with someone anonymous on the forum and this guy thought it was me!

LOL. I had no idea! I told him I was in Ottawa conducting writing workshops with kids during this whole escapade and blessedly had no knowledge of the escapade.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find a touch of satisfaction knowing that she was thus embroiled. But really I was kind of glad because it proved that it wasn’t just me!)

And instead of getting so distracted I concentrated on my writing–the one thing I can really control.

I plan to make it in the mainstream! Forget the niche internet forum stuff! Who the heck cares?

When it comes to confrontations you definitely have to pick your battles.

And it sure does get better with age!

No longer do my days consist of internet confrontations.

I’m actually pretty good at sidestepping them these days (if I say so myself).

I have a great deal of peace in my life–and it’s WONDERFUL!!! (Hmm, I wonder if those bursts of joy aren’t a manifestation of all this.)

I will still stand against injustice. I will still speak my mind freely on any opinion, but tangling with petty Sarah Palin types–nuh uh.

It’s best to detour around them. Their domains are limited.

Entering them will only bog you down.

Fundamentally they cannot define me.

Only I can do that.

Dontcha know the best revenge is living well!

And I don’t need any sort of dung heap to do so!

It’s funny, ever since I got back from Hajj, my prayers have changed.

Before, I would often go into autopilot when I’d be praying. It’s hard not to. We memorize the whole prayer, it’s formal and prescribed as such, there’s only a few spots for spontaneity.

I used to wonder why.

But over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a mercy and a blessing.

God tells us what to say, shows us how to pray, and if you understand the words you’re saying, they’re beautiful and moving.

Oh I make duas/supplications at other times, but the salat/Muslim ritual prayer is pretty much set.

But ever since I got back from Hajj, it’s changed.

So many times I’ll start praying and it’s like my chest opens up and swells with such joy that it gives my spirit a bit of a hiccup.

It’s not something I’ve told many people, and the only reason I mention it now is because one of my friends, who gave me the feedback for the Hajj novel, felt sad and thought I was sad.

And I thought, “Oh no! I hope that’s not the way my posts are coming across!”

I have tried to be totally honest about the creative process I am going through. I’m doing so because I think people who would tend to gravitate to my blog would find that information useful because they’re probably creative types as well.

They might not be writers, and my comments might not apply exactly to their situation, but hey, creative process is creative process and it translate to other endeavours as well!

So much of the creative process is just plain hard slogging work.

And I don’t believe in hiding that.

But that doesn’t mean it brings me down.

Quite the opposite.

These are high class problems to have!

And be under no illusions…writing is HARD work!

The people who succeed are those who do the things that other people don’t want to do.

Many of my stories have taken me ages to write!

And it’s because there’s a stubborn streak in me. When I believe in a story I’ll keep coming back to it.

And I’ve said it before…it’s all about angles! It’s all about voice.

It’s like that moment in My Cousin Vinny when the Joe Pesci character is holding up that playing card and telling his cousin that the prosecutor will try to convince the jury that it’s solid, like a brick, that it has straight sides and all that, so that the jury won’t notice that it’s paper thin and flimsy.

Writers should remember that analogy! It works for stories we write too only the other way around.

Our stories are paper thin and flimsy, but write them right and the reader will feel they’re solid brick!

When we write we don’t have to recreate the whole world of our characters! We simply suggest realities and the reader’s imagination will fill in the rest. Do it well and your story will be so convincing that people will think you really do know what you’re talking about!

Even though you know you’re muddling about figuring things out as you go along.

Every single author I know of, has moments of doubt. Moments when they feel like a complete fraud.

I feel that way especially when I’m wrestling with a new story.

Then it doesn’t matter what I was able to accomplish with past stories, it feels like I’ll never get it right.

What helps though is the school presentations!

They are really really good for my confidence! And it’s because as I’m telling them my stories, doing presentations I’ve done thousands of times before, in the process I re-fall in love with my own stories.

I think, ‘Wow, these really are good. And look how much the kids are enjoying them!’

Hope that doesn’t sound egotistical or anything, I’m just being frank. Those are the reactions I get from the kids I visit.

I just got home from a literacy night and I got to tell two of my favourite folktales.

I’d gone to this school on Wednesday and they invited me back tonight (Thursday night) for a literacy evening where the parents were invited. I told the kids I saw on Wednesday that I’d be telling completely different stories tonight, and I fulfilled my promise.

A lot of them showed up! It was so nice to see so many parents out on a stormy Thursday evening, when it would have been so tempting to just stay home and watch T.V.!

The enthusiasm of those kids helps keep me going!

Basically what I’m taking a long-winded approach to say is this: You need to find your joy wherever you can find it.

You need to let it fill your heart till it feels like you’re swelling to burst open! (In a good way!)

I may relate the difficulties I’m facing in gory detail. (I even had a dream the other night–that same recurring nightmare I often get where the writing thing didn’t work out and I’m back doing daycare to make ends meet!)  But that doesn’t mean I’m not having a great time!

Growing up in that small town in Ontario, growing up being told I was brown because I was dirty and my classmates were white because they were clean, often being ambushed with ridicule because of the colour of my skin and the strangeness of my faith–it is absolutely astonishing to me that I can actually make a living as an author and a storyteller!

And to think I couldn’t even speak English when I first came here! And now I write in nothing else!

I have SO much to be thankful for and I often tell children there’s only one thing in my life that I would change and that’s my weight!

I really need to lose weight.

Other than that, life is good!

And I won’t let myself take that for granted.

 

or is it the other way around? Two steps forward and one step back?

All I know is that it’s incredibly frustrating.

I know I gave myself permission to write a lousy first draft, and that I did, but still, I was hoping there wouldn’t be quite so much work to do on the manuscript!

I feel like I should be further along. I feel like one of my friends described, “stuck in a rut with my wheels spinning”.

Make no mistake, the publishing industry is probably at it’s absolute worse right now!

When all this started back in 2008, a colleague of mine said that he thought that with the economic downturn people would be turning even more to books because they provided such value for their money!

I thought to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding!” Books are luxury items.

In an economic downturn what are you going to buy first? Food or a book?

And it really worries me that I don’t seem to see that many people reading any more!

It’s just not something people really emphasize like they used to.

So what’s the answer?

A while back I heard that 20% of people by 80% of the books. And that’s ALL books!

And any hope that I have of getting in on the Muslim niche marketing thingie is kind of gone.

There is a whole field of Muslim books out there, but quite frankly most of them are entirely geared towards only Muslim audiences. They’re completely unsuitable for pluralistic society. Quite frankly they’re far too preachy!

They’re books designed to prove that Islam is beautiful and correct. Nothing wrong with that per se. There’s Christian literature that’s designed to evoke the beauty of Christianity and I’m sure there’s Jewish and Hindu literature that espouses the beauty of those doctrines too, but these are all niche markets and I’m just not geared towards a niche market.

So I announced a few days ago that I finished the first draft of my hajj novel, and now I realize that it really will need a lot of work.

It’s so frustrating!

I knew it would need work, but I didn’t think it would need that much work.

I even went ahead and dropped a hint to my agent to let her know that it was coming together.

Oh well, back to work on it tomorrow.

I have lots of ideas, but unlike the last time that I got feedback on that second project of mine, I’m not ‘excited’ per se. Maybe it’s because of this cold I’ve had. Maybe it’s run me down and I’m tired.

And maybe it’s because of how busy this week is going to be from Wednesday to Friday!

But I definitely feel that it’s one step forward and two back.

I wish it was easier to write a novel that works now than it was when I first started.

But it isn’t.

Oh well.

Went to the doctor on Thursday because the cold was settling into my sinuses and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my face.

Got a prescription for antibiotics but it was funny. The doctor’s office I go to has finally computerized all the files. And my poor doctor was hunched over the keyboard hunting and pecking at the keys. I asked her how the transition was going and she said, “Horrible! Everything takes twice as long as before!”

And I couldn’t help thinking it would be easier if you learned how to type!

She asked me how things were going with me. I told her wonderfully! Then I told her about Big Red Lollipop and the recognition it had received in the States.

Then she grumbles, “Was that the book you gave me?”

I’d given her a copy of Many Windows. She’s Jewish and I thought she’d particularly like the Hanukkah story I’d written in it.

I said no, this was my picture book. Then I told her how it had received more recognition in the States than in Canada.

And she said, “Oh well, you know the States… those people have such poor taste in literature! They like anything.”

Then she glanced at me and said, “No offence.”

I was too stunned to burst into laughing. Although typing this out I am laughing. Hard.

I just looked at her blankly and said, “Of course not.” While it slowly dawned on me that she’d kind of insulted my writing.

Oh well. Everyone’ s allowed to have an opinion. And believe it or not, she’s still one of the better doctors I’ve had.

The best doctor I had was Chinese but she moved back to her native Edmonton, and I miss her dearly.

I’ve also had a doctor who was Muslim, who, when she found out that I was a writer, said, “Oh you know what I  would do if I were a writer?”

“What?” I said.

She said, “I would go up north, lock myself in a cabin, and write a novel in TWO WEEKS!”

I didn’t say anything at the time. My son was just a baby and lying on the examining table. I didn’t want to tick her off.

So I just murmurred, “You would, would you?”

She said, “Oh YES! There’s no reason why you can’t write a novel in two weeks!”

I’m not sure how long she talked about writing during that visit, but it was quite a while.

The only reason I went to her in the first place was because the wait for my Chinese doctor was often two hours. Mind you, when you did finally get in to see my Chinese doctor, she was very thorough and really listened to what was wrong with you! It was a worthwhile price to pay. I ditched the Muslim and went back. I got to the point where I didn’t mind it. I’d just park myself in the waiting room and take a nap. Really. I’d fall asleep and wake at the sound of my name.

At least she didn’t try to hone in on my field of expertise. She stuck to hers and did it well, which was more than enough to earn my respect and gratitude.

Now there’s a field that doesn’t suffer from recession! Doctors!

But alas, I’m not wired that way.

I can never be a real doctor.

I can only play one in a story.

But back to that Jewish doctor. She did say that learning the new skills with the computerized files was good for her because it staved off Alzheimers.

And right then I thought of that movie I’d watched on the omnimax theatre at the Science Centre called Wired to Win, which talked about how creative endeavours always involved creating new pathways in your mind.

And the reason why each story is so darn hard is because each story takes a different path (or else you’re getting formulaic) and that means the brain is creating new pathways with each book you ever write. There is no duplication of process. One book will never help you write the next because it’s got to be completely different.

And I thought, yeah, well, how hard this is also means that it reduces my risk of Alzheimers.

So in that way it’s all good too.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t darn hard.

And snide remarks from doctors sure don’t help.

 

For those of you who don’t know, Robert Falcon Scott was the British antarctic explorer who botched his bid to be the first to reach the South Pole. Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian explorer, beat him to it by 33 days.

Every once in a while, when I’m flicking channels, I come across some documentary that catches my eye.

I’ve always been an extremely curious person. I learn all kinds of stuff, just because it catches my fancy.

A few days ago I clicked on a BBC story about scientists using pressure pads to determine how rhinos feet could support their heavy bulk–not because I’ll ever have a use for it in a story–although you never can tell–but just because I found it curious.

Anyway, I caught this documentary on Scott and Amundsen on some educational channel and since I’ve always been fascinated by the Arctic and the Antarctic, I decided to watch it.

Isn’t it funny? Today happens to be the 100th anniversary of the day Scott arrived at the South Pole. Just found that out while I checked his wikipedia page.

Honest, I didn’t plan that.

Anyway, the story goes that Scott wanted some fame and glory and decided to launch this expedition to the South Pole, but he found the idea of using dogs kind of old-fashioned or something. He wanted to use ponies to pull sledges to the South Pole and he also wanted to get machinery so they could ride their in comfort–with the dogs.

When he got to Antarctica, while they were unloading the machines, one of them fell through the ice–a  bad omen.

Then the extreme cold caused them to malfunction.

The ponies weren’t used to the cold and for a number of reasons the preparations for the ‘Discovery expedition’ were not going according to plan. The main deficiency was where they located a crucial supply point, called ‘one ton depot’ was planted 35 miles north of where it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be at 80 degrees south. But for that single failure, you’ll see that Scott and his men probably would have survived the return journey. 

So Scott gets to the South Pole only to discover that Amundsen, using a team of dogs, very efficiently, and without fuss, got to the South Pole before him and returned safe and sound.

Then Scott and his fellows turn around and start the long 800 mile slog back. Starving and ill equipt, they nevertheless make it to within eleven miles of one ton depot when they’re forced to wait out a raging blizzard for nine days during which they perished. If they’d put one ton depot where it was supposed to be, they would have reached it 24 miles ago.

Scott and the others are buried in the tent in which he died which in turn has become encased in the Ross ice shelf and with the nature of glacial ice being fluid, it’s slowly inching its way towards the antarctic ocean and one day the whole thing will break off and plunge into the sea.

The British, on the other hand, kind of sneered at Amundsen’s victory. They thought it was ‘unsporting’ and one lord Curzon even raised a glass and saluted the dogs that carried him.

But who is the famous one? Who’s the one they made a movie of? Not Amundsen, the winner, but Scott the silly loser.

The Brits turned Scott into this amazing hero. They showered money on the widows of the five men who perished. He was knighted and all that.

I find it simply fascinating.

And it was interesting, a while ago, when I was in Denmark and I got a chance to get to know Barbara Reid better, we had a bit of a discussion about this very topic.

Barbara Reid is an amazing talent! She does the most beautiful children’s book illustration with plasticene!

Her latest book at the time was called Perfect Snow and she said how she’d been so touched by the story of Scott that she’d named her protagonist none other than Scott.

I laughed but she pointed out to the death of Oates, one of Scott’s companions who knew he was dying and knew he was slowing the others down, he said to the others, “I am just going outside and may be some time.”

“Oh brother!” I told Barbara, although deep down I had to admit it was rather stoic and even a bit romantic and I found that irritating.

But still! Why would Amundsen be penalized for being efficient?

Why did the Brits, and it seems the world, cling to Scott’s story as being more intriguing?

I really don’t get it.

I’m thinking that it has to do with the prestige of the British at the time of this event. This was Victorian England and the Brits boasted that the sun did not set on the British empire.

But there’s something to be learned from this. Even when a story has a negative outcome–or perhaps especially when a story has a negative outcome–it can be spun (and let’s not kid ourselves, there’s no better word for what the Brits did with Scott’s epic failure) into a compelling yarn.

Which reminds me of the movie Moneyball.  It’s quite a compelling story, even though it has a lot of information in it.

It’s a little like The Social Network in that regard, that movie about Mark Zuckerberg and the founding of Facebook.

What surprised me about Moneyball was how unrecognizable Brad Pitt was in it. I don’t mean you couldn’t tell it was Brad Pitt, but rather that he didn’t act like Brad Pitt, he acted like this character and he did such a thorough job, you forgot you were watching Brad Pitt and you really were emersed in the story of this character.

Without giving anything away, it’s worth looking at the ending of Moneyball and examining how they couched what really happened in such a way as to make a compelling story.

Maybe there’s a caveat that should be added to the old saying that history is written by the victors.

Maybe we should add that history is also written by those who tell the best tale.

I have a LOT more work to do!

And yet I can’t help it.

This is actually a very good follow up to my post on Perseverance.

Maybe there’s something to be said about January funk, because I was definitely feeling funky last week when I wrote it. (And talking to some friends they were feeling funky too.) You can hear it in the tone of that post, one foot in front of the other, plod, plod, plod.

I can’t remember who said that successful people are people who do the hard things that unsuccessful people don’t. (I’m really paraphrasing!)

After the initial glow of idea, that’s what writing is. Plod, plod, plod.

But last Friday I did something quirky.

I went to Jumaa.

I know, I know, I’m terrible. So many times I’m home on Friday and I don’t bother going to Friday prayer, I just pray at home, comforting myself with the idea that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said that it was better for women to pray at home.

But the funny thing is I often pray the extra prayers more easily when I go to the masjid. And in Ramadan, for taraweeh, there’s no better feeling! (Try praying taraweeh at home where you don’t get to hear the beautiful melodious recitation of the hafizes they import from Muslim countries for the task!  Praying taraweeh on your own? Ugh!)

Anyway, I took my son (he was still off school) and I surprised him by parking the car and going inside with him.

I’m sure it was because I needed to hear the sermon. God meant me to hear it. It was given by an old friend of my husband’s. He talked about humility. About walking on the earth lightly. And he gave the example of two very interesting and selfless Muslims, one man, one woman, who’d worked quietly for their respective communities and made real changes but weren’t particularly famous.

And yes, of course I found it humbling. Especially the woman’s story. It made me cry.

Which is weird because I seem to be getting very weepy in my old age! I cry buckets at the drop of a hat.

In fact I confess it’s been quite a while that I can’t sing Canada’s national anthem without having embarassing tears drip out of my eyes! (I mean who cries at national anthems???!!!)

But ever since I realized that the last part of the Canadian national anthem is more like a prayer than a beating of the chest with patriotic pride kind of thing, it really does move me to tears. I can stand for it, no problem. But don’t ask me to sing it!

(By the way it goes:

O Canada!

Our home and native land. True patriot love, in all our sons command. With glowing hearts we see thee rise the true north strong and free. We stand on guard, O Canada! We stand on guard for thee! God keep our land, glorious and free. O Canada we stand on guard for thee. O Canada we stand on guard for thee.)

Pretty simple and understated, and dare I say it? Down right humble!

Anyway, listening to this sermon just reminded me that I’ve been taking myself WAY too seriously lately.

It brought me down to earth, alhamdu lillah, and got me back to focusing on what’s really important–the STORY!!!

Which comes back to why I’m so excited!

You know that sequel for Wanting Mor that I’ve been spouting off about?

Well yesterday, I finally got to hook up with my Kabuli sister in law, who was kind enough to vet the manuscript and tell me all the myriad places where I’d messed up the cultural customs!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, just because Pakistan is so close to Afghanistan and we share so many facets of culture, doesn’t mean that even I can take for granted that I’ll get the culture right! And if I can get it so wrong, pity the white people trying to write about Muslim culture!!!!

Anyway, I went over to her house for tea and she explained exactly what worked and more importantly what didn’t work about the book.

And even better, we brainstormed ways in which to solve the things that didn’t work!

Fundamentally she loved the story!

She said how she’s not a reader but something about my work makes her compelled to finish reading. She said she could hardly put it down. (Probably one of the best compliments a writer can receive!)

(She also read Wanting Mor and loved that too! She had told me how she’d gotten the book and had to go to work early the next day and was reading it, her eyes closing because she was so tired, but she couldn’t put it down.)

But anyway, with the sequel, culturally, I’d really messed up.

So armed with all the ways I can write my way out of the conundrums, I can actually go back to the manuscript and fix it.

Why should that make me so excited?

Well because the story can work!

It’ll take work. Real hard slogging, but I can make it work insha Allah.

And I believe in this story so much, I personally love this story so much, and I think it needs to be written so much, that I think I’ve found a way to solve all the problems and make it work!

It’s not glamorous in any way whatsoever, it’s going to be a lot of good hard work, but I can just picture the end result!

Insha Allah it will be magnificent!

Not because I want it to reflect on me. No, not at all!

But because it’ll be a really good story, insha Allah.

And that’s what it’s all about.

Story.

The conclusion of that sermon was stated in a few words from that dying Muslim woman’s life. She said that life came down to serving God, everything else was tangential. (I’m paraphrasing again. Can’t remember the exact words but it was along those lines.)

And one of the reasons I got into writing in the first place was to serve God. To tell stories that would humanize Muslims–and add to the pool of literature that hopefully would help enlighten people.

Personally, I believe that the only reason to continue writing–when it would be so much easier to just read all the delightful stories already out there–is because you have something to say, some idea that desperately needs to be added to the social consciousness.

Leave ego out of it!

Oh it’s so exciting!

Can’t wait to finish this Hajj novel so I can get back to the other project.

And in the mean time I have all the other work on my desk to complete.

Busy, busy, busy.

One foot in front of the other, keep on going, no matter what happens, keep on going.

We’ve all heard of the value of perseverance. Goodness knows I’ve already blogged about the subject enough!

But somehow I keep remembering the story of this guy whose name was Richard Kennedy.

He is a storyteller and he wrote a book that I’d never heard of called Come Again in the Spring.

I don’t usually like stories in which Death plays a character, but there was something about this tale that was really moving.

And I only heard it second hand.

I was at a storytelling workshop, and we were relating some of our favourite stories to each other, and one lady, I recall she was a former librarian, she told this story, and she told it so well that it really touched me. And the funny thing was that the librarian who was telling it had such a hard time because she was trying to recount it word for word–which is actually a no-no when it comes to storytelling. But she had loved Richard Kennedy’s language so much that she couldn’t bear to use her own words.

I thought, “Wow!” That is a good story! It’s the kind of story that should be famous, but it wasn’t and it isn’t. I asked her about it later and she said that the storyteller who’d written it had been disappointed in the fact that it hadn’t received public attention. It had been published and then faded quite quickly out of sight from a fickle and distracted public. Storytellers know of it, but most other people don’t.

Anyways, eventually Richard Kennedy gave up.

I don’t know if Richard Kennedy even tells stories any more.

When I searched the name Kennedy this other storyteller came up. I had to google the rough title I remembered to actually find out his actual name.

I’ve read a LOT of how to books on writing for children. One of the best was written by Phyllis A. Whitney. You might not know her name but I remember her work growing up. She was a specialist in writing mysteries. She started by writing children’s mysteries and then eventually wrote adult mysteries. I still have two copies of her books on my shelf. They’re not very good. They’re two of her lesser known books, but I picked them up somewhere and I can’t bear to part with them.

I credit Whitney with helping me to become a reader. I read nothing but mysteries in my early years–I cut my teeth on them! And although many of the establishment tend to look down their noses at mystery writers, I have nothing but admiration for them. And I loved Phyllis A. Whitney’s books! She took me to places I never dreamed that I’d one day visit! One of her books was set in South Africa and when I finally did go there in 2004, she was uppermost in my mind!

She wrote hundreds of books. Unfortunately she died in 2008 at the age of 104.

Her writing probably wasn’t as good as Richard Kennedy’s, but boy did she never give up!

In her book on writing for children she said she was sitting at an Edgar award ceremony, in the front row, when one lady who was attending the event turned to her (not knowing that she was there for the award) and said something like, “But you know, they never do tell you how to become a famous author, now do they?”

And right then Phyllis A. Whitney decided to tackle it in her acceptance speech. She got up there in front of everyone and referred to the lady’s question and said, “I’m going to tell you how to be an author. You have to WANT it enough! That’s it.”

And she went on to explain that if you wanted it enough, then you did the research, you put in the time, you put in the effort, you dug down deep inside you, past all the pain and the rejection and you pulled out the best story you can make.

And now I have a confession to make.

At the SCBWI convention, when I was getting ready to give my acceptance speech, that’s precisely what I thought of when I was composing it in my mind. I wanted to give all those people in the audience an honest answer to the question, “How did you do it?” Because quite frankly, all those years that I’d been in the audience, that’s precisely what I wanted to know! And very few authors actually answer that question fully.

I would say that unfortunately Richard Kennedy didn’t want it enough.

It’s so sad!

Breaks my heart.

He was obviously such a huge talent! And the pain of rejection and the pain of being overlooked meant he stopped trying.

That’s the thing isn’t it?

There are so many stories out there, we are bound to overlook very good stories.

There are no guarrantees that your very best work will be noticed.

You can’t let it break your heart.

Sometimes when I’m listening to a hit song I’m thinking in the back of my mind, okay this singer is getting the ‘push’.

They’ve got the marketing executives and the music executives and grammy committees and the radio stations all backing this artist, but there must be other artists out there who don’t get the ‘push’, who struggle away in the dark with little to show for it, but who probably produce better art.

They just haven’t been ‘noticed’.

And thinking that of course makes me wonder if I’m in that group.

All I know is that I feel like I wrote my heart out and now I’m back at square one.

I’ve got to do it all over again and completely differently.

In the last two years I’ve written two full length novels that haven’t been published. That would be enough to make some people start feeling desperate.

I won’t deny it’s not stressful, but at the same time, I’m feeling pretty sanguine about things.

I feel like the creative gears are turning, and this fallow bit is necessary.

I may be getting ready to crank it up to the next level, we’ll see.

Right now I’m just getting up doggedly and writing my two pages, every day, two pages. I’m up to over a hundred and seventy pages of the Hajj novel and whether or not anyone else in the world likes it, I like it!

I really don’t want to be a Richard Kennedy.

I’ve seen too many people with exceptional talent go by the wayside because they didn’t WANT it enough to stick it out, to have real perseverance.

 

When we were first married, every end of December my hubby would ask me to write a list of short and long term goals.

Short term was for the next year, long term was for the next five years.

I never did get good at writing them down but that doesn’t mean I didn’t set them.

Tonight I’m having a big shindig in our house. With one of my daughters out of commission (she gave birth to my sixth grandchild less than two weeks ago) and another daughter with a three month old, I’m doing most of the cooking myself.

It’s really just family. Mine, my daughters and their families and one of my daughter’s in-law’s family, a total of about 18 people.

Except for some cupcakes and meat-filled buns, I’m doing most of the cooking.

And considering there are a lot of men coming, and these men like MEAT, I’m cooking a LOT of food.

Oh when I was younger, this kind of event would freak me out.

I’d end up cooking everything the same day, plus wanting the place to look fresh, I’d clean everything the same day too, and basically wipe myself out.

Now I plan.

I had my parents over on Tuesday, only three days before this party, so what did I do? I cooked extra chicken curry and froze it in a serving dish so all I’ll have to do is thaw it and heat it.

Yesterday I cleaned up the upstairs.

Today I bought the meat and the remaining groceries I’d need.

Today I made the beef curry and the broth for the pilau plus the baked chicken and the sauce for the lasagne.

As I cooked, I cleaned, so my kitchen was not a disaster zone by the end of the evening, and while the curry simmered, I watched Fargo,  a good movie that I’d been wanting to see ever since I got turned onto the Cohen brothers’ work. (Highly recommend it. It is bloody, but it’s also kind of funny and quirky.)

Tomorrow I’ll make the strawberry shortcake, put the lasagne together and cook the rice.

I’ll just have to reheat the curries and voila. Dinner for 18.

Writing is like that too.

It takes planning.

I’ve gotten to the point now, that when I’ve got a big event coming up I can automatically plan things without even really thinking about it. I doggedly keep going till everything is done.

Writing is the same.

Right now I have about five different projects on the go. I haven’t listed any steps in terms of how to finish them.

I just tackle them one at a time, give the ones that need feedback to other people to read, while I work on things that have deadlines and insha Allah, I get it all done.

Cooking a big dinner like this is actually a good metaphor for the process.

I find the best thing to do to maximize your time is start things, and get them to the simmer point, and then as they’re simmering on the back burner, get to the other stuff you need to get done.

Back when I used to be a lab technician, it was actually a remarkably similar process, only my ‘recipes’ were the lab procedures, the qualitative analyses and quantitative analyses which would determine if the right drug were in the samples and if it was in the right amounts. Being a quality control technician in a pharmaceutical manufacturing company really wasn’t so different from being a cook. And I’d often apply the same principles.

I’d start something to burn down in the crucible in the fume hood while I’d begin quantitatively titrating a solution to determine the concentration and stuff.

That way I’d get two procedures done at the same time.

I am ALWAYS working on more than one story at a time.

When I tell kids it took me five years to write Ruler of the Courtyard what I don’t tell them is that I was also working on umpteen other books at the same time.

Get stuck on one, push it to the back burner, and work on another.

And yes, carrying this metaphor to the extreme, some stories do get overdone. They get burnt and there’s nothing you can do with them.

That happened with a story idea I had set in Custer, South Dakota.

I even went so far as traveling there and researching all the places that Crazyhorse fought against American forces. All for a novel that never did get published.

But…hey, it’s not done yet. You never know. Maybe one day those figments of story will work their way into a viable form. I actually do have a vague idea for one, but no way can I write it right now.

I like to say that Wanting Mor only took me five months to write. And consciously that’s true, but in reality it probably began when my sister died eight years ago. Reading that paragraph about a girl named Sameela in the orphanage I sponsored the library in, jogged something, but it was still a few years later before I heard Jameela, the main character say the first sentence, “I thought she was sleeping”.

For me, hearing the first sentence is like the smoke alarm going off.

It means something is past done and ready to come off the back burner.

By the time I *hear* the first sentence, the story has basically formulated itself. All I have to do now is hold on for the ride and write as fast as I can.

I did that, and in five months, I came up with Wanting Mor.

Ever since last year, when I went for Hajj and my agent said I should write a book about a kid who goes for Hajj, I stirred up the contents of this story and put them on the back burner of my mind.

Only a few months ago, I started writing it and now I’m almost done.

I had wondered if I’d get done before the end of the year. It doesn’t look like it. But that’s okay. I’d rather do it right than do it rushed.

I do like what’s come out of it.

It’ll need some work, some mixing and stirring to see if the spices are right, but that’s okay. I’m ready for it.

I’m hoping this year is quite prolific.

Got SO many ideas that are bubbling away.

I just hope none of them burn.

Good luck to all of you with your projects and hope this next year is a good one.

2011 was a fantastic year for me!