Sometimes, the best way to tell a story is not in chronological order. If you're writing a short story or an essay, you can play around with the structure of your stories by rearranging the scenes and seeing what works best to build and main tension throughout the story. This is an especially useful activity to try if your story plays out over several years and/or includes flashbacks. Here's how it works. Print out your story and cut up all the scenes and lay them out on the floor. Mix them...
26 days ago • 2 min read
Before I get into today’s email, I have a small favour to ask of you if you had considered joining my Grounded Writers program in the past but chose not to do so. If you could fill out this quick survey for me, I’d greatly appreciate it! Earlier this week, I was giving feedback to a writer on a short story. Her story focused on the relationship between a brother and a sister and included elements of gender interactions between Muslim teenagers. I love short stories and I especially love this...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
This past weekend, my son participated in a ball hockey tournament. I am not a hockey mom but I had to be one that day because my husband was unavailable to take him. So while I sat in the stands and waited for the game to start, I posted a Q&A sticker on my Instagram stories to keep myself entertained. Turns out I am a hockey mom because I found myself paying attention to the game and groaning and cheering lol. I also got a lot of great questions about writing, which is still definitely more...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
I was having a conversation with a writer who was working on a picture book that had an adult as the main character. The norm in picture books is to have a child as the main character. Adult characters, if present, are there as supporting characters. So we had a really interesting discussion about how to write a picture book where an adult is the main character, or if there are only adult characters. One way to make these stories work is to have your adult character behave in child-like...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
Earlier this year, I applied for grants for a memoir about my writing journey. It was a last minute decision. I would usually spend a lot more time on an application than just a few days. But I kept wiffle-waffling on whether I should apply or not and I finally just decided to go for it. The grants that I’ve applied to in the past were for my short story collection. Alhamdulillah, I was successful with every grant program that I had applied to for that project. So with all the experience I’ve...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
I always encourage writers to submit their writing to literary magazines because getting published in literary magazines opened so many doors for me. I made connections with editors who helped me in my writing career. I became eligible to apply for grants. I got access to more exclusive mentorship programs. I even had editors reach out to me and ask me to write for their magazines because they had read my stories and were familiar with my work. 3 out of 10 publications I've gotten so far were...
2 months ago • 2 min read
One of the things I did this year for my business was to get feedback on my sales page for Grounded Writers from a copywriter. If you’re not familiar with the term, a copywriter is someone who writes things like emails and sales pages for other brands/business owners. The fact that this copywriter’s rates were affordable for me was a big factor in why I chose her, but it was also the fact that she is a writer and I had read some of her posts on Substack and enjoyed them. She gave me a lot of...
2 months ago • 3 min read
I love literary fiction but I’ve been staying away from the genre for a while because the stories tend to be on the heavier side. And with all the heaviness that currently exists in the world (may Allah protect and preserve all those who are being oppressed in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan and around the world), a heavy fictional story feels like too much to carry right now. I can read other books and I do enjoy other genres but literary fiction fuels my love for language. It introduces me...
2 months ago • 3 min read
This past weekend, my older son, who is 11, participated in a kidpreneur event. He loves drawing and painting. He can spend hours with his sketch book, following one YouTube tutorial after the next. He enjoys doing landscapes, sketching Marvel characters, and has even gotten pretty good at Arabic calligraphy. He knew he wanted to showcase his artwork at the kidpreneur event and he decided to create hand-drawn bookmarks and greeting cards. In the weeks leading up to the event, he spent a lot...
2 months ago • 4 min read