Articles & Essays

On writing fiction

Of Time, Human Imagination, and the Gift of Self-Publishing…

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I recently read a discussion, Attention Self-Published Authors at Definitive Serious Writers Group at LinkedIn, on the stigma self-publishing bears and that many self-published authors perpetuated by not giving enough attention to the quality of all aspects of creating a well-written narrative and packaging it in enticing aesthetics.

I turned to self-publishing because I am a wife and mother and needed adequate time to write and refine my book.

My first publication, a collection of short stories, served as my MFA thesis and was published in 2007. Two years year after earning my MFA in Creative Writing, I wrote a novel.

On seeing the manuscript lying on the coffee table in the study my husband lifted and read it. “This needs to be published,” when he reached the end. My husband is not a writer and has the patience of an ant.

He’s what I would define as typical and no less demanding reader who wants to be taken away. My husband is a sharp thinker.

Of Time, Human Imagination, and the Gift of Self-Publishing… Read More »

“Seasons in Purdah” @ 10-Day Book Club

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What would you do if the loss of your sight ignited a war between you two best friends?

This is the case for 35-year-old, psychologist, Sahel Ohin, involving her two friends from childhood, Titus Denning and Carl Pierson.

The surgery that could return Sahel’s sight might also kill her.

Sahel’s husband, Titus, a cardiac surgeon, fears the latter.

Sahel’s neurosurgeon, Carl Pierson, believes Sahel’s blindness has rendered her hostage to Titus.

On the first night out since her blindness Sahel meets James Bolton, a former San Francisco stockbroker.
Though never having met they converse as if old friends.

The winter afternoon that Sahel attempted suicide, James received life imprisonment for murder, and his fiancée leapt from the Golden Gate Bridge.

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Of “Mausam,” Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Creating for the Ages…

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I recently saw the movie, Mausam, written and directed by Pankaj Kapur, and starring the beautiful Sonam Kapoor opposite the wonderful and delightfully handsome, Shahid Kapoor.

Like most Bollywood movies of its genre, historical dramatic romance, the movie move along taking its time to tell what I experienced as a beautiful love story.

Critics on both sides of the ocean suggest that the pacing could be increased by eliminating various scenes that do not contribute to the overall plot of the story.

I disagree.

The director could have deleted certain scenes and decreased the run time and perhaps maintained the high level of enjoyment I experienced.

But why fix what is not broken?

As an American moviegoer that has grown tired of movies aiming to tell a story with what often appears an ultimate goal of relaying the narrative, in movie format, in the shortest amount of time possible,

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Of Supply, Demand, and The Woeful Truth About Publishing and Authors…

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Author and publisher, Zetta Brown’s recent blog, “Authors! Can’t find your book in a bookstore? You may be luckier than you think!”, got me to thinking–no pun intended–about the old law of economics, that of supply and demand.

With bookstores and sellers tightly adhering to what seems to me, an outdated mode of purchasing books from publishers, and authors who choose to self-publish–that of retaining, if not demanding, the opportunity to return unsold books they have received from us–I wonder what would happen if publishers and authors began to print less books.

A blog post, “A Woeful Truth About Publishing,” at Champagne Books explains this paradoxical phenomenon in detail.

In short what I’m really saying is, “How would economic market respond if publishers did not make books so readily accessible?”

Of Supply, Demand, and The Woeful Truth About Publishing and Authors… Read More »

Of Grinding Pepper, Banalities, and Seeking That Which We Yet Understand…

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Working as both a wife of nearly 29 years, and mother of 3, has prepared me in various ways to accomplish the work of a fiction writer.

Working as a wife and mother requires a lot of what an Islamic Imam described as grinding pepper.

Grinding pepper, from the perspective of the imam encompasses those activities that we here in the west describe as comprising the bane of our existence–mindless tasks, that we view as disrespectful of our intelligence and that devalue our worth as a person.

The world banal implies a lack of uniqueness.

Something that is banal possesses no originality.

It is like the wheel that begs for no reinvention, rather more unique and original ways of bringing a deeper level of presence and attention to the task(s) at hand–tasks that when practiced with a presence of mind and heart sharpen our skills and artistry in all areas of life, yield an original creation, and transform us as individuals.

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Of Revelation, Illusions and the Parallel Processes of Writing and Discovery…

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Revelation plays an important role in constructing and/or assembling the middle section of a novel.

Revelation also encompasses the uncovering of truth of what has always stood present, but remained hidden by strong held illusions and beliefs.

Stories and novels stand upon revelations, ones that sustain the cause-and-effect events that comprise, most particularly, the plot of a novel and that lead towards crisis and onto climax.

Of Revelation, Illusions and the Parallel Processes of Writing and Discovery… Read More »

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