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. ... read more »
Tagged art, authors, bell hooks, books, life, process of writing, questions, relating, social media, twitter
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
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
December 18, 2011.
Herman Hesse’s Demian. “Tug on Anything at all…” A fortune-teller who could tell all but one thing.
It’s not easy to leave New York City. A stranger-friend, an Italian Ph.D. student, must return to Italy tomorrow as her yearlong fellowship is finally over. And she is not ready. I don’t think those who come to New York City for anything but an idea can ever leave that idea behind. At worst we carry that idea that is New York City with us wherever we go. At best, we return again. And again.
Love is a hard idea to give up.
What will she miss the most, I asked her? She held back ... read more »
Tagged choices, herman hesse, life, non-fiction stories, nyc, questions, relating, sublime flux
