road stop ii.
what i've been doing lately
i’m nadirah, your guide on the protagonist express, a newsletter where i share my thoughts, experiences and maybe rants as a global-south-based Muslim writer pursuing traditional publishing.
consider this an invitation into the inner world of my pursuits, aspirations and the threads that bind them all together.
I know, I know. It’s been months but for good reason. I was preparing for my first professional exams in school then writing them and now, recovering from them because they took a lot out of me mentally and physically. If I wasn’t studying, I was sleeping, which gave me little time to think about writing. But I think times like this are a part of being a writer in a larger world. You don’t think about it twenty-four-seven, instead making the most of the little time that you do get.
This brings me to what I’ve been doing lately. I tried to write but I realised that I’ve been having a lot of blocks, a problem with which I’ve decided to heed the words of Toni Morrison— “I’m not terrified of a block, of what people call a block. When you hit a place where you can’t write, you probably should be still for a while because it’s not there yet.”
What I’m doing instead is reading widely in the areas I’m interested in writing: essays and short stories. I’ve been reading many magazines and figuring out my process to approach writing in those categories seeing as I’ve never actively pursued either.
Going off the last road stop, I’m writing any ideas I have in my writer’s room. As I consume media, I am aware of dialogue, scenery, and phrasing amongst others that catch my attention. This can range from tweets to sounds on TikTok, to quotes in books, and pictures on Pinterest which I eventually put in an archive I created on Notion.
The intention is to do nothing but this and timebound revisions until next year, with the hope that I kickstart by writing something on any of the ideas I already have and information from my archive to give it needed flesh and direction. I like this exercise because it has not only shown me variations in the things that interest me but has also narrowed those things down as my archive is usually full of information related to my ideas in different ways.
writing updates
still revising because i require everything to be perfect knowing fully well how impossible that is. but the good news is i’ll be sending the first revised half to critique partners soon, a step that i have to agree is better than holding myself back in the guise of editing. (is this where i admit i’m scared of querying?)
currently reading: crying in h mart by michelle zauner and the first woman by jennifer nansubuga makumbi. both books are giving me a lot of thought and lately, I’ve been appreciating that in a book.
thank you, everyone, for reading. up next is a piece on motifs and themes.
congratulations on completing your first mb, I'm sure the result was a good one! I wrote mine about two months ago and I had to put my book on hold for about three months to prepare for the exams and it was hell, but Alhamdulillah, I'm back to writing too. juggling med school and writing is really the hardest thing ever but writers like you and others that I've been getting to know lately really inspire me.
good luck on your revisions and publishing. I hope it goes well, inshaa Allah