Summer of Growth
Reflections on writing as a career
I’m writing to you from the southern most tip of the Isle of Harris, where I’ve been squirreled away for the past week, finishing up the manuscript for a project I am still unable to announce but that I am Alhamdulilah quite enjoying (you will be the first to know once the news is out!). This trip has been made possible thanks to a grant from the SoA Authors’ Foundation. It’s a straightforward application, so I highly encourage you to apply if you want the space and time to finish a project but do not have the financial resources to do so. It’s been a game-changer for me.
I’ve been looking forward to the return of this weekly newsletter, which I’m taking as a good sign. Part of me is reluctant to admit it, but by late spring this year it had become a challenge, rather than a joy, to sit down and write every Sunday morning. Taking this break has allowed for a new burst of energy to arise. So, thank you for your patience and forbearance!
Now, I’m curious. Tell me: how has your summer (Northern Hemisphere) or winter (Southerners) been? I’d love to hear your thoughts, reflections and musings in the comments below. I ask in this way as I’ve come to the view that there’s value in considering our lives in seasons, breaking our year down not into financial quarters but nature’s ones (as much as I enjoy saying ‘it’s looking like a busy Q2’). So, would love to hear from you!
My summer has been one of growth. Alhamdulilah. Gosh, it really has, and I am so violently grateful for it. Violently, because I don’t know how else to describe the fierceness in which I have fought for and worked towards even having the opportunity to grow in the first place. When trying to build and successfully maintain a career as a working author and screenwriter, getting your foot in the door is almost impossible. Even once you’ve a toe in, keeping the door open is another matter entirely.
Yet somehow, this summer, it feels like I’ve been able to push, heave and wrench enough of the door open to slip through. I face more challenges now - it’s less a room I’ve walked into and more a corridor of ever heavier doors - but Alhamdulilah. Jesus Christ, Alhamdulilah.
I know the journey is long, and in some ways, it only gets more challenging. It’s easier to publish your first book than your tenth, because the industry loves a debut. Ditto for films: if your first film flops, it’s nigh on impossible to get funding for a second.
All that said, I’ve been trying to remind myself to flipping enjoy this. A writer’s career is more time writing than it is launching books. The majority of the shows I pitch or write a script for will never be made. Almost all of my ideas will languish in obscurity, dying a death in a general meeting or existing simply as a one-pager in a digital folder than may not last the decade. I cannot let those realities - those heartbreaks, really - define the experience. The process is the whole thing! If I don’t enjoy or get some sort of satisfaction from the process, why on earth would I continue?
A writer’s career is more time writing than it is launching books.
After all, as I’ve said to many folks before, this is an utterly foolish pursuit. It makes no logical sense. Trying to build a career as a writer is a notoriously difficult challenge, let alone in a country you migrated to in your twenties, when you are not from the dominant culture and have little access to nepotistic advantages. It is the definition of folly. So why am I doing it? Why should any of us do it at all?
I honestly can’t tell you.
I guess there’s something deeply human about being foolish.
The irony is, I’ve never considered myself a foolish person. I’ve often thought of myself as driven by logic, calculated risk management, an engineer through and through. Yet here I am, foolishly trying anyway.
Might as well make the most of it, eh?
Writing is not meant to be a punishment.
It’s hard work, yes. It’s constant rejection, bruising on the ego, and the amount of effort you put in does not necessarily correlate to any outcome at all - it’s a deeply non-linear relationship. But, writing is a choice. It’s not a punishment. Nobody is forcing me to do this. I have chosen this, knowing the risk, the sky high chances of failure. I am not entitled to commercial success, or critical praise, or even for my work to be read. I am not entitled to anything at all.
That is a liberating thought.
Because it reminds me. This has to be enough. Not any outcome. This.
The being alone with my thoughts and my keyboard, tap tap tapping away. The thinking and the dreaming and the imagining. The conversations in my head that I translate to the page. The world building in my mind. The stuckness of the plot, then the release. The writing. The writing has to be enough.
I can’t be on this path in the hope that it will be enough when I do that thing and if I get that commission. No. Those are all outside my control. Allah only knows if those futures are in my path.
All I can control is what I write. All I can control is my persistence in trying to get my writing out into the world. All I can control is myself.
For now, it is enough. Maybe one day, there will come the time when it is no longer enough on its own, but for now, despite all sense, despite everything I was raised to believe, despite my own better judgment, this is enough.
Alhamdulilah.
Read/Listen: The Appeal
When I’m writing and on my own, I love to listen an audiobook. It usually has to be story led - i.e. romcom, or murder mystery, or similar - so I usually end up with a pulpy commercial fiction offering. I did not expect to like this book at all, given its unusual structure, but in the end I thoroughly enjoyed it. A fantastic holiday read or listen.
Read: The Economist on Sudan
Sudan is never far from my mind. I sometimes feel like I’m living two lives, one which has Sudan at the front of mind, and the other, in this creative, fulfilling life I am leading in Britain. Ya Allah, the tragedy of it all.
It was gratifying to see The Economist featuring the war in Sudan on its front cover last week. The article is worth the read (non-paywalled link here).
Watch: Shetland
This is an old school show, classic BBC British crime fare. Now, it may well fall under the umbrella of ‘copaganda’, because the police are generally the ‘good guys’, and we all know how I feel about the police. However, I’ve been watching it while on Harris and it gives a wonderful sense of place, that unique remote island life with all its complications. I recommend starting with Season One - shot in 2013, it’s deeply mid-2010 nostalgic and there are quite a few appearances from folks we would now consider stars (Succession’s Brian Cox appears in Season Two but I barely recognised him!)
I’m sending this on a Saturday as I’m travelling for the next couple of days… but inshallah expect a return to usual programming from next week.
As always, thank you for subscribing. Please do share, if you feel inclined.
Until next Sunday inshallah,
Yassmin
My summer has been one of relief. Knowing that we have opened up the doors again for women in government positions makes me jump for joy. This is a sacred time and we are ready. I’m proud to be a Lebanese elder who has borne many trials and opportunities as a woman. Going into this beautiful fall season I’m ready to receive and reflect on how this election will be better than any other in recent history.
First of all, thanks for letting us know about the SoA grant! I'm going to apply for my 3rd novel. & Thank you for your musings on publishing & process too. I totally agree that we have to enjoy every minute of creating because that truly is the only thing we can control. Having just had my first novel announced & with an announcement about novel number 2 on the way, it's a funny feeling, knowing both my babies will soon be out in the world. A mixture of excitement & fear that's hard to put into words. I have no idea how either one of them will be recieved but I know that they came from a place of love & truth & that has to count for something. xx