So Much to Do...Well, it feels like it

Okay, I haven't blogged in a while, I admit that, but it's not like I've got a ton of readers waiting on edge for my next post, so I think you'll forgive the delay. Not much going on on this end, except I attended a summer creative writing workshop at Columbia University from June 29 to July 17, and I have just two words to describe the experience: Totally. Awesome. Definitely the highlight of the summer. For the time being, I've crossed Bleeding Heart, that YA vampire novel, off my writing list, in case I haven't mentioned it before. Too many vampires these days - I know because even I got so bored of vampires that I couldn't keep writing. And now in between two Honors and one AP class, college applications, and just living life in general, I'm working on the first installment to a new YA trilogy based on Greek mythology. I still haven't quite gotten a good title down. The working title is currently, My Boyfriend, Son of Poseidon, but I'm not really feeling it. Something short and sweet is what I need. Greek is out of the question.

FTLOH Revisions

FTLOH isn't some weird acronym that stands for something totally random like Fan To Live Over Hannibal (that doesn't even make sense, which only proves my point), it stands for For the Love of Humanity, the title of the first installment of my shape-shifter. As you can guess from the title of this blog post, I'm working on revisions to the manuscript, and boy was there a lot to cut down on or what! I had so much junk clustered in with the important parts that I went from 122,000 to 87,000 words, just from the initial revisions, and I've already spotted bits here and there (not as many as there were initially) that could be cut out, placed somewhere else, or combined with another chapter to help the pacing. Basically, I think I'm going to end up watching Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (see the pic) this whole month until I'm sick of the movie (even though I love it) because it puts me in the perfect mood to work on FTLOH. 

Heat Wave

No, I'm not talking about Domino's Pizza when I say "heat wave", although a slice or two really does sound appetizing at the moment... Just came back from school after being exhausted all day with a bit of a headache and issues of the nose kind. Unfortunately, it probably doesn't help that I'm the only person in the school wearing pants instead of shorts - religious reasons, let's leave it at that - and I don't have issues with that since I love my dark jeans, but the only thing I wanted to do all day was wear my light cotton salwar kameez that would keep me cool without violating any religious or cultural morales. So now I'm sitting at home, in my favorite green salwar kameez (to get an idea of what salwar kameez looks like, just take a look at the photo. And no, that's not me. The only way I'd ever be that tall is with seven-inch heels on.), trying to do something to beat the heat - currently it's watching clips on YouTube. On the writing front, I've edited True or False? about three times now and have finally got it down to a decent word count, eliminating anything that either made no sense (I believe I've mentioned this before, but when I refer to something that made no sense in my writing, I probably wrote it past midnight when my brain apparently switches off automatically) or just didn't move the plot anywhere. Some scenes I left to add to the humor quotient but cut down on. I've started A Hidden Danger, which is going along well, as well as Bleeding Heart, that vampire novel I've been wanting to work on. I haven't been working on it for long, so I've only got about three chapters, but I posted an excerpt from the first chapter on Yahoo! Answers and got some pretty good responses, most of them asking me to finish it, three asking me to change the vampire's name from Fletcher to something else (not likely; names that start with the letter F appeal to me for sentimental reasons and the fact that his name is Fletcher has to do with his talent for archery which in turn relates to the plot), and a couple telling me to come up with something original. In other words, something that wasn't Twilight. I didn't post details that would have separated my work from Twilight but would also have ruined the story for any potential readers. The response I was personally most impressed though was this one:Holy Hippogriff, you really have some talent! However, I strongly recommend that you don't waste it on a human-vampire love story, as if we need more of those. You have me Rowling (Harry Potter pun completely intended) my eyes, because you have so much talent, and you are wasting it on an overused plot. Your grammar skills far surpass Stephenie Meyer by a mile. So please, for the sake of literature, write something more unique and creative, like you!

My screenname on Y!Answers is UniqueGirl (I know, I know, but I made it up when I was 14. Give me a break.), in case you were wondering about that last part. I completely agree with Luna Loves Lucius (who wrote that post) - I never saw myself writing a vampire novel. But I figure that if I do, I might as well put a unique spin on it to make it genuinely memorable, add a little spice and excitement to the mix.

Poetry

Great news - I just got a letter from Greenspring Publishing. I'd submitted a poem back in January or February, and the company wants to publish it in an anthology. So now all I have to do is order the anthology and send the order form (okay, that's probably not all I have to do - there is also working with the editors to think about, but I'm happy about it). According to the website "only the top 5% of submitted poems are considered for publication." Yet another writing achievement to add to college applications! Whoo! Yeah, right - I just want to see my work in print like anybody else ;) (And not saying that the poem isn't any good, cause it's one of the few works I am actually personally satisfied with, but I wrote it in about five minutes. Seriously.) 

Characters

As all writers of fiction know, whether they're amateurs or professionals, it's vital that each character be given an individual voice. I like to mold my characters in such a way and give them such vibrant personalities that they practically leap off the page to greet the reader. Some examples from my own work: 

Marie Cynthia Guinevere Rosanna - The Peasant Princess - Sheesh, what a long name. Well, being a princess seems to demand it. Marie has what is referred to in the writing world as "rebellious princess syndrome" - she doesn't behave or do anything the way a princess is supposed to. She duels (as in swords) with her elder brother, practices archery almost daily, is fond of falconry, can't sew a stitch to save her life, dances like she has two left feet, and fails to see the point in excessive finery, the ability to balance any and all object(s) on her head, and constantly thinking of suitors. She's a bit impulsive and defiant, but she is also kind and trustworthy...and a bit hot-headed. Don't make her angry - she won't think too much about giving anybody a black eye.

Coralie "Cora" Parker - Shape-shifter Series - Cora is...well, she's Cora. She walks into things and injures herself on a daily basis (once she walked right into a mailbox. The mailbox was fine; she had to go to the Emergency Room). She's also sarcastic, willing to punch any guy who makes googly eyes at her, tomboyish, not quite sure what's so great  about designer label clothing, and is evidently a human magnet for shape-shifters. She has no difficulty speaking her mind and is perfectly willing to smack someone with a baseball bat...as long as it is a deserving punishment.

Saamiya Siddiqui - True or False? - Saamiya is still recuperating from the loss of her father in a car accident when she was eight years old. She's twenty-two now, and tries to mask all the hurt she feels by being sarcastic, harsh, and, often, hateful. It's a gradual process, but she starts to drop the mask and become a little more warm-hearted, a little less sarcastic, and in general a more fun person. She doesn't do it alone though - the three members of Jal the band are notably responsible for her reformation (and it is a reformation rather than a transformation).

Ten Things I Hate About Me - Randa Abdel-Fatta

I've been reading this book since yesterday, and it makes me want to go to school, stop in the hallway, and bang my head repeatedly against a row of lockers. What's the issue? The book is about a girl, sophomore in high school, who is a Lebanese-Muslim who is hiding her cultural identity from her classmates in Sydney. Yes, as in Australia. So every other page the girl complains about her father's unrelenting rules - "He refuses to let me go to the formal! My life is over!" Big whoop. I'm not going to the junior prom - I didn't even bother asking my mom about it. Mixing of genders, probably some close dancing, people trying to sneak in drugs and alcohol. Not for me. Again, in the book, "Don't you trust me? Why don't you trust me? You don't appreciate me!" Right. My mom trusts me, no doubt about that. She doesn't trust the people around me. And, quite honestly, when hormones, evil thoughts, and booze (even the possibility of it) are brought into the equation, neither do I. And then there's bellydancing and Muslims drinking alcohol and dating. Yes, that's sooo Islamic. Please, please, note the sarcasm there.  But what bothers me the most in this book is the fact that this girl just sits there listening to her "friends" trash-talking her heritage and does absolutely nothing about that. She says her father shouldn't care about what other people think - why can't she take her own advice? I'm a Pakistani Muslim, and believe me when I say I'm proud of it. What have I got to be ashamed of? I go to school like everyone else, I abhor violence, and I have my own personal hobbies and interests. Oh no, but what about the Taliban? Yes, the Taliban has everything to do with me just because I'm of Pakistani origin. Not. 9/11? So many lives lost, and in the so-called name of religion. Let me say this: accusing all Muslims of being terrorists is like blaming the entire town for something a criminal  - a single person - who lives there did. Blame an entire group of people with a religious affiliation in common for what a couple of crazies who got their hands on weapons did. Make any sense? Not in the least. Believe me, we Muslims are just as abhorred by it as anyone else, probably even more since it says right in the Qur'an that there is nothing more precious than human life and killing one person is sin enough to equal killing the whole of mankind (and conversely saving one life is equal to saving the whole of mankind - so let's save more people). So how did that message get mixed up? Either some people didn't read that line - maybe not even the whole Qur'an - or somehow managed to completely misread it.

Sea of Benevolence

The plot, in the beginning of Sea of Benevolence, revolves around the protagonist, Coralie "Cora" Parker, trying to figure out how to get Kyle Grimalkin to admit that he might have feelings for her. Sounds like every other YA novel, right? Close, but not quite. Kyle's a shape-shifter, and if that didn't make things complicated enough, he's had major commitment issues ever since his family abandoned him when he was eight years old. So he doesn't exactly believe in love. That's a problem. 

One thing I can say, I have to work hard to keep Cora from becoming like those girls at school who are constantly drooling over Edward Cullen - I'm not a big fan of obsession of fictional characters. Or of any person, come to think of it. At least now I kind of understand the obsession (due to my fixation with Jal the band), but at least I know the guys in the band actually exist, unlike a certain golden-eyed vampire... Plus, if I'm obsessed with anything, it's the music, not the guys' eyes or their hair or whatever it is that makes girls obsessed with EC. 

Spring Break!

Finally, it's here! Although I feel like I need a whole month, not just a week. Still, that's what summer is for. 

Okay, let's see what's on the agenda...

Sea of Benevolence revisions, okay.

New short story, working on it.

Somehow contact Jal the band, hmm...

Oh, and college essays. Nice. 

Got a lot of work to do now, so I'll come back to this later. 

Ciao!

A Week Away Now...

One week away from Spring Break - yes!!! I have good reasons to be excited: more time to write (like editing Sea of Benevolence), more time to sleep in, and more time to...study for SATs and SAT subject tests. How exciting. On the plus side, one of the two subject tests I'm taking is Literature, something I really love. The other is World History, which is pretty interesting too. I just have to make 100 flash cards, probably.

As usual, I'm excited on the JAL front: merchandise is finally available: a cap, band T-shirt, signed posters (yeah right, my parents are going to actually let me get one of those), signed folders (if I got one, I'd never use it because my folders tend to rip - if they're paper- or snap - if they're plastic), and a signed mug. That, I might actually be allowed to get. If not, I'll have to wait another eight months till my birthday before my parents let me make my own decisions) And of course, I can't let anyone else use it because it might break like the last mug I got - and nobody bothered to tell me it broke. 

And...finally, back to writing. I know I haven't blogged in a while - my fault, I'll admit it - but I've been doing a lot of writing, mostly revisions to The Peasant Princess. For once in my life, I'm actually satisfied with my own writing (I'm a perfectionist, I get it from my Dad, unfortunately), thanks to Lyuba Velcheva, assistant to Alyssa Henkin at Trident Media Group. Constructive criticism is always welcome, although it takes me a couple of minutes to absorb it in. 

Writing, Writing, Writing...

    Whoa, those are some huge pics. Not that I'm complaining - the bigger the better, in my opinion! Finally, I've finished the first draft of True or False?  Ahead of time, by the way, which is good. I've already done some edits and just have to finish them, also of course I also have to somehow contact the band and obtain permission before they sue me for copyright violation. Infringement of personal right to live or something like that, probably. I don't blame them.

 I also finished the first draft of Sea of Benevolence, but I feel a need to add onto it because it's significantly shorter than its two prequels. So I intend to do as much as I can with that until the summer, when I'll resume work on the sequel and last of the series, Secret Danger (whose working title I intend to change to Hidden Danger). Besides, I've only written about four and a quarter pages for it so far. Might as well wait a little longer...

 And after that I'll hopefully be able to work on a novel for my senior year research project, probably that vampire novel. I can research different myths and legends, how vampires have changed over the years, look into vampires of different nationalities, and I also intend to analyze four vampire novels, two older and two contemporary and find similarities and differences before I start my own. And just to get this over with, no, I do not believe in vampires, not in the least. I think they'd be interesting to write about (as long as I don't make them perfect, because perfect=boring for me personally). And yes, the vampire in the book is going to be a carnivore, and his name is not Edward Cullen; it's Fletcher Munroe (no, he's not related to President James Munroe - the guy responsible for the Munroe Doctrine). And he's not pale, mostly because I personally am not attracted to pallid people and partially because I've done some research and in the past people used to believe that a corpse had turned into a vampire when it looked healthier than it had in life (meaning, less pale and with healthier color). He's also not a mind-reader or anything special like that - he's just particularly skilled at archery due to centuries of practice, hence the name Fletcher.

 And again after that, I plan to work on another novel I've wanted to work on for quite some time: Heavensent. It's not a religious novel, although it will deal with the ideas of Heaven vs. Hell and Angels vs. Devilfolk. It will require extensive research (like in the Qur'an, Bible, and Torah - just the sections considering angels, devils, heaven, and hell), but it's something I want to do on my own time, as the subject is very special to me. Mostly because it was inspired by a Jal song. I don't think that's a copyright issue - it's just basically one line that happened to inspire an entire plot. If I hadn't mentioned that it was inspired by a song, it's likely no one would know. Although if you know me really well, you might be able to guess.

 Yes, I know, I plan out when I'm going to do each novel. I have to, that way I know what I'm working on now and what I'm working on later, and all my ideas get done. So far I'm set through college. There are other ideas I have, of course, but I feel like those are for more of an adult audience and it would help to grow up a little bit and gain some experience. In terms of YA, well, I am a Young Adult. There's my experience right there. 

Watch What You Say...

I doubt that this is just something I do. Your brain thinks one thing, your mouth says another. The only problem is that I seem to do this kind of thing more than most people. Take today for example. My cat, Picard, got into my mother's room, so she tells me to get him out so he won't shed hair all over her stuff. So I open my mouth to call Picard, and I end up shutting my mouth halfway through Farhan's name, which my mother notices. I know how that happened - before going up to see Mom I'd been working on True or False?, specifically a chapter in Farhan's POV. I could have just as easily ended up calling my cat Goher or Shazi, but of course that's not the most reassuring thing to tell my mother, who now thinks I'm crazily obsessed.

On another note, I'm doing my best to finish the first draft of True or False? by the end of this week. Let's hope I can do it...

Dreams

Dreams can always be a source of inspiration to authors. I got the idea for True or False? from a dream, and so far it's been going pretty well, although I don't know why Jal the band still keeps showing up in my dreams. Not that I'm complaining - the dreams have always been pleasant, except for one that made me cry in the morning when I woke up... Anyway, last night I had yet another dream involving Farhan, Goher, and Shazi. And no, it was not something to inspire another novel. Calm down, I'm getting to the point. In the dream, everyone in my family was sitting at home doing...nothing, from what I could tell, when the doorbell rang. My Dad, who was near the door, didn't answer it for some reason and went up to his room, maybe because he didn't want to be seen in his pajamas. I don't know why, but I was pretty excited and glad that I got to open the door myself, and I saw first Farhan, then Goher, and then Shazi. Don't know how I'd been expecting them, but I pretended that I hadn't and invited them in, making sure they sat down in our living room first before they could tell me what they were doing there. And then I don't remember what the rest of the dream was about. That's the unfortunate thing - I can never seem to remember the whole of my dreams, only little bits and pieces. Their car probably broke down just outside the house or something. Or maybe they needed directions, but I know that Goher has an iPhone so I would think that he'd be able to use the maps function for that...unless it ran out of battery. I don't know, but I can use some aspects of the dream in True or False? - like...never mind, I can't, because I really don't remember much other than opening the door, seeing them all in sunglasses (in February? Well, I use transition glasses that annoy me beyond all reason but always look like sunglasses as long as the sun is out. I don't know what their excuse is...), and inviting them in. Did I mention that it was snowing in my dream? 

Almost There...

I have about a third of True or False? left to write, then some time - hopefully not much more than a month - for editing. In terms of editing, there are some details I need to go back and add, some stuff that need cutting out, and the typical grammar and spelling errors. I also need to go back and add some chapters in Goher's point of view (in the unnecessarily large screenshot, he's the one on the left - and the guitarist of the band. He's also on the left in the smaller screenshot.) for one of the subplots of the novel that I later decided needed to be expanded on. There's also a chapter that requires some historical research done, so that will take a couple of days - I'm grateful for the Internet - and one chapter in Farhan's point of view that I got so stuck on that I had to skip it and go on to the next chapter. Let me point out that it is not easy to write a novel where your characters are real people - I might have to end up following Farhan around for a day before I can get that chapter right, or I might just need to watch a couple of interviews, depending on how it gets. In terms of stuff I need to cut out, there are some parts that are just...well, silly. But I like to make people laugh, so there are going to be parts that are a bit silly, but I want to cut anything out that just seems downright ridiculous. Usually anything like that was written after midnight. For some reason I always write a lot after midnight, but that's also when my brain tends to stop working properly, so what I write might not always make sense. Once I'm done with the manuscript and all the editing, I'll do what I can to see about copyright issues. Maybe the Law of Attraction can help me somehow pull the band to my front door with my mind...

True or False?

I don't think I'm the only author - even of the ones who haven't been published yet - who wonder what it would be like if a one of her novels were adapted into a feature film. Right now, the one I'm thinking about is True or False? even though I've still got about a third of the manuscript to write, and then about a month of editing after that. I'm hoping to be completely done by April - let's hope it works out. That way, I can spend April, May, and June finishing the second half of Sea of Benevolence and then work on the fourth and last installment of the shape-shifter series in the summer. Then next year, my senior year of high school, I want to spend on that vampire novel and another that I've had the idea for since this past summer. Yes, I know, I plan out when I'm going to write each book, but it's a time management thing, and when I'm in high school, there's not a whole lot of time to throw around and way too many ideas. 

Anyway, back to True or False? I started a new thread for it on the forums of Jal's official website (www.jaltheband.com), got some comments, and a poll. In terms of the poll, 75% voted that they would definitely read it (some even posted saying they'd buy it the first day it released  no matter what), 18.18% said maybe, depending on the plot and how well-written it is, and since I haven't disclosed the whole plot yet, the maybe makes sense, although I have full confidence in my writing style, and 6.82% said they don't think they'd read it - most of those posted saying that they're just not readers. Which brings us to the film adaption. Well, either that, or me catching a plane to Lahore and following the guys around with a video camera while I documented their daily lives... For those 6.82%, they said they'd watch the movie, without a doubt. I can imagine it, although Saamiya would be tough to cast. I'd willingly volunteer for the role - I've got the right height and Pathan accent to make it work, at least.  

Midterms

Here's the worst thing about midterms: if you're a teen writer like me, they interfere with what could very well be the next bestselling novel to hit the New York Times list. I'm a good student, actually a great student, but I've always had to wonder what the point is to midterms. Think about it, if you learn one topic and mess up on a quiz or test, you can always make it up later by doing better on the next, so why are you getting tested on the same stuff twice? Odds are you won't understand something if you didn't understand it the first time. So it's just extra work for both the students and the teachers. I won't say I understand the point, because I can't, but I do understand that I've got to take them, and if you've got to take them, you might as well do the best you can, right? 

Good Things Come to Those who Wait...

Last year, around October, I entered the UP ALL NIGHT Contest hosted by Laura Geringer books, a division of HarperCollins. Yes, I said HarperCollins. Up All Night is a book comprising of six short stories by six different authors with one common theme: a character whose thoughts or situation kept him/her up all night. Libba Bray, author of A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and The Sweet Far Thing wrote a short story for the book as well. To get a feel of what the stories were like, I borrowed the book from the library (although this was after I'd written my story, and I didn't edit much of it after reading the book). To enter the contest, my story also had to feature a character who stays up all night. So, with that idea in mind, I wrote "Boogey Till the Sunrise". Turns out, I've won first prize which gets me a copy of Up All Night signed by all the contributing authors and might get to have "Boogey Till the Sunrise" published! I'm starting to really like the Law of Attraction. If you haven't read it yet, get yourself a copy of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne. Or, if you're not a reader, well two things: 1. You're looking at the wrong blog and 2. See the movie! I started reading The Secret 45 minutes ago, and it's already begun to improve my life, and definitely my mood! I know, I sound nothing like a teen, but my old Italian teacher called me la nonna ("the grandma") for a reason. Can I help it if I want to improve my life after living for just under two decades? 

Push Contest

Last year I picked up a novel at my local library - Hail Caesar by Thu-Huong Ha - and let me be honest: the only reason I picked it up was because the author wrote it after winning a PUSH contest at the age of fourteen. It's a bit off-putting for me that all the novels published by PUSH- a division of Scholastic - revolve around high school kids with realistic plots. That means: nothing I've written fits into that. I tried thinking of something good to submit for their 2009 contest - might as well try it, the only thing I can lose is some postage on sending it - and came up with a stand-alone vampire novel. I guess that means I always have to spice something up in my writing. Not to suggest that high school stories are boring, but how many times can the boy-meets-girl, boy-gets-girl thing be done? And the vampire thing might be a strange side-effect of getting annoyed by hearing girls talk about how perfect Edward Cullen is for too long. Otherwise, I know I never would have tried anything with vampires in it - I think the literary world is far too full of them already. But I did write a synopsis - a requirement of the contest - and I think I've got something decent on my hands. Not that anyone will get overly obsessed with male vampire Fletcher Munroe, but that was never my plan. As long as he gets to have expressive dark brown eyes, I'm happy. Huh. I got so caught up with Fletcher's appearance that I never even thought about what the girl - Sakina Evergreen - should look like, even though she's the protagonist. 

Be Careful What You Write...

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Piccoult. Page 243. Lacy Houghton - whose son Peter has been arrested for a shootout at his high school - is talking to Peter's lawyer, asking what he'd do if his own baby grew up to: 1. announce he was gay, 2. convert to Islam, 3. become a suicide bomber. First one not such a big deal, getting to be typical in books and movies these days. Suicide bomber, definite bad right there. Number two...oh. So converting to Islam is...just as bad as being gay or a suicide bomber? Uh-huh. Hmm. 

Did I ever mention that I'm a Muslim? Okay, I am, and I believe in my faith. What I don't believe is that all these terrible things people are doing in the name of Islam is Islamic. Really, it's contradictory, since Islam means "Peace", and religion is not supposed to be contradictory. I can quote a verse from the Qur'an right off the top of my head right now, one that always stuck in my mind: "If a person kills another person, then it will be as if he has killed all of mankind; if a person saves another person, then it will be as if he has saved all of mankind". How does anyone misinterpret that? Note that it says "person", not "Muslim" - it applies to anyone and everyone. So why blame one entire religious group for what a few psychos did? Anyone can blame that a deed has been done in the name of religion. It doesn't mean that it really has been. 

My point: authors have to be careful with what they write. That one line from that one page might have (and still could) cost Ms. Piccoult hundreds to millions of readers - Islam is the second-largest religion (in terms of worshippers) in the entire world, after all - and an author wants to attract readers, not repel them. 

Personally, even though religion and faith are constantly in my life, I try to avoid them in my writing (depending on my intended audience) to express neutrality, not favoring one religion over another. So my characters (except for the ones in my two works set in Pakistan) aren't Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or Atheist. And you know what? I can write a full-length novel without bringing religion into it, aside from a few "oh my God"s, maybe, and I think most of those have been changed to "oh my gosh". And, well, most people in Pakistan are Muslim, so the characters in my novels set in Pakistan (currently there are only two) are too, but my intended audience is both Muslims of all nationalities and Non-Muslims. What's the purpose of that? I try to put my faith in Islam into a more positive perspective, which it should be seen in but more often than not isn't. By the way, Shazi, the bass guitarist from Jal the band is Christian, unlike Farhan and Goher who are both Muslim - I'm not going to try to change anything about that in True or False? I respect each of their faiths and individual beliefs, and I respect Shazi as a person. Plus, he's just a really great bass guitarist. I wish I could play like that, but hey, everyone's got his (or her) own talents.

Which brings me to my second and last point before this post gets way too long: everyone's personal views should be given an equal chance and each view should be respected, even if it cannot be agreed with. Granted, the world isn't perfect, but if an author doesn't want to lose readers, she has to respect them before they can respect her, taking into consideration that some could be deeply offended by a single sentence. Yes, Ms. Piccoult is a controversial author, I understand that, but controversial doesn't mean disrespecting someone else's views. I'm not saying that my own writing is perfect and will never offend anybody - it's impossible not to, what with all the different ranges of personalities that people have - what I'm saying is that I put as much effort as possible into maintaining respect. So if Ms. Piccoult ever meets me, I'm saying that, if she really believes that being a Muslim is such a bad thing, she's going to be pretty surprised. And I bet I'd be surprised too because she'd somehow turn out differently than I had thought as well. Humans, after all, often surprise even themselves, like I just did by writing this very long post.

New Year...

New Year, New Resolutions. Let's see what's on my list for 2009...

1. (at the very least) Begin publishing process on (again at least) one of my works

2. Meet Jal the Band (well, what's wrong with hope?) and get True or False? published - of course with their permission

3. Get accepted to Brown University (this is later in the year so it comes third) for fall 2010 - majoring in Creative Writing with a co-major in Journalism

Hmm. Pretty short list. No doubt I'll come up with more as the year progresses. Happy new year, everyone! Enjoy 2009!