2024 Wrapped

my year + top posts of 2024

Friends, this is the last post for 2024. Thank you all for supporting my work, and I look forward to popping back into your inboxes in 2025, inshallah!

packed and prepped at kings cross station, london

Remember when I wrote about moving to Leeds for the summer?

After working my not-so-little rear end off for the three months of the ITV Original Voices scheme, pitching at every story conference and writing a trial script that passed muster, I received my first commission for a televised script.

Alhamdulilah. Say it with me, Alhamdulilah!

This week, I had the absolute surreal pleasure of seeing my first scripted episode of television being filmed.

Alhamdulilah!

You want to know what’s even wilder? Inshallah the episode will air on television next year, on my 34th Birthday!!!

Subhanallah, forreal!

taken in warmer times

Let’s See How Far We’ve Come

It struck me, as I was walking from the station towards the studio where tens of people were pouring over my script, bringing it to life, where I am today is worlds apart from where I was one year ago. Regular readers will know this time last year I was emotionally burnt out, broke after months of not working (see: Sudan war) on top of the surprise renewal of both my UK and US visas (five figure fees wiping out my savings). My immune system was a wreck, I felt demoralised by my creative career’s stagnation, and I couldn’t understand why people kept calling the destruction of my homeland ‘the forgotten war’. Well, I understood it, but I didn’t want to accept it.

In short, I was not doing well.

The way I prayed, y’all. As we welcomed 2024 in, I prayed. I prayed and I planned and I pulled myself together and I was like gurl, we gon have to hustle.

Nina Simone’s Sinnerman rang in my new year:

I said, "Lord hide me, please hide me"
Please help me, All on that day
He said, "Child, where were you
When you ought a been praying?"
I said,"Lord, Lord, hear me praying"
"Lord, Lord, hear me praying"
"Lord, Lord, hear me praying"

I went back to basics. I pitched every publication around, going back to old school reportage and feature writing for not-very-much-money. Low paid speaking events, cold-calling, cold-emailing, hitting up anyone I knew for work.

The war was still on my mind, Sudan’s war is always on my mind. But I could no longer afford - literally, afford - to let that be my only raison d'être. The rent needed to be paid. I needed to change something.

"Lord, Lord, hear me praying"

Here we are, twelve months later, television commission under my belt, and I am in awe at the grace of my Lord.

This is not to say the year has not been without its trials. 2024 saw some of the harshest rejections of my creative career to date, I endured far more Nos than Yeses throughout.

But what this year had that I am grateful for - at the personal level at least - was a sense of momentum. A sense of agency. The result of choosing to focus on what I could control by lowering the volume on what I couldn’t.

@yassmin_am#dealingwithrejection #screenwriting #screenwriter #screenwritingtiktok #muslimscreenwriter #muslimcreators #rejection

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

An Inconvenient Truth

To my dismay, this included spending less time on social media. I was finding it challenging to focus on my own deep, creative craft while constantly dipping into the increasingly extreme firehose of information that social media feeds have become, and so I slowly turned the faucet shut.

This hasn’t been straight forward. As I say in my September letter:

I feel a quiet sadness about this. I imagine things might change, as the rhythm of my writing practice changes. But honestly, before this year, it had never once occurred to me how my life would evolve as writing became my primary occupation. Perhaps because I’ve always written, and managed to balance everything else - the social life, the advocacy and activism, the community commitments, the being chronically online. But this is different now. While I enjoy it, I find myself mourning the mental availability I had for the vast tapestry of the online world.

It helped that I have this space. Almost two and a half thousand of you are subscribed to this newsletter and send thoughtful messages, replies and comments to each Sunday dispatch, meaning I’m still somewhat connected to the outside world. But it’s not quite the same, is it?

I don’t know what my relationship is going to be with socials in 2025 and beyond, but I do feel like it has transformed in some irreversible way.

What are you hoping your relationship to social media will be like in 2025, inshallah?

Good Chat in Review

I restarted this newsletter in September 2023, promising myself to post weekly for a year before deciding whether or not to continue. September 2024 came and went and I tacitly decided to keep writing here until it no longer feels worth it.

Part of the fun has been engagement with you, wonderful readers! It’s been fascinating to look back and explore: what have you all responded to?

Last year the most popular post by far was on friendship in trying times, as the war on Gaza cracked open rifts in relationships across the globe. On a similar theme, how do we keep going, when the wars never seemed to end, I asked, and many of you wondered the same.

This calendar year, I sent fifty substack posts (notwithstanding a break over the summer). My most popular newsletters seemed to be clustered around thorny social issues (weight, money) and on how to live change-making lives with integrity.

You wanted to know the difference between being right vs being effective. You were curious about a writer’s responsibility in times of crisis, or how to respond to crisis with curiosity. You were interested in my laments, whether on Sudan, or on the summer riots in the UK. Many of you have also reported enjoyment at the mid-week link round-ups, appreciative of the range and socially engaged, mildly eclectic curation.

Does that sound about right? What else would you like to see from this newsletter in 2025, inshallah?

I’ve hesitated writing this post, because it feels strange to be rejoicing in a time of great pain and strife, when catastrophe is deepening across the globe. Many of you reading are likely going through your own, personal tragedies. I do not wish for my words or story to be cause for comparison, or ill-will. I share primarily to show that things do change. For the better yes, sometimes for the worse. But I do not wish to hoard my joy. I want it for us all. For us all, inshallah.

Our lives are full of contradiction, are they not?

Like this time last year, I have scant sense of what my 2025 will look like. But Alhamdulilah, this time around, I have a smidge more stability, a dash more hope. My fleeting fulfilment does not displace my worry, care or grief. What it does, I have found, is fill my cup so that I am able to give more.

It is with this energy I am taking some time ‘off’.

Off line, off ‘work’, off my phone and hopefully off all screens, for a time.

I am taking a break from a position of privilege, to take stock, to breathe, to figure out what’s next, inshallah.

What a gift, Alhamdulilah.

I hope 2025 will allow me more space and capacity to support Sudanese people in their efforts for peace, to amplify efforts of community groups organising for justice, to do for others creatively what others have done for me.

Inshallah, inshallah, inshallah.

What do you hope for 2025?

Life is full of seasons. I am entering a short, hopefully sweet season of rest. I look forward to seeing you all on the other side.

Khair, inshallah.

With gratitude and love,
Yassmin

looking to the future like… (img by rory mulvey)