I started this creative writing blog sometime in Fall of 2012 with the dream to eventually be published someday and have my work in a major bookstore! That dream has finally come true in 2023!! Over a decade later of self-publishing poetry, my debut novel, Nila the Bleeding Garden, is now available for purchase in store at Chapters-Indigo locations across Toronto and Greater Toronto Area!!
Here is a photo of me from this past Sunday outside of a Indigo location after purchasing my novel at the store! So very grateful for this moment!
Below is a video of my reaction after finding my novel at a Indigo store in Markham, Ontario!
Thank you to each and every one of you who has sent me positive feedback and encouragement along this long and difficult journey! It has made a positive difference in moments where I would doubt or question the possibility of my dream and vision coming true!
I am currently working on a second manuscript which has not been picked up by a publisher yet. I hope to share more updates about it. I am happy to be finally living my dream as a author and novelist.
I wrote a little speech this morning because I was waiting. I wait until the vision comes to me and I couldn’t get the whole speech together until this morning. I feel like when I write, my best writing is like a spiritual, visionary experience. It has to come to me in full and then I feel like this message was gifted to me and I have to share it and it’s like the embodiment of what my soul wants to say. So finally, this morning it came to me. It’s a bit long so I’m going to try to cut it down.
I feel like I can breathe easier for the first time since I was a little girl. Since I was five years old when I arrived to Toronto, I felt like an injustice had been done to me, my family and my country (Afghanistan). So much was stolen from us before we arrived. Since then, I wanted justice. I wanted to tell my story, seek truth in why this was happening to us and to so many and still is. Why is there a ‘global migration crisis’? Why is there an increasing amount of displacement and refugees over the years? Why war after war? Why so much division, hate and violence? And how can we stop it?
There are many, incredibly revolutionary Black-American women that inspired me along the way like poet and novelist Zora Neale Houston. Zora has a beautiful novel and movie, Their Eyes Were Watching God and it is a must-read book and must-see movie. She said: “If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it.”.
I wanted to write my pain through poetry and turn that pain into power when I started my poetry blog in 2012. That first step brought me to here – a published novel coping with and releasing that pain through a creative outlet which is creative writing. Prior to leaping into sharing my poetry, I had a sense of loneliness as an Afghan youth and girl. I had no one to talk to or relate to about my experience in my Afghan community because there was so much silence and lack of strong organizations to support or represent me. I wanted to learn how to survive this hell that I felt like I was in. My books are to fill that lack of literature and resources for people like me, especially Afghan women and girls.
My favorite quote by Toni Morrison, another Black-American woman, is “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” This is my ‘why’. The ‘why’ behind what I do. I wanted to read literature that I can relate to and spoke to my experience. I never read a book by an Afghan woman growing up. This is why I am so grateful for an indie publisher like Mawenzi House for publishing what major Western publishers have failed to do. You have empowered me by publishing my story which has brought me into the professional literary industry. Thank you.
I will share other favourite quotes by Black-American women that have inspired me into my journey to where I am now. bell hooks said “One of the best guides to how to be self-loving is to give ourselves the love that we are often dreaming about receiving from others.”. And two, “Without justice, there can be no love.” She’s all about understanding love and justice. It is really spiritually a part of who I am as a writer. Another is Audre Lorde, “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own. And I am not free as long as one person of colour who remains chained — nor is any one of you.”. I always have that in my mind. Our freedom isn’t some isolated thing, it’s a humanity issue and we are all connected. If someone else is not free, that will put you at risk as well. And then Maya Angelou, her famous poem, Still I Rise, where she says: “You may kill me with your hatefulness but still like air i’ll rise.”. Another quote by Maya Angelou, “My mission in life is not to merely survive, but to thrive.” and “People will never forget how you made them feel.”. I think with art you can apply these things. Through art, I think I went from survival to hopefully thriving. I still have a long way to go but I am trying to get to thriving. People will never forget how you made them feel. Art is the best way to connect with people’s hearts. I hope to do that with my art in a positive way.
Angela Davis said: “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change…I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” This is my act of not accepting the injustices that I see and feel through creative writing. And again, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating societies.”. So I am constantly, personally on my own personal experience of trying to open my mind and understand truth of things through my poetry and story-telling.
I also wanted to say that love and unity is very important especially when we are constantly being divided and it is still so prevalent today when we are divided by our media. Maya Angelou said: “We are more alike than we are unalike.”. I hope that through my novel, I can share the humanity that is in all of us and the stories and pains that brings us closer together.
Speaking on unity and humanity, if we close our eyes, we are spiritually one. This oneness is our power. Our spirit is within this power. We need to stay united as humanity because there are very few, corrupted individuals with a lot of power, a lot of resources and a lot of wealth that is mis-using it to unfortunately create this displacement, division, and war. So, when we close our eyes, I hope that we practice that oneness that brings all sentient beings, not just humans, into that oneness which I feel is the Universe. Despite the humanness and physical nature, we are that spirit. The more we connect with that spirit, the stronger we can be as humanity because it brings us together – our spirituality. The biggest thing is to be true to ourselves and honoring our spirit and I hope I did that with my novel because I would like it to connect me to my ancestors, Universe and God.
My favourite quote is: “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human can fight; and never stop fighting.“. I feel like art helps you become more of yourself and stay true to yourself because that is what it has done for me. The more I create, the more I learn about myself. I learned so much about my culture and history writing this novel which I didn’t have a lot of opportunity to growing up and it helped me realize how Afghan I really am spiritually. I was crying because finally I have time to learn about these favourite songs, food and the history. I was just becoming more of myself, so I think that is what I try to do.
So again, I just want to share that my whole purpose in everything I do is to spread love, unity, justice, peace, and truth-seeking. I hope I did that with this novel. I hope to write more novels. I hope that makes sense.
I am so happy to update you about my upcoming debut novel, Nila The Bleeding Garden. It is available for pre-order and to be released October 2022. Here is the pre-order link: https://www.mawenzihouse.com/product/nila-the-bleeding-garden/ It is also available to pre-order on most major online book retailers.
Today is also 8 years since I hosted my first book launch in Los Angeles of my self-published poetry collection, Pieces to Peace, with the help of my mentor Dr. Karamo Chilombo. I have been lucky to have made great friendships online that empowered me into becoming an author and novelist.
This all started with this blog where I shared and grew one poem at a time. Take that first step towards your dreams with all of your faith and heart!
Thank you for your support since the beginning 🙂
Writing prompt:Write about being friends with someone.
I always thought as a child that friendship was simply about being able to have fun with someone. But things got complicated and way more complex than my childhood definition of friendship. It is actually very easy to find and spend time, maybe even years, with people who you have fun with. There are a lot of fun, funny and exciting people. HOWEVER, that is not the greatest qualification or should be the only qualification for a friendship. I learned that the hard way. I guess I am human and also a naive one. True friendship is about fun AND respect. RESPECT is probably the most important thing in any relationship or friendship. A song said it best: “respect is just the minimum.” You need to respect the friends you have and you also need to be respected by those friends. However, as we age, we start realizing that some friends have habits, values or personalities that we just don’t find respectable anymore. Basically, we are not aligned anymore. Once you get that gut feeling and soul shifting feeling that this friend is no longer part of your purpose or future you envision…. let them go. You have outgrown each other. Otherwise, its inevitable or bound to divide anyway but not on the best of terms because you’ll basically conflict with each other on the way out of the friendship. A lot of of us hold on to our past friends because we have history with them. If something is now in your past, it usually means that you are no longer soul mates. Accept that. Let it be acquaintances and love each other from a distance. Maybe your paths will cross again as closer friends again. My point is: a friend is someone who you have fun with respectfully. In order to know what respectfully is… you have to KNOW YOURSELF first. And stand by who you are… because then when you ever encounter someone who tells you to change your essence or pressures you to be someone you’re not– you know they are not your friends. The best value in a friend is someone who loves you for who you are (as long as you are not being toxic) and wants to see you grow!
I am a Gemini so I have really contradictory and polar opposite wishes. On one hand, I want to successfully share my creative writing and messages with the world…but then I love my privacy and want to retreat into anonymity. My wish is to professionally take my creative writing into bookstores and perform my poetry to the world… but then I wish I had a pseudonym and no one ever really knew it was me all along. I love simplicity but I have to step out of my comfort zone joyfully and confidently in order to share my work. So, I guess, my wish is to be a internationally-recognized, best-selling writer but also… be able to retreat into a ordinary lifestyle of owning a big, beautiful house in Toronto that I could finally call home for the rest of my life. I love the house in the movie Home Alone. That is my house goals and life goals. A large, loving, welcoming home in the city where countless great moments are experienced with family and loved ones. Big enough for extended family to even stay over and call a second home. Basically, my wish is to have a stable, city, comfortable, private, ordinary life but also be a globally impactful artist advocating for just causes causes like helping those in need in Afghanistan. That is my wish(es).
I had a dream once in high school where I wished to go back in time to fix some things. My wish came true in the dream and I was so happy. My life was restarted in my dream back to the beginning. However, I made more mistakes in my second chance. Then I asked to restart my life again because I messed some things up still. So I got a new life and a new chance. But then in the 3rd round, I still made new mistakes. No matter what I did, there were different circumstances in each life and if I changed one thing then the other would be new. So, no matter what I did, there was always unpredictable and unknown obstacles… I was bound to make a mistake. I realized that in the dream. And I was like to myself… “OMG! You know what! There is no perfect life! No matter what I do, I will always have mistakes. I don’t need to get it perfect. Anytime I change something, everything else will change with it. The only choice we have is to accept the life we have made with all of its mistakes because it is our only, genuine life… and that is the art of living. Accepting, owning and moving forward with our mistakes!” So, that is one of my few vivid dreams that I still remember and have positively impacted me. I dream a lot – probably at least 2 to 3 dreams a night. They are quite telling and informing of whats goings on in our subconscious.
Writing prompt:Â Write about someone you miss dearly.
It was in the backyard of our first house in Canada. I had taken photos inside the house with my digital camera that I bought used from an ad I found online. I took artsy photos of my life at home. I remember I took photos of the door – it was wooden, cracked around it, with a tainted window and the knob was falling apart. I liked details. I wanted to pay attention to what something so simple meant. I knew there was a lot that can come out of what appears to be simplicity. I thought I could better understand my life by what I was surrounded by or how it was taken care of. I continued to take photos of the home such as the floor, the furniture and the windows. I then went out into the backyard. There was my mom lounging on a chair with her hand laying over her head. That was one of her favourite relaxing positions. I can remember the texture, colour, and moisture of her face. I remember her eyes staring at me wondering what I was up to probably. She had a no-nonsense look but a welcoming one at the same time. I think I remember the shirt she was wearing – a large brown button-up one with a collar and probably her baggy home pants. I remember asking to take her photo. She stared directly into the camera, maybe the sun was in her face a bit. I remember catching a moment with her and being grateful for it especially after she survived a rare cancer in her left leg about a year ago. I miss her even more because I remember the way her hair falls on her head, the way her hands sit on a arm rest, how her eyes stare and how her body drops into a chair. I remember it all and she is so alive in my mind that it makes me miss her even more. She is so real but not here.
Writing prompt:Â Write a letter to your 14-year old self.
Dear Laila,
This is your second year into teenagehood! Whew! You made it through the first year! Hallelujah!
Highschool is one helluva rollercoaster! You just don’t know what to expect… each day is so different because of the constant, significant changes.
You’re getting closer to adulthood. You’re getting closer to “freedom” out of grade school. You’re getting closer to the dream life you think you want.
SLOW DOWN.
Stop rushing the time to pass fast and LIVE IN THE DAMN MOMENT so you can make the best long-term, lasting decisions — like the friends you CHOOSE. The school you’ve settled in. The classes you’re taking. The after school activities you partake in. CHOOSE WISELY. You have this power and this is YOUR life.
Because you want to leave high school — with the best of friends, the best of memories, the best education, the best of choices…
You CAN do that.
Most of all… the best of HEALTH.
Mental and physical.
Stop listening to all of the noise.
Continue to listen to, believe in and respect yourself. The crowd is going the wrong way for awhile! Be you.
This will impact your 20’s in a great way!! You’ll be ready for adulthood rather than surviving it because you experienced your teen years FULLY.
It was a huge suitcase made of metal. A thin silver metal. A trunk full of paper. And that paper was money. Money that would be spent in the thousands at every road stop. Every road stop demanding money and more money. Every driver required even more. It was dangerous and costly. As time went by, the money went too. Somehow from bus to bus, that huge silver metal trunk came with us. In a way, it saved us. It afforded us our freedom to escape in the most difficult of times. All of my fathers hard earned money was disappearing fast and becoming less valuable by the day. That suitcase became a treasure trunk of paper that I didn’t really understand well. There was still a significant amount still left after the escape. It seemed so glorious but also so disappointing. It was currency that I didn’t understand at the time. How could so much money be worth nothing at all? Some suitcases I wish I never had to deal with or saw.
I missed day 8th! I was busy and tired from a festive day spent downtown looking at Christmas decorations.
Writing prompt: Tell a story about how you see love.
There was two tall, old trees planted side by side. Both these trees were thriving for decades together. They saw many beautiful events occur around them and were selfless in how they served others. They made themselves a shade on hot summer days. They were built strong enough to hold many animals to make itself a home in. They gave and gave the Earth lots of essential elements like oxygen. They were harmonious with external elements too, the sunlight allowed it much needed nutrients. The trees worked well together and also worked well with everything around them. One of the trees, however, began to fall ill. A person began to spill unknown toxins in the trees soil. The tree stood strong in itself but more toxins began to be poured into it. The tree felt alone, misunderstood and abused…. it began to deform. The healthier tree was purely itself and was unharmed however… but it too began to deform. The toxins made its way to its roots and soil too. Both of the trees were now deforming together. They lived a long life of being an example of functioning perfectly and being true to its gifts. They could no longer be love. They were poisoned. Bit by bit. Slowly but surely. They lost themselves. And everything around them began to lose itself too…
Writing prompt: A character in your story is going to the beach for the very first time. Describe the beach from that character’s point of view.
I found myself standing in the middle of the beach in awe. With my feet bare and dug into the hot sand below me, they felt just as alive as the rest of my body. I looked down at my toes to kick them into the sand even more. I loved the feeling of it being engulfed in sand. I felt immersed in the experience if I liked it or not. I was rooted in the beach and my sensations were overwhelmed in every way. My ears could hear the ocean gently waving back and forth. It was so soothing and new. A sound that I never knew that I needed. A sound that felt like it was somehow cleansing me with it as it went back and forth. My entire body felt changed and changing by the beach. Atom by atom, I was somehow a new person just by standing there. Nature never felt more magical. Besides the waves and the sand, the sun was glaring on my head. It was sun rays heating me up and warming every exposed part of my skin. My mood was picking up instantly. It was a natural high for sure in every way. My ears, My skin, My eyes, Everything was being nurtured by the beach and I was so happy to be there finally and for the first time.
Writing prompt: Can you imagine the world without the Internet?
Yes, I can. I was born in the 80s and grew up in the 90’s. I am a 90’s kid and I loved my childhood without the internet. I still did watch a lot of television shows but you couldn’t take the shows with you. Life without internet had its own way of freedom. You could live your life with less distractions and you can communicate with others with more depth and awareness. It felt easier to get in or be in the flow of life without the internet. There was no random beeping sounds coming from your phone, no incessant need to check if your data was working or if there was Wi-Fi and it felt like less fear of missing out cause it was harder to know what you were missing out on. Now everything is a click away and so are you. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. It has its pros and benefits of course… we are more connected and it is what humanity progressed to organically. So many businesses, talents, issues, events and places have thrived by being exposed more easily on the internet. I personally love my privacy so its a hate-love situation for me. When I think back on my favorite joyful moments, its actually when the internet was not around. I feel like my senses were more stronger and I was more alive. Like catching a grasshopper, holding it inside your hands and observing its gentle beauty….
Writing prompt: “If you were to write the story of your life until now, what would you title it and why?”
The story of my life would be titled “Earth is no Heaven.” We may have heavenly moments where our feelings are full of joy and fulfillment but it is fleeting. Everything is fleeting, especially time. When you look back on your life, time seems like its been flying by. I read a wonderful book called The Four Agreements which explains that life can either be a living hell or a living heaven depending on our mindset. Our mind is a powerful thing, particularly our subconscious mind. However, even with the most positive mind and materially richest lifestyle… Earth is no Heaven and cannot be. Our loved ones still die. Our happy moments always have an ending. Being a human will always have its limits. And even our own life is not in our hands fully… the appointment of death is made for us and we don’t have to schedule it. Its already scheduled for us. Therefore, Earth is no Heaven. This may sound pessimistic but it is actually freeing, relieving or liberating for me. It shows me that there is no such thing as absolute happiness and absolute positivity or absolute anything because Earth is no Heaven and it is not supposed to be. What is even more relieving is that we don’t have to have all the answers… because Earth is meant to be imperfectly perfect. It is what it is. We will always have duality of good and evil in this dimension. Which is what leads us to something that is truly an essential part of life here… GRATITUDE. In order to have more Heavenly moments… being grateful is the medicinal attitude and thought. Embrace the duality of this nature because it will always be there. It is like a endless test or a challenge but it shows us the difference or purpose between the dimension of Heaven and Earthly living. We are all one “death” away from becoming a memory or a story someone will tell some day. However, Heaven is eternal, absolutely good and where our loved ones never leave us.
What’s a question that has changed how you understand the world? What changed?
A life-changing question would be a quote that I seen online, it said something like “If you looked back on your life, could you say that you lived a life that was yours or one that was given to you?” It helped me to realize that its more important to live a life full of your own mistakes which you cant regret than one that is perfectly made at the approval of others which will be full of regrets. Also, a professor of mine said something similar to that quote, he said “either you run your own mind or society will program it for you.” Basically, my life was significantly changed when I pondered on that question about living a life that was truly of my own making than one that was at the whims of everyone’s opinion’s and orders. As you grow, you realize that most people do not even know exactly what they are doing so following anyone is wrong. Being a “sheep” in any way is doomed. The only source that I follow is the Higher Power. My life, I can say, is of my own soul as much as possible and because of that… I have no regrets and am content.
I was looking online for creative writing prompts and decided on this one for my first day of 365 days of writing challenge:
Use the prompt: “Life is like a box of…” You fill in the blank and go from there.
Life is like a box of books. Have you ever walked down a residential street and seen a box of books left out for passerby’s? I have a few times. I’ve also seen homes who have a small shelf on their front yard encouraging people to take a book for free. So, life has been a box of books in many ways. I had many summers where I passed the time by reading novel after novel because of a lack of other activities to do or events to attend. We are born into this world, I believe, with information just like the texts in books. We are full of text, words and information. Our parents are often our first books. They open themselves up to us to share the best knowledge they have in navigating this life or dimension. We read them very seriously because we observe them the most. They are our more treasured book of information. We feel safe to explore them for answers and guidance initially… until we realize that they don’t have all of the answers. So, we dig in to ourselves — we realize that we are a book too. We have information in us that reveals itself in mysterious ways such as through meditation, deja vu, epiphanies, dreams, ancestors or prayer. We are a story unfolding. We have to focus the most on the book of our life. Somethings are already written. We try to make the best of the books that we were given and not given. There are books that change us for good and some that lead us to the wrong decisions. People are like that too. They are their own books, we can learn something from every book or person. It is a quest of knowledge to perceive the world as accurate and safely as we can but there is fate in this box of books. It is a box. It cant fit all of the books in the Universe. We are human and thus with limits of comprehension, perception and abilities. There are writings everywhere, life is like a library of information. It can be magical, it can be exhausting and it can be overwhelming because now you have the power to use that knowledge. What will you do with it and what are you reading?
In fall of 2012, I decided to finally start a blog and take creative writing seriously as a profession and as a therapeutic creative outlet. It was the best decision I made and I am so thankful for respecting my soul’s calling. I ended up five years later with 3 books of poems that I self-published and am so proud of. Becoming an author has helped me grow in so many ways. I owe a lot to the craft of writing, blogging and free-verse poetry. It has been one of my strongest and largest sources of support when I felt lost, confused or lacking in my journey. My definition of success in this line of work or any work is knowing that you made a positive difference in yourself, others and/or the world. I have received a lot of great feedback and appreciation from readers who felt that my writing has brought more light, love and life into their life. That is all that matters and that is all that counts in the end: making a genuinely positive difference.
I have fallen off the blogging wagon during my years of self-publishing pursuits so I would like to revive it while I work towards my fourth book of poems. In helping me do that, I decided to take on the 365 day writing challenge. I will do my best in sticking to this challenge even if it means having wrote one sentence. I am sure that there are going to be some testing, trying and unpredictable days; that’s life!
I will start this challenge tomorrow, Saturday November 17th!
I hope to get my blog subscribers engaged in my writing again, gain more new readers and keep making a positive difference! If you would like to sponsor a blog entry or contact me for a writing collaboration, e-mail me at laila@lailare.com .
In the eyes of a innocent child, tens of thousands of peoples are fleeing from their homes with loss in their eyes and pain in their bodies.
But in the heart of an innocent child, they see planes and trucks flying and driving to save one another from displacement and war.
In the eyes of a child, animals of the past are gone and more are becoming extinct, ones they will never get to see. The bees and the butterflies that we all once enjoyed as kids.
But in the heart of a child, gardens and forests are grown and protected with farms and people working to sustain one another in sharing of fresh fruits and exploring beauties of this magical earth.
In the eyes of a child, homelessness exists and inequality is becoming a norm in their eyes as they walk by the abandoned and stare into stores full of riches.
But in the heart of a child, all people deserve the basics and the ill are not punished for their weakness, love is spread to each other in a communal system. No one is left behind, and no one is under cruel judgment.
The child sees a world of disastrous consumption and disparity, but the child feels a world of beautiful community and sustainability.
Where is our world headed, in the eyes of the innocent child or in the heart of the child?
Travelling to different lands,
we still can’t find each other.
Falling onto one another,
we still can’t find whats under.
We focus on the material,
but life is in the immaterial.
We arrive to our destination
but never land.
How could that be?
We cannot escape
one place
for another
just because we land.
We carry the land with us
and we must still garden it from afar.
We re-plant
and re-build
and keep growing
even from a distance.
It is built in our nature
born in or outside of it.
The safe sound of landing
was deceiving,
it is just the beginning
of becoming closer to where we started.
Cause here I am
– continents and decades away –
reading a poem
about my Afghan land.
We have never landed.
We have never escaped.
It travels with us
like a spiritual companion.
My heart like a dead leaf
may have fallen in separation
but still it is food for the tree.
Its separation can still
play a part
for its survival.
My land like a tree during winter
is locked in a forever winter,
in a forever dormancy.
We can feel it in our
moments of emptiness,
and longing.
The leaf like my heart
will always nourish
and feed its homeland,
even through its departure.
We cannot part from the land.
It is part of who we are eternally.
It is us and what makes us us.
We are made to forever heal it
and bring it back out of its
coldest, longest winter;
out of its deadliest dormancy
and into its new season.
I am the land
and I will be reborn with it
in its long awaited Spring.
We have brought the land with us.
We have never left, for the most of us.
Except when we attempt to numb it out of us.
But do we ever arrive somewhere
when our spirits are always travelling
in between places
in between time
and their moments
that we carry or bury?
The land has been an illusion
for me of escape
just like time has been.
I’ve never left
and Ive never been without it.
I am my native land
and my native land is me.
I may not be on the land
but the land lives
within me
in my purpose, it breathes.
From my spirit,
I never land.
No matter how hard
I or we try to escape.
It represents the essence of true love…
it can be buried
but it can never die,
it can never be lost,
it will always be within us.
Even when we hate
what its become.
Even when its season
is ugly and terrifying.
Even when we must
take a safe distance,
We continue to love it blindly
Unconditionally
Hopelessly
for it to return
awake
and bloom again…. Did we ever land?
She hid away in the darkness of the alley. How could she let him know that still after all of these years nothing changed how she felt about him. “Summer, where are you?” he shouted. With her head bent down, sitting on the floor, her tears fell. She knew he would never feel the same. And she didn’t want him to ever make her feel like that again. “Summer! Summer!” he shouted as he went the wrong way. His voice became more faint and faint.“It will be okay” she said to herself, “Let him go. Just stay, accept this fate. He will never love you the same.”After a few minutes, she picked herself up… and walked the opposite way. “I’ll never look back again”, and she left her heart in that alley way.
– – –
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If I don’t feel compelled to write poems about something, I usually do not try to write. However, If I do want to get into the mood to start a writing session for lengthy poems… it is pretty easy for me because it consists of being at home, in my room or on my couch just by myself – which is what I’m usually doing in my free time anyway, lol.
However, for my short poems, those often pop up out of nowhere during anytime of the day based on what I was going through at that moment or thinking of. Those short poems I try to type immediately in my phone notes app. Almost all of my poems published were made naturally, spontaneously and freely that way. Sometimes those type of poems fly by too fast and are a bit long so I just end up having to enjoy it for myself because I don’t want to interrupt the poems flowing message.
When it comes to writing longer poems that tells a complex story, I enjoy writing them during the night and/or in the dark without lights. It gets me in the mood of solitude and vulnerability. My poems are usually heavy topics so writing during the day with noise, light and reminders of the everyday hustles of life is just not inspiring for me in terms of creating peace. I probably would be writing more angry, political poems about elitism, war and capitalism or just unproductively ranting. In the night, however, i feel like i can heal, recover and be more positive. I feel safer, relaxed and more comfortable in the night time.
I do not treat writing like a fixed-routine yet but that is the goal. Maya Angelou explained her writing sessions like a a day job, she would rent a hotel room and work there all day plus she would enjoy a glass of sherry wine. For writers who are unable to afford to write full-time and only do so as a hobby, usually setting aside a few hours before or after work on a daily basis seems to be the norm.
How I start my writing sessions is by playing music that is on my eternal wave, mostly of musicians who have a peaceful, soulful and slow vibe to them (current recommendation: alina baraz). It helps me to take each word I choose thoughtfully and carefully. I believe writing one sentence is like creating a art in itself. Each word has to totally connect to the next perfectly. Every sentence needs to flow with each other. So in order to be that detailed in my writing, I need calming music that I feel like also pays attention to its exact words, tone and message or theme.
My words have to flow out of me like a wave, and that wave is usually the poem in its entirety from start to finish. I don’t stop writing the poetic story until it has closure. All my long poems are done in one writing attempt because thats when its at its realest and closest to its essence. Therefore, its really important to get into the right mood to write in order to capture your inner truth. I need to be emotionally ready for the soul-work that poetry requires if I want to create therapeutic, authentic art for myself.
As I wrote in my previous post, writing is more than just consumption for information and entertainment. It is bigger than me or us – its a immortal and eternal purpose for justice, beauty and peace. I would like to contribute my own unique, positive difference in the world through creative writing. I try to take what I put out into the universe seriously.
Its been mostly personal poems that i’ve written these past couple of years because I enjoy rhyming and you can break all the rules of writing with poetry. I can place my words and letters wherever I like on the page, spell words the way I want, and the use of punctuations are up to me as well. I do hope to eventually write short, fictional stories where I can just play with my imagination and also challenge myself more with creative writing.
Think about where you need to be and what you need to make the most out of your own writing sessions.Â
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As an Afghan muslim woman displaced when I was a toddler from my native land due to patriarchal and hegemonic wars, writing is more than just an art for consumption.
It is a journey into yourself to peacefully and creatively heal, defend and battle. It is an art that seeks justice from a world that had you eternally lost and cut off from your sacred land and ancestors. It is to thrive spiritually when your homeland has been a war-zone your entire life and its news of tragedies follows you everywhere. It is to write in a world that would rather think for you and assimilate you into blind, ignorant submission of a deeply racist, sexist, perpetually warring and capitalist world. Writing is about taking back your power by telling your own stories. When it comes to American history of social control, enslaved racialized people were not allowed to read or write; they would secretly teach each other literacy.
Writing is tapping into your own memories – the good, the bad and the ugly. As well as tapping into the depths of your soul for that eternal world that society ignored or devalued. It is about finding the essence of who you are before society institutionalized you through schooling for the next 12 years of your life. It is about recovering all the hurt, untold stories or questions within you that you did not have the time or ability to resolve. It is about re-claiming your life, history and identity.
It is the world of imagination and creating something out of nothing. It is thinking not only out of the box but destroying that box to share with the world your own unique message. It is the unwritten words that God inscribed within you through your dreams and visions. It is something that no one can take from you…because its written in the stars. The more you write, the closer you get to God, to yourself, and to the eternal world of your ancestors.
Writing like any art, with a social-justice focus, is a magic of its own – the deeper you get into it, the more battles you’ll find and win. Writing is a rebellion against a society that wants you to conform and consume in a econonomic system that is not sustainable for our planet. Writing is a weapon against oppression you live externally and internally – a way to combat the junk beliefs you act on and internalized. Besides a political fight, it is a free and safe therapy, creative outlet or medicine for ones everyday life issues.
Writing is real work that takes time, effort, skill and thought. Writers should be valued like any other respected profession. It is more than sharing information or entertainment but a defence and a shield — it is what makes the world go round through powerful and timeless songs like”One Love by Bob Marley” and “Changes by 2pac”; as well as poems like “Still I Rise from Maya Angelou” and “The Revolution Will Not be Televised by Gil Scott-Heron.” This is why art is dangerous and why popular culture is so tightly controlled – it can empower the masses and break down walls. It is an eternal weapon passed on to you that makes your purpose immortal. As 21-year old Fred Hampton said, before being murdered by the FBI and Chicago Police, “you can kill the revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution.”
Writing is creating beauty in your life and making a positive difference in a world that needs healing and for the future generations to know the truth of the past. Writer Toni Morrison said “I wrote my first novel because I wanted to read it.” So as the saying goes: create what you want to see in the world. And that is what I intend to do.
This is my philosophy on writing and why I write.
Therefore, an important question to ask yourself before you start your journey of writing is: what is your philosophy as a writer and why do you write?
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If you would like to financially support my work/writing, click here to donate via PayPal.
Laila Re 