Annie Q Syed » process of writing

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:58:42 +0000

February 5th, 2012.

The super bowl of social media and creativity.

I woke up thinking about Wednesday this morning. As if Wednesday was a person I knew.

This last Wednesday was a chaotic morning and no amount of breathing was going to lift me out of the mushroom of frenzy.

Usually calm and steady, on Wednesday morning I was agitated and hyper sensitive to noise. I always try to see what is the longest amount of time I can go without plugging into music with my headphones. This time even music didn’t help. People rushing to some grand nowhere. I joined them to head to one of the most dilapidated parts of New York City. Poverty has a smell ...

A Still Sunday Night

annie — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:54:21 +0000

January 29, 2011.

Stillness bypassed my Sunday morning like a breeze you don’t notice because you are out of breath. Except I was in deep sleep breathing. I woke up long after stillness had closed its canteen. Although I realize Stillness is everywhere and available anytime and it is up to us to reach into the hive and retrieve any amount of nectar, certain moments feel like a red carpet walk to the doorway of Stillness. Sunday mornings are such a walk. After noon the zone is narrow even if you are a devout Stillness practioner.

I gave myself permission to sleep in and allow the body to recover. Everything about the status quo seems contrary to how we ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 18:38:33 +0000

January 22nd 2012.

Biko. Coltrane. My father. Coleridge. Marquez.

Writing when you are under the weather is like talking in your sleep. Nothing makes sense; it all makes sense.

It is a Steve Biko kind of Sunday: “I write what I like.”

New York City is under the weather too. It snowed yesterday.

I read a post by a talented photographer in Finland, Annika Ruohonen, this morning titled “January in Finland.” So this is Finland in January I said aloud without realizing. Maybe my heavy head thought I was using “inside” voices when I was not. I tried leaving a short comment but due to computer glitches, password itches, the comment was lost as was the moment ...

Practice, Practice, Practice; Emerson on Experience & Surprise

annie — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 19:35:44 +0000

Still Sundays.

January 15, 2012.

Last time I wrote fiction was June 2011. It wasn’t even a story but a sketch of words. Prior to June, regularly putting down drafts of fiction, however incomplete, was March 2011. All in all, last time I wrote fiction every week, be it a paragraph for the novel or some story shared on this web space, was December 2010. It would be fair and accurate to state that I consistently tackled the craft of fiction from March 2010 to March 2011 regardless what was shared here—and it was a lot that was shared in this online space. In fact, every Tuesday, come rain or shine or travel. I wrote in planes. I wrote ...

Still Sundays: Shakti and Ibn Sina

annie — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 19:57:49 +0000

It is a new year after all.

Makes me wonder about all those other “new” years. I never felt they were new per se so it wasn’t that I got duped the last decade with the habitual hype at the end of the year. It is just that I couldn’t participate as authentically as I would have liked because I knew better in my bones. But this year is finally new.

new | n(y)oō |

adjective

1. not existing before; made, introduced, or discovered recently or now for the first time

2. already existing but seen, experienced, or acquired recently or now for the first time

3. just beginning and regarded as better than what went before

The word new ...

A Still Sunday, particularly today.

annie — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 21:21:51 +0000

December 25, 2011.

on criticism, on friendships come & gone, Keats & soul-making.

New York City is asleep although I have been awake for some time.

Silence is that music where we become instruments.

I have never experienced Stillness and silence this grand in New York City as this Sunday.

This is my first Christmas holiday and New Year’s Eve in New York City despite having lived here for over a decade. Usually I have always been “home” this time of the year, whatever that has meant: sometimes Lahore, other times Johannesburg or Durban, most often a farmhouse, my parents’, in California.

Last night I experienced New York City in a whole new manner. I understood why it is ...

The marriage of Storytelling and Writing

annie — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:48:08 +0000

Before social media created the forum which allowed the hijacking of the word “storyteller” as a synonym for bloggers and marketers it was indeed a prestigious art form.

What I share below is from an excerpt to a dear friend and author, over 8 months ago.

I think I am ready to discuss this as I understand it. We are all storytellers. We live our lives in and through stories. At the lowest level of consciousness this is gossip and at another form it can be “motivational speaking,” although for the intellectually evolved such speaking may not yield many new results. We tell stories when we come home to our significant other ( if we have that kind of relationship ...

self-existing magic of things

annie — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 16:49:44 +0000

Still Sundays

October 9th.

Filmmaker Nathaniel Dorsky on “self-existing magic of things” and more. Your talent is a body. Marc Jacobs on innovation.

I find myself intellectually incapable to accept any of the etymologies offered behind “Indian Summer” and google’s curation of history doesn’t satisfy.

October is a solid indigo night, made for returning and leaving at the same time.

Autumn in New York is the muse for so many jazz compositions because only music can capture an indigo night.

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Yesterday I saw a film by Nathaniel Dorsky who has been making and exhibiting films within the avant-garde tradition since 1964. His works have bee shown internationally in museums and theatres and are in the ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 19:23:28 +0000

September 25th.

made-up memories. a genetic predisposition to engage with life. a real dreamer. real magic. when the Universe bends to become the bow.

It’s so still that I can taste the difference: my black tea with milk is tasteless without the nectar of orange blossom honey this morning. I forgot to buy it yesterday.

Sugar doesn’t taste the same. Not in my tea and not what I can recall of it tasting when I was a kid. When I think of my childhood I recall sugar like a person with personalities, faults, issues, and plans. A relative everyone had to welcome because that’s what you do: pour sugar, large amounts, in desserts, eat items ordered in from bakery ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 16:40:56 +0000

September 18th

Although there is much to be written this Sunday morning, yarns of thoughts are spinning by themselves around the needle of stillness, I just want to observe and gather some more.

It has been a very full week, more eventful than my typical weeks, and although Sunday puts it together, however fragmented, I am going to need much more time for this week.

Next Sunday I will wake up earlier than I did today to feel Stillness exhale on my skin instead of my gasping for it this morning. Today I slept in Stillness and awoke to the sudden announcement that it is cold and Autumn has arrived although the colors of Fall haven’t quite made it yet.

...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:11:40 +0000

September 11th

You have to be very alive to dream new dreams; Mama: relationships like buying a house; Whitman.

It can never be just “September 11th” in New York City again like another September 9th or April 9th or whatever other date that comes by every year. This date now means many things to many different people. But history is filled with such dates. Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day is just another day “when something awful and atrocious” happened to most, but to a few it remains as fresh as September 11th is to some of us. Soon another generation will come for whom September 11th will mean differently than it does to us now.

When will death mean the ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 10:51:24 +0000

From Prague

Stillness doesn’t need a day. My father says, “Marry someone who…” Katherine Anne Porter: “…one powerful motivating force that simply carries you along…”

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I didn’t think it was Sunday this morning. There is no time in Prague. Prague ate time a long time ago. What is a long time ago when something circumvents time from the beginning? Maybe there really are people, cities, and loves that are born outside the parameters of time. Time may have been their mother but they are still looking for the other half of their genetic make up. Eternal orphans that everyone wants to adopt but no one can. Ghosts that weren’t born so they never died.

Who defined ghost ...

Letter From RhapsodE

annie — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 00:12:01 +0000

I fell flat on an unfamiliar ground.

The view from an unfamiliar ground tastes like blood in your mouth: you just know it is not supposed to be there.

Ever since I was very young I have had some innate sense as to where to go when things fall apart. I am not sure to what extent it is voluntary knowledge, very much like some wild animal, I know what ‘needs to be done’. Sometimes it involves reaching out to a trusted friend or family member and other times it involves physically working through the unfamiliar territory.

The striking blow this time came as a surprise thought without any ribbons of fear. You are an imposter.

I feel like ...

Some Persistent Desire For What Is Still Possible

annie — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 17:09:32 +0000

I wrote the following inside a card I am giving to a new kindred friend (the card is sealed so I am recalling to the best of my ability): You know I know things. Also let’s not forget my untamable imagination. And then the dreams, the galaxy of answers and questions. Yet, despite all that, I could have neither dreamt nor imagined nor even consciously wished to have had our paths cross. So much we don’t know.

Of course that was just an extravagant way to begin describing the gratitude I feel for having this individual as part of my life now. I seldom bring people I consider good friends to my ‘inner circle’ of friends, but when I ...

Trajectory to Prague

annie — Fri, 27 May 2011 06:49:13 +0000

In many ways I am finished.

I printed out my so called “creative clutter,” the Tuesday’s stories categorized under Tuesday’s Torrent and Fluck Tuesdays, and stared at the pages without reading. 160 pages of short narrative fiction. I wrote all of that in one year. That is a lot of Tuesdays. Approximately thirty-eight stories, I believe.

Today I re-read a paragraph from a story that I randomly picked. I couldn’t believe I had written it. This was neither a judgment of it being good nor bad. I was absolutely removed from what I was reading. I literally couldn’t believe I had thought these sentences that all went together and belonged to certain characters who wanted to tell their story.

It ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 15 May 2011 19:14:55 +0000

May 15th.

Some dance for the dead because they somehow still live. Sooner or later you come to what you recognize. Art is the marrow in the bones of time.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

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Rain came with a rapid succession early morning this Sunday. Rain has a heavy hand some mornings when it pours like this. It’s not sweet, smooth and aromatic like some cat in a dream that walks by you. Instead it is a wake-up call by the sergeant of time. The drumming pour shakes you awake.

Oh New ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 08 May 2011 18:28:18 +0000

May 8th.

The color of dreams. Gifts of stillness are for your own mantelpiece. Truth can be served with sugar or a sting. Mothers like nature must continue evolving.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

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New York City this morning is bright with reflective dreams that belong to all.

Sometimes I think the color of dreams is green. I don’t mean a specific dream. I mean when we encounter the emerald, olive, asparagus, lime, shamrock, pear greens as we walk through spring. The vibrant, lush, greens spread beyond the ...

A 1000 Year Old Fakir’s Dream

annie — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 07:23:58 +0000

I don’t claim I can write poetry. It is not my ‘medium’ of expression or telling a story. Perhaps this goes back to the years when I ‘stopped’ writing. I felt poetry—my version (given what I wrote felt incomplete), not what I considered poetry—was my way out of writing seriously. Later I decided it wasn’t even poetry but just lists of fragments showing my perception of a particular instance. Words were my play-doh; I simply recorded the telling details; I affectionately labeled these notebooks my ‘forensic lab.’

If there are as many types of poetry as there are those who claim to be poets, then there are even more definitions of what constitutes as poetry. I am fond ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 19:03:51 +0000

February 27th.

Freedom is not a delusion. bell hooks: ‘an anguished heart is never a brave heart.’ Jung: “the increase in our consciousness affects the unconscious.” Trust.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

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It’s Sunday and I can’t believe I am writing.

Earlier this week I had decided I just couldn’t write anymore. In fact, I felt I couldn’t do much of anything anymore. I was paralyzed by the disillusion that came with the dissolution of a friendship. Having said that, people, including myself, have endured far worse: ...

back to The Moon and Sixpence

annie — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 20:14:24 +0000

“I have an idea that some men are born out of their due place.”

I read The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham when I was around 11 years old. At that time my family was still in a remote desert town in the Middle East, a city that didn’t have any libraries and definitely no stores with any English books. I read it upon my father’s suggestion from his diverse collection of books. I told him the print was too tiny and it had all these words that I could not possibly understand and I did not want to look them up! He said I understood more ...

The Writer Must Protect Himself ~ V. S. Naipaul

annie — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 19:52:18 +0000

I find it interesting that I came across this article (of course through Twitter serendipity) just as I was–I am—in the process of editing a personal essay titled “The Soul of the Sea” (to be posted soon) which touches on some points raised below.

If an artist is to truly understand and empathize with another then he or she must also be willing to feel and understand how another judges him or herself. Something many are too afraid to do for the fear of coming across as judgmental. It is not easy to practice discernment which is not the same as judgment. Moreover, I am not sure if one can write fiction without judgment.

...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 26 Dec 2010 23:18:05 +0000

December 26th.

Paradox of fog. We move forward with what we don’t know. “Museum of Innocence.” Antidote to ‘Anxiety of Influence’, this time, by T.S. Eliot.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

This Sunday morning I tried to find an alcove made of stillness on my parents’ farm house while everyone is here for the holidays. On at least one other Sunday I have attempted and barely succeeded. I just re-read that particular “Still Sunday” where I discussed the paradox of stillness, commented that the earth is vibrant and moving, and then offered an ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 17:38:57 +0000

December 12th.

Truth is a rabid dog. Plato on ‘kosmos’. Pythagoreans on ‘Harmonious Principles’. Emily Dickinson on Truth. Ignorance is not a matter of not knowing. Kerouac-’just a human being.’

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Last night’s midnight drizzle has turned into icy javelins this Sunday morning in New York City. I moved aside all the curtains in my windowfull apartment so as to pretend it was a beautiful morning. That’s what one does on beautiful mornings, right? Walk over to all the windows and slide away the curtains for sunlight. Why do I think that? ...

Orhan Pamuk on Writing & Literature

annie — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 22:34:10 +0000

Because we can’t do this alone.

In 2006 while I was working in South Africa, my first visit there, not knowing and fully knowing it would be followed by many more, my father sent me Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. It was a 10 page, single spaced word document. I read it. I re-read it. I read it again.

It was in 2006 I began collecting for my current manuscript. I read something from it to my father. My father, out of love for me but also admiration for what he had heard, remained silent. And I could hear his words from over two decades ago in that silence: don’t do this to yourself. It ...

Still Sundays

annie — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 17:01:25 +0000

November 14th.

Art is the “creation of a beautiful universe out of the chaos of formless matter.” Boulders of desire underneath silence.

If you would like to know what Still Sundays is about, please take a quick gander here and just read the third paragraph. Thanks.

Photo Courtesy of Ed Yourdon.

Some Sundays, although still, are without bells and whistles. Why would stillness have grandeur of any sort to begin with? I just mean this morning is beautiful but is certainly devoid of an expectation of some magic discovery that might await the cul-de-sac of stillness. It just is. But then again, magic itself just “is.”

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