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!