Who will kill my book?

They told me that writing an entire novel is a great accomplishment in the age of 30. I smiled and said "fuck off". Writing a complete novel is great yes, but it's not the ultimate accomplishment, especially in this region. ¼ page is the number of "books" Arabs read in an entire bloody year, so why the hell should I fucken write for a nation that doesn't read? Don't get me wrong, I love to write, it's the only way I can express my emotions and thoughts, but writing for no one reads is exactly like selling water for people who don't drink. To make people read in this region I have to pack my novel with sex, religion and politics. Writing about these issues is fine, but making an entire novel full of sex is nothing but writing erotica, and I'm not that kind of writer. When I started writing, my aim was to express the human suffering, the daily catastrophes that the poor experience, to be simply the sound of the weak. But hey, who cares about the poor, right, we want sex and politics, we wanna a novel that talks about her vagina and his dick, and how hot was the dirty sex. I believe that the media did the greater role in fulfilling this desire of sexual ideas, and its time to leave literature quite away from this filth. Good sex should exist in novels, and by good sex I mean the natural kind, that is to write about it whenever the plot needs it, not to cover an erotica with novelical content. That is like painting a death champers with pink.

I wanna see a nation that reads in this Middle East. A nation knows that literature solves issues. But you know, I figured it out, I found the solution to write a novel with the least sexual content but it could sell and be popular. We need simply to use action and mystery. Mystery alone can make a novel best seller, but unfortunately, we here see it the least in literature. Why is that? Because of the lake of imagination, that's why we don't see good novels in here. There are some good novels in this region, but come on, they lake any good plot, there is no engineering to there novels. Who will kill my book, is a question I ask while preparing to publish my first novel. If it was in my hand, I would give it for free for the entire society, only if they can insure me that they will discuss it and give me feedbacks.

Optimistic dickheads

It might be a fact that I'm one of a million from those who think optimism is nothing but fucken insanity in our modern world. A dickhead friend of mine told me once "dude, be optimistic!". Well honestly I wished that I had a stick in my hand that I can beat the shit out of him, but lucky him, I had none. I was, in a level of my life, quite optimistic, that was long time ago, when I was just a 10 years old naive boy, thinking that tomorrow is a better day. Well, optimism made me no favors, my family collapsed, my father died, I have a heart condition that whenever I talk about it to my doctor, his mouth says "it will be OK", but his face say "fuck dude, your are screwed". I'm a man with mental issues, psychological shit that settled with time and I can't cure. I'm depressed 90% of the time, but hey, its life.

 

Let me avoid personal optimism, and talk about global optimism. Tell the kids in Africa to be optimistic, they will eat you alive. The world is a fucken war zone, millions are being killed for no reason, bush is still president, and the entire world economy is collapsing. How can someone be optimistic in this life, how can he wake up in the early morning and think "yes, this will be an amazing morning". I hate, yes I said it, I fucken hate optimistic people, because they are not realistic, they are living in virtual reality where there is no harm. There is no one without a monkey on his shoulder, but to pretend there is no trouble is running away from reality. Hence, fuck optimism, I would rather be cranky all the time but fighting my own dilemmas rather than hiding behind a big fucken smile with the word "happy "printed on my forehead.

Things that grind my gears (sex in media)

Sex in everything, grinds my bloody gears. Media, music, literature, T-shirts and every bloody advertisement on TV contain a sexual element that flames our basic need. Sex as a topic, is ok to be discussed. It's a natural need. It's a basic instinct. But fuck it, food is a basic instinct too, but you don't see it in car ads. What really grinds my gears about sex in media is when writers use is. I'm a writer, and I use sex in my work briefly, but it's away from the porn we read in modern novels. I'm talking about Arabic novels here, not western novels. Hell there is a lot of sex in our Arabic novels, along with politics and religion twists. This triangle sex-politics-religion seems to be fucken favored by novelist in this Middle East. Fine, I understand that we in this region suffer sexual explosion after the full exposure to western values, but moderation should be considered for once. I mean there is no rating in the Middle East in literature; hence any one can get whatever.

 

Media have the major influence on minors and even adults, and it could be the missile that destroys the remains of this nation. As for the UAE, the country is chocking with twisted values that are a way from its original. Dubai, the lost Arabic city is the source of major changes in the moral structure of this country. It's like Las Vegas in the Vatican City. Two different values in one country, and believe me, there is no fucken balance that can fix the damage.

Back to sex in media, the movies are filled with it, the music is floating on sexual content, and the minors are eating it up. What effect does that have, well, wait and see, and you'll witness a fucken corrupted society comes form this one.

"And he pulls out the life from the dead, and he pulls out the dead from the life"

the world is not enough by Garbage

I don't like the band, but I like the music. Very old song, one of my favs.

It is harder than it seems

Designing is fucken hard, its time consuming and makes your head spin. The site in the picture is a foolish design I've made and I assume it would be lunched soon as a kind of a group project related to marketing and advertisement. Well, it took me around a week to finish the bloody design, nonetheless, I hate it. They say a true artiest wont be satisfied with his work ever. My opinion is, fuck it. It's hard to design since your mind and taste changes with time. I thought about quitting design, but from time to time I find my self designing something. Art is cool, it's good for your brain where it opens doors of knowledge that you don't even realize until later. Art gives us taste in life along to music and literature. Websites now are designed via ready temples which is not cool, its like having instant coffee, it contains caffeine but that doesn't make it a good coffee.

The fruitful tree

I believe that Salman Rushdie has to be thanked for his marvelously shameful master piece, The Satanic Verses, were he simply lightened, unintentionally, the candle of naked reality that burned the curtain that our foes were hiding behind. Wonderfully, Rushdie summed the western hates that Muslims ignored for so many years and created a work written with hate rather than ink on white papers that lost their whiteness against the darkness of abhorrence. He was not the first and he'll never be the last. His work was nothing but an episode in a very long drama of insulting the nation of Islam. Sadly, this attitude of insulting Muslims had taken a dangerous new tern, when it became a habit rather than an individual case to involve the prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him). Many attempts to twist the prophet's image were made in the name of freedom of expression. Two of these two attempts are being discussed briefly in this paper, which are Rushdie's affair and the 12 cartoons' affair. What is really shocking is that these attempts were made in the name of freedom of expression which seems to be limitless.

Aren't there any boundaries for freedom of expression? Or this kind of freedom is simply holy and untouchable? I believe that every occupation in the world has some limitations and have to obey certain rules. So, writing and cartoon drawing are rotating in that same orbit too. But, what in the world would make a writer or a cartoonist leave the orbit and swim against the current? Was it simply the lust of fame? Or it was the need to demonstrate the powers of freedom of speech that they claim to have? And even if it was the second choice, which was being said to be the reasons for all this nonsense, why should the nation of Islam be the kid who every one else in the school annoy. Why us? I found the answer to be very simple. Merely, people tend to through stones on the fruitful trees.

Fight Club, the destruction of urban familiarity

Fight club is one of my favorite movies, along with Godfather 1& 2. What I like about this movie is the gloominess of its idea, the war on modern urban life. The movie is quite brilliant, and Norton does a hell of a work telling the story in real time fashion. While watching the movie, you think that you are watching a kind of dark comedy (which it is), but in the end, you find out that the twist is psychological. The insomnia finally get to Norton, and he finds out that the other character, Brad, is nothing but him self, but with another entire dimension, powerful, smart, and cool.

 

I loved the movie, maybe because of the sarcasm narration of Norton, or the gloomy mood of the movie, the same atmosphere of my own brain. "I wanna breath smoke "says Norton while destroying a face with his naked angry fest, this line is engraved in my brain.

If you never seen the movie, you better try to.

Unknown people

For me, to die unknown but leaving behind me some majestic work is better that living my entire life living like a rock star. The feeling of accomplishment that we some times need to feel makes us shove people and try to step on their heads to be seen, to be known. What's the gain really from being famous? What good does it bring? Well, being known can only help if you are trying to fix the world wanting to change it to a better place. People tend to listen to known people; they tend to read more to whatever shit they write, and think about their ideas. Hell, we sometimes adapt famous people's ideas to form our own. Nonetheless, being known has its negative side too. If you are known, you'll spend the rest of your life calculating your steps, needing not to fall in any personal wars, and if you did, you'll turn in a blink of an eye to people's favorite TV show.

 

My theory is life anonymous but leave some good heritage behind that might save someone's life. The best thing about writing is that in allows you speak to people without standing in front of a microphone. Hence, let the ink in the pen be your voice.

Memoirs of a Manic Depressive

well, I would like to start with a little passage from a friend of mine's novel titled Memoirs of a Manic Depressive


" The anger though is so strong inside of me. It’s like a rebellious me that wants to scream out at everyone (not that I have anyone around me to scream at).

Maybe being alone is not such a good thing. I am tired and I have become sick. Physically sick. I am weak, I have bronchitis, and I have endless headaches.

So yes, I am lonely and numb and I see no bloody light at the end of the tunnel. "

by Yasmin Dajani