Jul
18
2010
July 18th.
Paradox of stillness. What would Kerouac say about blogging? Antidote to “Anxiety of Influence” is a quote by Alice Walker.
If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.
The Earth is awake. It is definitely not quiet. That doesn’t exactly make for a still Sunday.
I didn’t realize the magnitude of the Earth’s alert energy until this particular visit to my parents’ farm/ranch house in California. When I woke up yesterday morning, Saturday, to the sounds of birds, critters, dogs, tractors, and the light wind rustling against the bright sunlight on tree leaves, I concluded I must take a break from writing Still Sundays because nothing is still!
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6 comments | tags: books, life, process of writing | posted in Still Sundays
May
28
2010
“We cling to a fixed idea of who we are and it cripples us. Nothing and no one is fixed.“ ~ Pema Chodron
Mariana N. Blaser wrote Jealous? Hell, yeah! where she bravely confronts a feeling of jealousy after coming across another’s work. I appreciated not only her honesty but other readers’ thoughts which echoed her sentiments and illustrated the fine line between envy and jealousy.
That same night I mentioned her post to my brother Zain over the phone and we discussed the perpetual tug of war between brilliant and never good enough. A quick example: I am a huge fan of my brother’s art, music, and his other “gifts”. Zain is an extremely talented music composer and producer among other things. But in his eyes he is just a new kid on the block compared to others–these others I have never even heard of because I am not familiar with that industry yet they are demi-gods in their own right from what I was explained.
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21 comments | tags: art, process of writing | posted in the examined life, writing
Mar
26
2010
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader- not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.” ~ E.L. Doctorow
“If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story.” ~ Barbara Greene
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.”
~ Robert Frost
“The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.”
~ Richard Harding Davis
“If a book comes from the heart, it will continue to reach other hearts.” ~ Thomas Carlyle
“A writer’s job is to imagine everything so personally that the fiction is as vivid as memories.” ~ John Irving
“A book worth reading only in childhood is not worth reading even then.” ~ C.S. Lewis
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” ~ Roald Dahl
Posted via email from Annie Q. Syed’s Vault
2 comments | tags: process of writing | posted in writing
Mar
26
2010
25 Famous Thinkers and Their Inspiring Daily Rituals
January 11th, 2010
Many find it interesting to glimpse inside the lives of famous thinkers in an effort to understand where such thought and intelligence is rooted. In that vein, here is a peek into the routines and rituals that writers, philosophers, and statesmen have depended on to keep their work on track and their thoughts flowing. Whether you need inspiration to make it through the next college semester or are working on a future best-selling novel, explore these daily rituals you may want to incorporate into your life.
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no comments | tags: process of writing | posted in writing
Sep
23
2009
So, as of now I still have not shared this website with my List. But I will soon.
Well, facebook does not work for me because it is all face and no book! Linked-In had more kinks than links. MySpace did not feel mine. Flickr I love, but it is only pictures. Now Twitter I do use (even though I haven’t in months)–it is a great tool to jot down a quick thought when I don’t have a pen or paper, kind of like sending yourself a text but it stays stored. I have barely ten followers and most of them are the same people I email and text anyway!
I have a box of notebooks, folders, articles, loose leaf pages, tissue papers with jotted down thoughts where the ink is smeared and I can’t even decipher the great plot or dialogue that I scribbled, and printed out email exchanges that are just scattered all over. This does not include the good ole diskettes. Remember those? Well, I have them and need to find some computer store to convert them onto a thumbdrive or cd so I can access them since they do have a ton of writing stored in them from ages ago.
What I am really excited about is that this is truly a space for me to store my fragments of thoughts and writings regardless if I ever share this site with others (and as of now it is not “google-able” ). This way I can just upload it here. Very neat. Literally! 
So much so for me not liking technology!
I am very grateful to Sherry, Sean, Erica and Zain for suggesting this medium for me despite my resistance. And of course it has been a learning process for me. Although Zain and Sean helped me quite a bit initially, they did not want to enable my continuously depending on them, so I have had to learn quite a few things on my own and there is still a lot to learn!
1 comment | tags: process of writing, questions | posted in writing
