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 ... read more »
Tagged authors, marquez, process of writing, questions, relating, words
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 ... read more »
Tagged choices, nyc, process of writing, questions, ralph waldo emerson, social media, words
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 ... read more »
Tagged 2012, art, choices, ibn sina, life, non-fiction stories, process of writing, relating

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 ... read more »
Tagged 2011, choices, keats, life, nyc, process of writing, questions, relating, sublime flux

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 ... read more »
Tagged art, authors, process of writing, social media, story